Of all the Indian chiefs who lived in Kosciusko county when the whites came, the one about which there seems to be more fact and legend is Monoquet. His village was located about 3 1/2 miles north of Warsaw near where Road 15 now crosses the Tippecanoe river. In pioneer times a white settlement with a thriving mill trade developed. Although the village is now gone, the area is still called Monoquet.

Chief Monoquet was quite elderly when the whites came to our county. In 1811, as a young Indian warrior, he had fought in the famous Battle of Tippecanoe when the Indians' hold on Northern Indiana was broken. He is described as a rather spare man, above medium height, of a dark color, high forehead, aquiline nose, stern countenance, and small, bright eyes. In pronouncing his name, the whites always accented the second syllable; the Indians accented the third.

In 1832 Monoquet, along with many other Potawatomie chiefs, was a party to a treaty with the United States Government. In this treaty Monoquet was given a reservation of four sections (2,560 acres), which included his village and an area extending southward toward Warsaw.

The old chief died in 1836 after an all night drinking party at his village. A squaw from a Michigan tribe who was visiting at Monoquet's village was accused of killing him. He was buried in a secluded spot in a woods about a half-mile south of his village. His remains were placed in a log crib or pen about 6 feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high. He was fixed in a sitting posture, with his blanket over his shoulders, his face toward the south, and was held in position by two poles across the inter part of the crib. This was a characteristic method of Indian burial.

The old chief's body was left undisturbed for several years. Eventually, however, some whites tore down the pen and scattered the bones about the vicinity. In after years a half dozen physicians claimed they had the skull of the old chief, while another man said he had nailed it over his chicken coop to keep away the foxes and owls.

Warsaw Times-Union Tues. Jun 8, 1954