Campground CP - On the Trail of Tears

07.31.10

Local experts help park service document historic sites

LINDA RUSH, THE SOUTHERN

UNION COUNTY - Regarded by some as one of the most shameful chapters of United States history, the Trail of Tears left a considerable impact on Southern Illinois.

The land still bears signs of the forced march during which nearly 2,000 Cherokees died after being forcibly removed from their homes in Georgia and Tennessee and herded westward to "Indian Territory" in Oklahoma in 1838 and 1839.

Some farmers' fields still show faint traces of the ruts worn by the wheels of wagons and ox carts. Remnants of the sites where roads crossed creeks remain, along with campground sites.

And there are the graves. Many of those who perished were buried along the way, their final resting places unmarked.

A renewed effort now is under way to document some of the lost portions of the trail and to mark it more clearly.

Karen Frailey, a graduate student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale who is tracing the path the Trail of Tears took through Southern Illinois, said the Cherokees traveled through Pope, Johnson and Union counties - roughly the route followed by Illinois 146.

Frailey is working with John Burde, SIUC forestry professor, in documenting the sites for the National Park Service, which will incorporate the Trail of Tears into its National Trails System. Their research is being funded by a $9,000 grant from the park service.

"The Camp Ground Cumberland Presbyterian Church already has been certified as a historic site, and the Trail of Tears State Park as an interpretive site," Frailey said.

Sandra Boaz, a longtime member of the Camp Ground church, has been tracing the history of the trail for about 20 years. It was that long ago, she said, when she "found out the government was interested in marking the trails."

She attended a meeting in the fall of 1984 at SIUC and has "been tinkering with it ever since," she said. "I had a lot of doors slammed in my face, but I'm stubborn."

Though she has no Cherokee blood, so far as she knows, Boaz had plenty of interest in the Camp Ground site. An ancestor, George Hileman, had owned the land grant for the spot that served as a travelers' campground "both before and after the Trail of Tears," she said.

And Boaz's stepfather, Austin O. Halterman, told her of the times his grandfather had walked the grounds with him, "pointing out the places where they had cooked," and sharing stories about the Cherokee encampment.

Originally, agency officials "wouldn't accept word of mouth" accounts of the Cherokees' stay at the campground, Boaz said. Later, when Aaron Mahr came on board to head the National Park Service's trail development, "the attitude changed," she said.

Certification of the church grounds as a historic site was a sweet moment for Boaz, after years of tracking down the stories.

"What's unique about the church is that it's the only place on the trail that still has bona fide graveyards," Boaz said. "All along the way they died, but this is the only actual graveyard" between the trail's origin in Cherokee, N.C., to Tallequa, Okla.

The unmarked graves have been verified by ground penetrating radar, she said. That project was directed by Harvey Henson, SIUC geology research specialist, and a Carbondale High School student.

But Boaz added that an older method also was used. "The site was 'witched' about six times," she said, adding that the results agreed with the radar findings.

While the radar just indicated "the ground had been disturbed," those who "witched" the site told church members there were about 15 unmarked graves there, Boaz said.

"National Park Service records show between 3,000 and 4,000 Cherokee spent the winter at the campground," she said. "They had no winter clothing or provisions," she added.

Ice floes in the Mississippi River made ferry crossings impossible and kept the Cherokee stranded in Southern Illinois.

Along the trail, some of the Cherokee traveled in ox carts, but many walked the entire trail. They crossed the Ohio River into Illinois at Golconda, Frailey said. Their arrival there is depicted on a mural on the levee in Golconda.

"Some Pope County roads seem to be the actual roads they traveled," Frailey said. "Near the Pope-Johnson county line, there's a crossing on a creek there that we've photographed."

A cemetery west of Golconda and south of Illinois 146 also has some Trail of Tears memorials, Frailey added.

But the site now occupied by Camp Ground church, east of Anna, was the place the Cherokees spent the most time, forced to camp there during the winter of 1838-39. They cleared a knoll to build their campfires. It's on this knoll that the present church is built.

In a field near the Cherokee graves, George Hileman's young son and daughter were buried in 1836. Hileman deeded land for the church in 1850; four years later he also deeded over the land for the church cemetery.

The Trail of Tears was a compelling chapter in a history of the Camp Ground Cumberland Presbyterian Church, compiled for its 150th anniversary in 2000. Boaz was a primary author of that history. She also has been invaluable in gaining certification of the church as a historic site, Frailey said.

The present site of Camp Ground church was the middle of three recognized "stopping-off" places for travelers to camp and rest, even before the Trail of Tears. It is near the spot where the main trail running from the Ohio to the Mississippi and the main trail from Fort Massac intersected; the knoll was high enough to escape flooding. There was plenty of timber for campfires and shelters.

"There also were springs nearby, to make it a good camping place for travelers," Frailey said.

The easternmost camping place was at Dixon Springs; Camp Ground was about a day's ox cart drive from there, Austin Halterman wrote in the church history. The third stop, another day's drive from Camp Ground, was at a site south of Jonesboro. From there, travelers went on to Willard's Landing on the Mississippi.

Andy West, site superintendent at the Trail of Tears State Park, said the effort to create the interpretive site there is "going fairly well" for a first-time effort. He has joined the national Trail of Tears Association that is working to designate the routes followed by the Cherokee. The trail designated as the northern land route traverses Southern Illinois.

West works for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which he said is "very supportive" of the trail being marked and interpreted and allows him to spend part of his time working on the project.

West and Boaz both have become active with the Trail of Tears Association, based in Little Rock, Ark., to promote the protection and preservation of the trail itself and awareness of its legacy.

Boaz is a member of the state Trail of Tears board of directors and devotes a lot of time to the effort.

Her goal, she said, is "getting the truth out there" about the trail and those who traveled it. "I plan to do whatever it takes."