Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1920 — AN INDIAN’S GREAT LOVE [ARTICLE]

AN INDIAN’S GREAT LOVE

Face on Cedar Log Mute Evidence of Affection. Proof of Truth of Romantic Story Found by Hunters After Many Years of Searching. Manistee, Mich.—On an old cedar log in the village of Copemish is mute evidence of an Indian brave’s great love for his squaw. The unspoken expression is in the form of a carved face of an Indian maiden, the circumstances around which tell of a love as devoted as in any modern love story. Albert T. Sanders and his two brothers. John and Henry, are amateur hunters and trappers. Tears ago they went to the upper peninsula and camped on Ford river. They met an Indian. John, then one hundred and four years old, but active as a schoolboy. John told the following story: There was a young brave who took his squaw from Marquette and came to Ford river to trap. He was very much in -love. He was a good paddler, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off his squaw. The canoe rushed into some brush near shore and capsized. The brave escaped, but the squaw did not come up. The young brave wouldn’t go away. Day after day he

searched near the spot of the drowning in vain. All that summer and fall he searched. The river never gave up the body. In despair one day he gave up, and on a large cedar tree near the river he carved a picture of her as a memorial. It was his last tribute. Then he left this region and never returned. The Sanders brothers were impressed with the legend and started to hunt for the carving. This was 18 years ago. Their first search was fruitless. But they did not give up. Fourteen years later they again took up the search. Again they failed to locate the carved image. They began to doubt the story of Indian John. Two years passed and again the Sanders brothers went North to hunt and trap. One day while waiting for deer near the Ford river they saw the cedar tree. And there was the carving, weatherbeaten but clear. Albert Sanders chopped it out and had it framed, and It is now in the possession of Mr. Sanders, who has had it copyrighted.