Lincoln Park — the famous grave that never held anyone

1875–1932 · A MONUMENT TO A FICTION

The claim: In Lincoln Park stands a native boulder carrying a bronze plaque, set in 1932 by the Mishawaka Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution — the monument planned and the tablet given with the local Lions Club — at the supposed grave of Princess Mishawaka, the Potawatomi maiden of the legend from whom the city is popularly said to take its name and its “Princess City” style. The dedication, in the city's centennial year, drew a thousand people. The tablet carries the tale in the city's own official words, and the folklore record of this history prints that text entire, because thousands have read the story in exactly that form and no other. A second object stands across town and is kept apart from the first in every record of this build: the bronze statue Princess Mishawaka by the sculptor Sufi Ahmad, dated 1987, recorded by the Smithsonian's Save Outdoor Sculpture survey at City Hall and owned by the City of Mishawaka. The arts record carries both objects as public art.

The test: The grave is famous, and it is empty. The Story of Mishawaka section record of this history tested the legend against the documents and printed the verdict: the princess's tale is a work of fiction, first told by Flavius J. Littlejohn in his Legends of Michigan and the Old North West of 1875 — a book whose author conceded on his own title page's doorstep that the legends were “originally penned by the author for his own amusement” — and no document of the village's time carries the princess, the chief, the trapper or the fight. In Littlejohn's telling itself there is no death in 1818, no age of thirty-two, and no grave at the bend. The city's name is a Potawatomi place-name older than the tale. So the ground in Lincoln Park is a famous location of the purest kind this chapter handles: a grave site, marked with ceremony, maintained as a monument for more than ninety years, to a woman who never lived. South Bend's famous grave moved; Mishawaka's never existed. Both are printed at the size the record carries them, and the record here is whole: a boulder, a plaque, a thousand witnesses, and nobody buried underneath.

Sources:

1. The folklore record of this history — the tale in its three forms (1875, the bronze of 1932, the city's modern summary) printed side by side, the tablet's text entire, and the author's own framing quoted.
2. The arts record of this history — the two monument objects kept apart: the 1932 Lincoln Park boulder and tablet, and Sufi Ahmad's bronze of 1987 at City Hall, from the Smithsonian's Save Outdoor Sculpture, Indiana survey.
3. The Story of Mishawaka section record of this history — the legend tested against the documents of the village's time; the city's name as a Potawatomi place-name.