Indian Spirit Quest #249:The Chief's Missing Bones Traditional Cache

"Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got." --Dick Grayson

The Indiana Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by Hoosier Pioneers. In just a year and a half, the quest has grown to over two hundred forty caches hidden in twenty-four Indiana counties, and two Ohio counties, and the hiders have grown to nine cacher teams, six of which are comprised of A Man and His Dog... and one who is a Dog and her Woman. Over 450 cacher teams have logged over 5,100 finds. One cache machine found 102 ISQ caches in a single day.

(Photos by LEAD DOG)

Welcome to Coesse Lutheran Church, Union Township, Whitley County. This is a big old active cemetery, sort of tucked away atop a hill. There are many old tombstones here, some dating back to the 1850's.

Coesse, Indiana was laid out in 1854 by Peter Simonson who named it for the Miami Chief who had died several years earlier, and had lived in an Indian Village at the site in the early years.

Chief Coesse was born at Turtle Village in Union Twp., Whitley County, which was also the birthplace of his famous grandfather Little Turtle. His cousin was Kil-So-Quah and his father Katemongwah (Black Loon), the youngest son of Little Turtle.

When a boy, Coesse saw his father and other Indian warriors killed by Col. Simrall's troops in the Battle of Paiges's Crossing at the Eel River in September 1812. It is recorded that in later years whenever Coesse passed that location near the Eel River bridge on the Rabor Road, southeast of Columbia City, that he would kneel and pray in remembrance of his father's death.

Coesse posssessed a characteristic also common to his more well-known cousin, Kilsoquah, in that he wanted to live, travel and hunt in the Indian way, in spite of the encroachment of the White Man's culture. The last of the Miamis to reside in Whitley County, Coesse lived most of his life on a small reservation granted to him by the government, a farm (later Stouff farm) at the southeast edge of Columbia City. Being a cooperative MIami Leader, he was not required to move to Kansas with his people in 1843.

He fell ill and died of a fever in the fall of 1853 after a visit to Kilsoquah in Roanoke. He was buried in the Indian Burial Grounds near Roanoke in Huntington County, between his first wife and Kilsoquah's second husband Anthony Revarre.

But the Chief was not destined to rest in peace. In 1908, his remains were exhumed by a contingent of Columbia City businessmen who believed it proper to bury the chief back home in Whitley County. His remains were placed in the vault of the First National Bank until county funds could be appropriated for a proper burial place, preferabley with a memorial on the Courthouse Square. The funds never materialized and his remains stayed in the bank vault. When the bank went into receivership during the Depression, Coesse's bones disappeared. They have never been re-located.

The cache container is a camo'd m&m tube. BYOP. .The cache is not located near a grave... If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out. XXXX

None genuine without this official SixDogTeam seal. Digital photographs taken by Lead Dog, (C) 2005 by RikSu Outfitters unless otherwise noted.

"Indiana Spirit Quest" is brought to you by the following fellows of GEOISQ*: The SixDogTeam, Kodiak Kid, THE SHADOW, Team Shydog, Rupert2, Torry, ~Mystery Dog~, Team Tigger International, Cache Commando, and bbSurveyors. If you are interested in spreading the Quest to your neck of the woods AND WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US, email SixDogTeam.

*Grand Exalted Order of the Indiana Spirit Quest

** THIS IS A GENUINE INDIANA SPIRIT QUEST CACHE** xxxxx