“We Were There:” Apple Creek holds history of early Missouri and Shawnee people

John Price rests his hand on a marker he placed on his land in remembrance of the Shawnee people who lived at Apple Creek from 1790 to 1825. The marker is located on an undocumented Shawnee gravesite on Price's property.

Jasmine Jones

Near the village of Old Appleton, Mo., an area boasting a population of 72, there is a creek: Apple Creek. In the bend of that bluff-lined waterway, there are 100 acres of hilly land. It is private land; some of it is used to farm, some of it is used to build homes. No matter what the land is used for, it all tells a story: the story of the Shawnee people. Although their time was brief in Apple Creek, they were integral in shaping the history of Cape Girardeau County, and later, the state of Missouri.

Some of the current property owners are working to preserve the history of the Shawnee village at Apple Creek. Mary Jane Buchheit is one of these property owners. In 1936, Mary Jane’s father, Gilbert Amschler, purchased all 100 acres in the bend of Apple Creek. Growing up on the property, Mary Jane recalls finding arrowheads constantly, and that at one point, the family had three cigar boxes full of them.

Local historian Lawrence Buchheit says he’s been interested in the history of Apple Creek and stories of the Shawnee people since he was a child. Now, he is working to preserve it alongside Apple Creek landowners like John Price. Price purchased his property within Apple Creek because of its interesting history and his friendship with Shawnee member and language specialist George Blanchard. Together, they’ve worked to uncover as much as they can about the area’s history and those who have lived there.

“What does history mean if you don’t put it out, so people can learn and hear this and see it?” Lawrence says. “Let the people know what’s happened. … Missouri has got started through a lot of the events that happened right here.”

Local historian Lawrence Buchheit holds open a 1969 hand-drawn map of Apple Creek and locations of the Shawnee people's village along it. Buchheit and landowner John Price have used the map to help locate important sites in the area.

Jasmine Jones

The story begins

More than 200 years ago, the Shawnee people called the bend of Apple Creek home. According to the 2005 thesis “The Shawnee and Delaware Indians in Early Missouri, 1787-1832” by Sarah Haskins, the Delaware and Shawnee left Ohio in 1787. Both tribes eventually settled in land around Apple Creek, land gifted to them by the Spanish in 1793. According to Haskins’ research, the Spanish thought the tribes could serve as a buffer between the Osage tribe to the West and the approaching Americans to the East.

In Haskins’ research, Shawnee village life is described as vibrant, with approximately 1,200 Absentee Shawnee and 600 Delaware living in the area. Being along the Mississippi River, the Shawnee were involved heavily in the fur trade, with a plentiful game supply and fertile karst soil for farming. Haskins writes that the Apple Creek settlements were the “largest and most established” in the Cape Girardeau area; the settlements were also the most visited by travelers during this time period.

In the Lewis and Clark Expedition journals, Lewis describes the location of the Apple Creek tribe in his Nov. 25, 1803, entry. He writes, “On this stream, about seven miles from its mouth, is a settlement of Shawnees, which more than any other in this quarter, deserves the name of a village.”

Hunt for a historic spot

One story that interested current Apple Creek landowners was a story passed down of “witchcraft trials” that took place in the Shawnee village at Apple Creek where upwards of 50 women were supposedly tried, killed by tomahawk and burned, as documented in the 1908 book “A History of Missouri: Vol. 1,” by Louis Houck. In the text, according to an account in “Lesieur’s Letter to the Missouri ‘Republic,’” it is written that the Shawnee and Delaware people “became possessed with the infatuation that witchcraft was being practiced among them, and no less than 50 women suffered cruel death by the torch within 12 months [in 1808-09].”

Blanchard has ancestors who lived at Apple Creek, and even before he knew the settlement there had existed, he heard the story of Shawnee tribes “trying to get rid of witchcraft and accusing people.”

Price says some Shawnee members have told him they believe the burnings were an imitation of the Salem Witch Trials of the 1600s, a way to “fit in.” Although no one can be certain why the burnings occurred, Blanchard says the story has been passed down through generations.

Price and Lawrence attempted to locate the burning site from the witchcraft trials using these stories, historical texts and a hand-drawn 1969 map by local contractor J.W. Gerhardt. On the old map, the “burn site” was labeled with a circle within a circle — a common symbol for contractors that indicates a hole. Price and Lawrence found a sinkhole on Mary Jane’s son Nick Buchheit’s property that seemed to match the location of the symbol.

They also referenced Houck’s Missouri history volume, which describes how three tribe members were found guilty of murder near Cape Girardeau in 1808-09 and then “led out into the thick woods and tomahawked …”

Price asked Blanchard about the practice of tomahawking, and he said tomahawks used to kill an individual would most likely be left at the site of death and thrown into the woods. When Nick heard this, he says the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“[Price and Lawrence] showed me this sinkhole that they thought [the burnings] happened at. I said [to them], ‘I have a tomahawk that I picked up just a few yards from that site.’ … To me, that’s just further evidence that it’s the correct location of [the burn site],” Nick says.

Price, Lawrence and Nick put a stone marker to indicate where the burn site is. They also put a similar stone marker where they believe a Shawnee gravesite is. They had the Shawnee members who have visited the Apple Creek site sign their names on the back of the stone. Both the gravesite and burnsite are technically undocumented.

“[The burnings] are just part of [the Shawnee] story, though. It’s not their story; it’s part of their story. That just happened for one year, when they lived here for probably 50 years. … The bigger story … to me, is what their whole story had been,” Nick says.

A rock that Nick Buchhiet believes is a tomahawk sits on a porch. Nick Buchheit found the rock yards from the site they believe the witchcraft trials took place in 1808-09.

Jasmine Jones

Shawnee life and customs

It is often the sensationalized events that are remembered, but the whole story is told in the ordinary moments and daily tasks. When discussing his ancestors’ life, Blanchard says it is likely the tribe made wesko peme, a Shawnee traditional dried corn, that, once boiled, regains its shape and can be cooked with meat. When he was a child growing up in Little Axe, Okla., Blanchard’s family harvested corn, cooked it on rollers and dried it in the sun. It is a tradition that likely goes back to his ancestors at Apple Creek.

Blanchard has visited the Apple Creek site at least six times, while he served as the Absentee Shawnee governor from 2009 to 2013.

While visiting the site, Blanchard says Price and Lawrence led the group of Shawnee elders around the grounds, pointing out important sites as they walked. Blanchard says one of the Shawnee traditions when visiting ancestors’ gravesites is to place a piece of tobacco on the ground.

Blanchard says the Shawnee people also restrain from eating or drinking after dark while at a site like Apple Creek. If they do eat, he says they’ll leave a piece of food on the ground to “feed the spirit of the elders that’s gone.” Still, the best part of visiting the land for Blanchard was “seeing where his people have been.” Now, as a language specialist for the Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, Blanchard is ensuring his people’s language lives on. He is one of few people fluent in Shawnee who started speaking it as a first language.

John Price stands in front of the site he believes the "witchcraft trials" took place at the Shawnee village in 1808-09. Price has used historical documents, maps and evidence to locate the site.

Jasmine Jones

An emptying village

Throughout the Shawnee people’s time in Apple Creek, the American westward expansion kept pushing further towards the Pacific Coast, and more non-Shawnee people began settling on Shawnee land. According to Haskins’ research, Louis Lorimier, credited with establishing Cape Girardeau, communicated often with the settlement at Apple Creek. Lorimier notified government officials and sent multiple letters exposing the issue of America’s westward expansion into Shawnee land.

The War of 1812 shifted the tensions between groups in the area further. Haskins’ research explains the population in Missouri grew substantially, as more and more private land claims were sorted out. Then, in 1821, Missouri officially became the 24th state in the United States.

By 1825, the Shawnee had ceded their land in Apple Creek for 50 square miles in Southwestern Missouri, according to Haskins’ research.

Blanchard says there are three branches of Shawnee: the Eastern Shawnee, the Loyal Shawnee and the Absentee Shawnee, although they all speak a language that is basically the same. Blanchard’s ancestors are mostly from the Absentee Shawnee, whom he says got their name from their brief excursion to Mexico in search of land in the 1850s. The Absentee Shawnee Tribe website also states they received the “Absentee” distinction because their groups were not present at the signing of the 1854 treaty for a Kansas Reservation, and instead traveled to Mexico and Oklahoma.

Continuous discovery

Price, Lawrence, Nick and Mary Jane are adamant about preserving the history of Apple Creek.

“I’m trying to get this history straight and preserve it and keep it like it should be. It’s not to be misused or mistreated,” Price says.

Price has scavenged the 100 acres of land on his hands and knees, looking for artifacts from the Shawnee. He has also attempted to create a map to scale based on Gerhardt’s hand-drawn map. Both Price and Lawrence have visited the Absentee Shawnee tribe in Oklahoma to talk to the people and gather stories of their ancestors firsthand. Lawrence says they believe in getting the story from the Shawnee people and telling history in the most truthful way.

“Once you study the Native American culture, you can’t help but wonder, ‘Why didn’t we keep them here and learn from them?’ … Why didn’t we pick up pieces and study from them and learn from them: how to live, how to crop, how to grow things, how to raise a family? As far as I’m concerned, they knew more back then than we know now,” Lawrence says.

But for Blanchard, Apple Creek is more than someone else’s history. It is his history, his people’s history.

“After everything was over, I realized we were there,” Blanchard says. “But it’s been quite an adventure thinking about how we survived in that area during that time.”