The 1828 treaty, tested: it did not take this ground

20 September 1828 · 7 Stat. 317 · Royce Area 146

The Treaty of St. Joseph of 1828 — the taking instrument for ground north and east of here — stops at a meridian east of the townsite. Its first article cedes two tracts. The first runs up the St. Joseph river from its mouth to a point halfway between the villages of La-vache-qui-pisse and Macousin, then to the nineteenth mile tree on Indiana's northern boundary and west to the lake — a lake-shore and river strip in the county's far north, nowhere near this ground. The second tract, the live candidate, is bounded so: "Beginning at a point on the line run in 1817, due east from the southern extreme of Lake Michigan, which point is due south from the head of the most easterly branch of the Kankekee river, and from that point running south ten miles; thence, in a direct line, to the northeast corner of Flatbelly's reservation; thence, to the northwest corner of the reservation at Seek's village; thence, with the lines of the said reservation, and of former cessions, to the line between the States of Indiana and Ohio; thence, with the same to the former described line…; and thence, with the said line, to the place of beginning." The tract's western edge is therefore a meridian — the meridian of the head of the Kankakee's most easterly branch — dropped ten miles south from the 1817 line before the boundary turns away southeast to the reservations. The townsite lies west of that meridian. The mapped test fixes the margin: testing points eastward along the townsite's own latitude against the Royce polygons, the cession changes from 180 to 146 between longitudes 86.300° W and 86.275° W — the plotted line of the 1828 tract's western edge — and the townsite, at 86.428041° W, stands about seven miles west of it. One caution this build has learned in this county is printed with the verdict because this ground is exactly where it bites: the townsite also lies about 5.8 miles south of the line run in 1817 (which crosses at about 41.616° N), and for the county's north strip, position against that line has been misread as deciding the cession. It does not.