For thousands of years before European settlers arrived, the Mississinewa River valley between what is now Marion, Indiana and Peru had been the land of the Miami nation. The land was fertile, the wildlife was plentiful, and the natural springs provided a convenient water supply. According to the 1875 Wabash County Atlas, the invading French missionaries called the welcoming Miami “one of the most powerful nations of the west.” But, while natives were also hospitable to 17th century French fur traders, by 1845 the Nation was gone. That’s the year that most of the 600 remaining natives in the area that became Somerset, Indiana were forced out by the U.S. Army.
The settler town of Somerset was only a year old when many Indigenous people died in the forced march to a “new home” in Kansas.
One hundred twenty years later the Army enforced another “relocation,” as the town of Somerset was destroyed to make way for the Mississinewa Reservoir, now officially known as Missisinewa Lake.
How that happened and why it happened, who benefited and who did not, are important to me because that’s where my dad, Vern Shroyer, grew up. After I began to write a letter about Dad to my grandson who shares his name, I realized that I needed to find answers to those questions. Those questions have concerned me for as long as I can remember. The letter became a highly researched book published by Wise Ink Media of Minneapolis in November. My letter to the new Vern about Dad became a book called “When Once Destroyed, a Historical Memoir of the Life and Death of a Small Town” after I discovered a 1956 constituent letter to the area’s congressman that quoted a 1770 poem by Oliver Goldsmith called “The Deserted Village.”
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
Along with the Mississinewa in Wabash County, the Upper Wabash Valley Flood Control Project includes the Salamonie and Roush Lakes in Huntington County. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a state agency created in 1945 specifically to guide the project created it. They claimed its purpose was to prevent floods like the one that hammered Peru in 1913. Beginning with its 1939 inception, though, recreation was a higher priority. Moving my grandmother’s grave along with 7,000 others was part of the price.
Like the forced removal of the Miami people, the story of my father’s community concerns the relationship between the powerful and the powerless in the pursuit of a development labeled “for the greater good.” I pursued the collateral damage.
In my research and in my discussions with the people who lived there, I discovered familiar themes. I discovered the complicity of the press. I discovered thoughtful opposition voices described as those of ignorant malcontents. I discovered complicated issues reduced to binary choices. I discovered politicians from both parties who only debated which of them supported the project more. I discovered secrecy in the planning, “public hearings” that were not public, and “sound salesmanship” strategies that were in place a year-and-a-half before the people of Somerset learned that their town would be “relocated.” I discovered overinflated claims of economic benefits to the region.
Upcoming Bookstore Presentations
There are five scheduled bookstore presentations in June and July for readers to gain a deeper understanding of “When Once Destroyed”. They are listed below:
Historic New Carlisle, Inc.
112 E. Michigan St., New Carlisle, Indiana
Thursday, June 18 at 7 p.m.
Hyde Bros. Books
1428 Wells St., Fort Wayne, Indiana
Thursday, June 25 at 7 p.m.
Next Page Bookstore & More
208 W. Monroe St., Decatur, Indiana
Saturday, July 11 at 11 a.m.
Morgenstern Books & Café
849 S. Auto Mall Road, Bloomington, Indiana
Thursday, July 16 at 6 p.m.
Turn the Page Books & Gifts
149 N. Walnut St., Westfield, Indiana
Saturday, July 18 at 11 a.m.
Midwest Book Awards Winner
“When Once Destroyed” was honored as a Special Distinction Winner in the category of Strong Midwestern Sensibility at the 36th annual Midwest Book Awards of the Midwest Independent Publishers Association in St. Paul, Minn. MIPA serves the Midwestern publishing community in 12 states.
