Prairie Des Mascoutins

Side A: In 1742, a tribe of Kickapoo requested permission from Montreal’s Governor to move to a Mascoutin village on both sides of the river here. French “Coureurs de Bois” traders named the wide floodplain “La Prairie des Mascoutins” (The Meadow of the Mascoutin). In 1764, Captain Thomas Morris explored this newly acquired British territory, and met the prophetic dreamer Chief Katapelleecy here. General Anthony Wayne’s troops victoriously returned from The Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 and burned “Prairie de Masque.” The Treaty of Detroit in 1807 created a hunting reservation to the east, allowing settlers to acquire the surrounding lands. Ethnic tensions climaxed in 1812, when an American Captain Logan was mortally wounded near here. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 caused the remaining tribes to move west. Side B: After the War of 1812, Samuel Vance, brother of future Governor Joseph Vance, built a log tavern and trading post at Prairie de Masque. Edwin Scribner settled here in 1816, building the area’s first sawmill on Dry Creek. By 1823, all of modern Henry County and portions of other counties became Damascus Township of Wood County, with “Damascus” as the county seat. Further growth occurred in 1837 when the state built the Wabash and Erie Canal (later the Miami and Erie). Odessa formed on the opposite side of the river with ferry service between the two towns. Village decline began with the construction of the Toledo and Illinois Railroad in 1854 (later the Toledo, Wabash, and Western Railroad) and ended with the building of the first Damascus Bridge in 1909.