Chief Wahbememe Burial Site / Chief Wahbememe Burial Site

Potawatomi Chief Wahbememe (White Pigeon) was a signer of the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, which placed Michigan Great Lakes forts in U.S. hands. The chief was known as a friend to the white settlers in Michigan. According to legend, while attending a gathering of chiefs in Detroit, Wahbememe heard of a plot to attack the settlement that later became known as White Pigeon. The story states that he immediately set out on foot, running nearly 150 miles across the state without stopping for food or rest to alert the village. After warning of the impending danger, he collapsed from exhaustion and soon died. His remains are buried on this site, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1909 members of the Alba Columba Club, a White Pigeon women’s group, raised funds and community support to create this monument to Potawatomi Chief Wahbememe (White Pigeon). The owner of the burial site, John Weaver, with the help of his sons and neighbors, loaded the granite boulder onto a wagon at the Edison W. Rockwell farm in Porter Township, Cass County. Four horses pulled it ten miles to this site. On August 10, 1909, a day-long celebration marked the occasion of the dedication of Wahbememe’s memorial. Four thousand people, including Lieutenant Governor Patrick H. Kelley, watched as Chief Wahbememe’s great great grandson, Willie White Pigeon, aged six, unveiled the finished monument.

Legend. The state marker at this site records the story as local legend rather than established fact; the wording below is the marker’s own.

Sources: Michigan History Center — Michigan Historical Markers.

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