Curiosity drove me to see if there is any connection between the new TV series, "Battle Creek" and the City of Battle Creek, Michigan. Short answer is no. But, in the process I discovered a link to surveyors in the naming of the city. From Wikipedia:
The name "Battle Creek" had its origin in a skirmish between a government land survey party led by Colonel John Mullett and two Native Americans. According to various accounts, while Mullett and his group were surveying an area several miles from the present city in the winter of 1823-1824, the work of the survey party was interrupted by Native Americans. Two members of the party, who remained at the camp, were attacked by two Indians, reportedly attempting to steal the party's provisions. During the fight, shots were fired from a rifle, and the two men subdued the Indians, inflicting a serious injury to one of them. The survey party promptly left the area and did not return until June 1824, after Governor Cass had settled the issue with the Indians. Due to this incident, the nearby stream was called the Battle Creek River.
Thanks for the history lesson. I had no idea surveyors were involved in the name of Battle Creek.
Around here our creeks are far more self-explanatory...Bell Cow Creek, White Dog Creek, Muddy Creek, Clear Creek, Black Bear Creek..even a Uncle John's Creek (!?).
Place names are fun
We have Vegetarian Creek and Wolf Pen Creek nearby. Much better stories involved there than for Big Creek or Flat Rock Creek. The latter creek is where they invented the comparison of a very hard rain to what a cow does on a flat rock.
Place names are fun
> .... the comparison of a very hard rain to what a cow does on a flat rock.
Lemme tell you. I was at a tractor show not long back and they had a pulling contest with draft horse teams. And after pulling a ton or two a Belgian draft horse can put a cow and flat rock to shame! Women were picking their little ones up and running...
I'm seriously thinking of writing in and having them change that old saying after seeing that. 😉
Place names are fun
Aloha, HC:
I wonder how this place got this name? I am curious...being a vegetarian 😉
> We have Vegetarian Creek
It's as sad story I'm sorry to report
The simplest answer is for you to Google "vegetarian colony kansas".
Basically, a group arrived with the goal of establishing a colony in a new area with practically no other settlers nearby. The local climate and bad luck combined to doom the effort. The creek was named for them.
It's as sad story I'm sorry to report
Aloha, HC:
Sad story indeed!
The Vegetarian Colony
In the spring of 1855, Henry S. Clubb, a correspondent of the New York Tribune, and Dr. John McLaurin, both of New York, came to southeastern Kansas territory and explored the Neosho valley, settling on land in northern Neosho and southern Allen Counties about three miles northeast of what is now the city of Chanute. They were seeking a location with the view of building a Utopia for vegetarians. They incorporated the Vegetarian Company under the laws of New York. Sixty families would eventually buy stock in and become members of the company.
Clubb sold $33,000 worth of stock at $5 a share. Each share was supposed to represent an acre of land. Clubb told members that he would go ahead of them and build houses, install saw mills and grist mills and have them operating by the time they reached the company's land in the spring of 1865.
The colony was to build a 'great octagonal house' in the center of four square miles of land divided into sixteen farms of equal size. These farms were to be triangular in shape. Four corner lots on each farm of the central 'octagon' were to be held in common. All streets were to lead to Octagon City.
In early May 1856, members of the company, from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, and Wisconsin, arrived on the banks of the Neosho River. They were disappointed to find that houses did not await them. There was one log cabin 16 x 16 feet without a window and with only one opening for a door. This structure was to house sixty families.
Within two months, complaints against Clubb had grown so intense and unpleasant that he and his young bride engaged transportation to Westport (now Kansas City), so they could take a boat to St. Louis on their way back to New York.
While part of the men set about building cabins, others, with oxen, broke the prairie with the only plow in the colony. They ran the plow day and night so a sufficient amount of ground could be readied for the colonists to grow crops. Corn, beans, potatoes and melons yielded in abundance, but Osage Indians living across the river helped themselves to the green corn and melons, exhausting the crop.
Scarcity of food caused great suffering among the colonists. Reduced by hunger, they were forced to buy dried buffalo meat from the Indians. Without food, doctor, or medicine, twenty-seven died from disease and starvation. Octagon City, in the height of its glory, could only boast of seven log cabins scattered over a wide area. At the end of two years all sixty families had succumbed to starvation and fever or returned to their former homes. Only two of the colonists, Watson Stewart and his brother Capt. Samuel J. Stewart, remained to become permanent settlers and influential citizens.
Information taken from an article written by T.F. Morrison and read at a meeting of the Neosho County Historical Society.
It's as sad story I'm sorry to report
Plus when the Cows moved in...there went the neighborhood 🙂
On the SE quad of I-285 Atlanta, you will cross over Do Little Creek and then Do Less creek. Someone was not impressed with the area.
