Lost Cities 21
building, two steam mills for sawing, and a population of
700.86,92
Before the settlers arrived, the native Indians of the
Kickapoo people lived off the land. It turned out the settlers
and the Indians couldn’t live together. The Black Hawk
War of 1832 took place in Illinois. It was a short war,
only a few months long, between the US military and the
Kickapoo people. One of the soldiers who fought in the war
was a 23-year-old Abraham Lincoln.
After the war ended, the soon to be 16th President
of the United States, Lincoln, visited Bloomington many
times since he worked as a lawyer in nearby Springfield.
It was in Bloomington Lincoln held a speech known as the
“Lost Speech” because the reporters were so engaged by the
speech they neglected to take notes.^86
John Haldeman met his wife Evaline Haldeman in
Bloomington. They had a son, John Elon Haldeman, born
in 1872. In 1900, John Elon Haldeman married Almeda
Jane Norman. They had two children: Joshua Norman
Haldeman and Almeda Haldeman. The family had now
moved to a log cabin in the small town Pequot Lakes,
Minnesota.
Born prematurely, Almeda Jane Norman had to spend
the first months of her life in an infant incubator. When she
was growing up, she dreamed of going to high school, but
her father didn’t like the dream as he opposed the idea to
educate girls. Almeda would later promote women’s right
to vote.^91
A doctor diagnosed John Elon with diabetes and gave