It is the summer of 1820, William Conner was at a
turning point in his life. The 1818 Treaty of St. Mary's which he
help helped negotiate, called for the removal of the Delaware
Indians to open central Indiana to settlers. Conner who had six
children with his Delaware wife Mekinges was faced many critical
choices, but hard choices had become a way of life for him. He
had arrived in 1801 to become a farmer, businessman, and
entrepreneur. Through his continuous effort to promote the land
of Indiana, he was elected to the state legislature, where he
pushed for canals and railroads to spur Indiana's growth. By his
death in 1855, Indiana had changed forever. Few Native Americans
remained, wilderness trails had become roads, over half a
million people called Indiana home, and everywhere were farms,
villages and towns. William Conner and others like him throughout
the state played vital roles in that transformation. Many
Midwestern towns were planned communities, developed by people
hoping to profit from land sales. Conner Prairie's fictional
village of Prairietown represents such a place. Town founder Dr.
George Washington Campbell purchased the land, divided it into
lots, advertised, and offered incentives to buyers. He hoped to
make Prairietown a bustling community. Prairietown can be
compared with a modern subdivision. The two are founded by
individuals or companies who buy land, lay out lots, advertise
and offer incentives to purchasers. These modern day founders
also want their communities to thrive. Fortune smiled on
Prairietown when this historic site attracted Eli Lilly's
attention. His influence and financial support become essential
in the creation of this realistic frontier community. The rather
nondescript entrance to the museum building does not do justice
to the authentic and realistic acreage concealed within the park.
This is an enterprise worthy of comparison with such living
museums as Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, Mystic in
Connecticut, and Deseret, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The lead-in
presentation explains how people have lived on the land around here for thousands of
years. At Conner Prairie, continuing archaeological study shows
evidence of Paleo-Indian activity dating from 10,000 to 8,000 BC
along the White River. Archaic people hunted, fished and gathered
wild food here between 8,00 and 1,000 BC, The people who lived on
this land during the Woodland Period, 1000 BC to European
contact, supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans and
squash. The Lenape, (Delaware Indians) who arrived here from the
east in 1795 continued these traditions. When white settlers
moved into Indiana, they found a land almost completely covered
with a dense Beech and Maple forest. This provided a habitat for
beaver, black bear, elk, mountain lion and bobcat. Fox,
striped skunk, deer and raccoon and other animals also lived here
and still wander the remaining woodlands. Native Americans used
small riverside clearings for crops, but the newcomers needed
much larger areas. The arriving settlers cleared the forests to
make way for farm fields changing the landscape forever. Throughout
the 1800s, Indiana developed as one of the richest agricultural
areas in the country, known for its corn and hog production.
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