Historical Marker Program

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Cherokee-Seneca Boundary

Delaware County
Location: on US-59 at Buffalo Creek
Material: Aluminum
Topics: American Indians; Government; Settlement Patterns

In 1831, more than 400 members of the Seneca Tribe in Ohio gave up their reservation land in exchange for a tract of land in the northeastern part of the Cherokee Nation. This was the boundary between the Cherokee land and the Seneca territory that comprised an area of 67,000 acres, seven miles by fifteen miles.

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Fort Wayne

Delaware County
Location: on SH20, about one mile west of Arkansas line
Material: Aluminum
Topics: American Indians; Military; Settlement Patterns; Westward Expansion, 1803–1861

Fort Wayne was originally intended as a link in the great line of forts extending north and south to afford protection on the frontier of the unknown West. It was soon realized that such extensive precautions were not necessary, and the locations were abandoned. One building had been completed, with four more under construction. These improvements were given to the Cherokee Nation and were in use until after the War Between the States. The exact site is known, but the buildings no longer exist and today nothing remains to mark the location of this frontier army post.

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Moravian Mission Cemetery

Delaware County
Location: at New Springplace Mission near Oaks
Topics: American Indians; Religion/Philosophy; Social/Cultural; Territorial Period, 1861–1907; Westward Expansion, 1803–1861

Established as a Cherokee mission in 1842 by the Moravian Church, the institution was an outgrowth of a similar mission in Georgia, which was begun in 1802. Closed during the Civil War, the mission reopened afterward and continued to operate until 1902, when it was transferred to the Danish Lutheran Church. Only the walled spring and the gravestones of the cemetery, where many of the early missionaries were buried, remain.

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Stand Watie

Delaware County
Location: in Polson Cemetery, two miles northwest of South West City, Missouri
Material: Granite
Topics: American Indians; Government; Military; Territorial Period, 1861–1907

Stand Watie, a leader of the pro-removal faction of Cherokees in the southeastern United States, was the first Indian commissioned in the Civil War as a general officer. At the close of the conflict, he commanded all Confederate troops in the Department of Indian Territory. In May of 1865, he surrendered to Union troops near Fort Towson, the last Confederate general to lay down his arms.

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