Project Scroll Research Note 2026-55: The Shipshewana Saw-mill in 1839, and the county history's word in 1882 that the chief "died some time prior to the settlement"

The lake at Shipshewana, Indiana, is only "Lake" on the government survey of 1830. By 1839 the La Grange County commissioners were laying out roads to a mill on its outlet by the chief's name: a petition at their March session of 1839 asked for a road running "to the Shipshewana Saw Mill," and the viewers' report at the May session ran a road "to the Shipshewana Saw-mill in Sec. 3." It is the earliest dated use of the name for a place in the county that we have found. The plaque on the monument of 1931 says that the chief was removed in 1838, came home in 1839 and died by the lake in 1841. The earliest county history we have found that speaks of his death, that of 1882, says instead: "The old chief died some time prior to the settlement." An account of the monument printed in 1932 from the Shipshewana Handbook and the Elkhart Truth admits that "Little if anything is of record concerning Chief Shipshewana," and that what older residents remembered came from "the lips of Johnny Thorp, who died about 36 years ago." Project Scroll Research Note 2026-55, 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/2026-55/.