Historical Images of Porter County

Shanty on Little Paradise Island
Kankakee River, Porter County, Indiana

Date: 1880
Source Type: Sketch
Publisher, Printer, Photographer: J. Lorenzo Werich, Wilson Reed Berry (illustration)
Postmark: Not Applicable
Collection: Steven R. Shook
Remark:  An island situated along the original channel of the Kankakee River just west of the original mouth of Crooked Creek; its exact location is unknown, but Hardesty’s 1876 plat map of Boone Township suggests that it may have been located in the S½ of NW¼ of NW¼ of Section 36 T33N R6W.

Dredging of the Kankakee River to create Marble Ditch may have obliterated this island, but Werich writes that the island was still being referred to as Little Paradise Island as late as 1920. Werich also writes that it was “a beautiful small island near the river on a bayou.”

A trapper shanty was constructed by Lorenzo “Rens” Dow Brainard and Harrison Hartz Folsom on this island in 1845 and was reportedly the first trapper’s shanty built along the Kankakee River in Porter County. It is possible that Little Paradise Island and Long Ridge are the same location as Brainard and Folsom have been reported to have constructed a shanty on Long Ridge; however, Werich writes that Brainard and Folsom also built a shanty on Long Ridge in 1851, six years after they built their shanty on Little Paradise Island.

Image Source:
Werich, J. Lorenzo. 1920. Pioneer Hunters of the Kankakee. Logansport, Indiana: Chronicle Printing Company. 197 p. [see p. 38]

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Image and related text prepared by Steven R. Shook