Spirit Lake Massacre's Specter Howard The Ghost

We’ve all heard of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and perhaps Little Crow, but there were many other leaders of the Oċéti Śakówiŋ (Sioux Nation) when they fought the incursions of European settlers. Men with names like “Hump,” Fast Bull, and High Backbone, said Dewey Beard in “Voices from the Little Bighorn.” (Also reported in The Bismarck Tribune, May 12, 1996, Sunday, Metro Edition.)

But few were despised like Inkpaduta, a red-haired, Wahpekute renegade chief from the eastern Dak̇óta (Santee Sioux), who savaged settlers squatting in his homeland.

The narrative is straightforward. In March of 1857, Inkpaduta fired the first shots of the Dakota Wars after he led his band north to the Okoboji area in northwest Iowa in search of food. When the settlers refused to give up their food, Inkpaduta's band of men took action, killing people and abducting four women.

This is the narrative, which is now a part of American and Sioux Nation history told by teachers and even the Iowa Great Lakes Chamber of Commerce.

As Brianna Darling reported for The Daily Globe in 2012 (see current posting here), Inkpaduta and his band killed 33 people and abducted the four women, one being Abbie Gardner in northwest Iowa. But for many, and especially kids in the area’s summer camps, learning about history usually meant seeing the historical roller coaster in Arnolds Park. And that’s where history met the road in northwest Iowa, especially for campers who missed the amusement park the first time around.

In the days when campers piled into the back of pickup trucks for a ride to see Abbie Gardner’s cabin, they did so eagerly. And all went well for them (“Is that the roller coaster over there?”) until they got back to camp. Gardner and others had been set free, but not the campers. They’d never learned that Inkpaduta had not participated in the 1851 treaties—see Treaty of Traverse Des Sioux. Treaties that ceded Santee Sioux lands in Minnesota, and Iowa.

Many of the Santee Sioux received annual government payments and reservations on the upper Minnesota River. But according to the University of Iowa, Inpaduta and his band had to continue living off the land. Subsistence became more difficult as whites began to settle northwest of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Pioneers’ complaints about begging and stealing by followers of Inkpaduta exacerbated tensions.

In 1891, according to Darling and others, Gardner returned to the cabin, turning it into one of Iowa’s first tourist attractions. It’s now furnished with pioneer artifacts gathered by Abbie Gardner, with other items currently at the Dickinson County Historical Society in Spirit Lake, Iowa. Many campers didn’t know this, though. As they looked in the grimy little cabin with odd furnishings, none knew that the perpetrators of the deadly crime had lost their guns in Smithland, Iowa.

According to the Danbury Review, Inkpaduta and his men couldn’t hunt or defend themselves, and they left the area. Nor did campers learn, on the journey from Smithland to the scattered cabins of Okoboji, that one of the band lost his head trying to find food. Or, as one historian has said, seeking revenge.  But whatever happened, he’d scared the farmer to death.  A cow is a cow, and keeping the Indians at bay was a necessary evil.  A day or so later, after taking Gardner prisoner, Inkpaduta and his band ran across Joel Howe, a settler living on East Lake Okoboji.

Today, some historians and others view Inkpaduta in a kinder, gentler light, said Susan J. Michno in a post on historynet. “He has been described as ‘trustworthy,’ ‘a very humble man who tried to avoid trouble,’ ‘a figure of heroic caliber’ and ‘one of the greatest resistance fighters that the Dakota Nation ever produced.’ But Abbie Gardner expressed the views of most Americans who survived those earlier days. ‘By the whites,’ she said, ‘Inkpaduta will ever be remembered as a savage monster in human shape, fitted only for the darkest corner of Hades.’”

Howard the ghost is an Iowa Great Lake’s historical legend. Joel Howe, aka, Howard, lived on a homestead near the Iowa-Minnesota border, near land that later became a summer camp. In 1857, Joel Howe, reportedly, tried to help the renegade and his warriors as they moved through the area. Unfortunately, the Native Americans had learned that lobbing off heads cemented dominance and property rights. So naturally, that’s what they did to Howe.

According to campers in the know, they never found Howard’s body. And that was the story many heard, true or not, after returning from Abbie Gardner’s cabin. And guess what? That night, undoubtedly, someone worried Howard’s head had left its grave to roam the camp looking for its body.

This Halloween, a G-Rated camp ghost story. For years, an incarnation of the offending ghost mysteriously appeared at a camp on the lakes. And, in fact, a plastic skull, reportedly from a TKE Fraternity house, rested for years in the dusty recesses of a summer camp’s lodge. Whether anyone ever saw the creature with a battery hooked up to its flashlight-socketed eyes is not known. But a lot of campers talked about it.

This is a fictionalized account of what might have happened had anyone ever seen specters looking for a lost body at a summer camp.

There were seven council fires in the Oċéti Śakówiŋ, or Dak̇óta (Sioux) Nation, comprised of three distinct groups, the eastern Dak̇óta (Santee), the middle Dak̇óta (Yankton), and the western Dak̇óta (Teton). Inkpatuta was one of the Midwest's most feared warrior chiefs. His dastardly deeds are still out there.

Howard The Ghost

“It’s Howard’s head! It’s Howard’s head!” Billy Daniels yelled as he ran from the drinking fountain.

“I saw Howard’s head!”

“Be quiet, Billy,” Wade said from the top bunk. Billy had come to a stop right below his window.

“But I saw Howard’s head,” Billy said. “His eyes were big and red.”

“Come inside,” Wade hissed. But Billy just stood there; and sure enough, the counselors caught him.

“Camper, what are you doing out here?” It was Richard Parrot, the camp’s program director. He was standing right behind Billy.

“Howard’s head,” Billy said. “I saw Howard’s head at the drinking fountain.”

Wade pulled the string he had rigged. It served a useful purpose. The rain flap fell, covering his window.

“What’s going on here?” Richard pointed his flashlight right at Steve Billingsley, Wade’s friend in the bottom bunk.

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Honest.”

The light didn’t move from his face. “Come on, Parrot, that hurts.”

Richard Parrot growled. “What did you call me?”

“Sorry,” Steve said, “I wasn’t thinking.”

“I guess not. You’re not even a junior counselor yet.”

He turned to Billy. “All right, Billy, come with us.”

Richard and the “Rovers,” counselors who watched the camp after taps, took Billy over to the oak trees by the council ring, a circle of logs where everyone gathered for special events. Steve could see Billy in his red nightshirt, his stocky arms waving about as he told his tale. Steve couldn’t hear, but several guys had seen something, and the counselors had been trying to figure it out for days.

Steve turned away from the mesh. He couldn’t believe all the stories he’d heard about Howard’s head—and especially tonight! Howard was just the camp’s ghost. Steve had heard the stories about Howard and the renegades who cut off his head every summer. Besides, he and Wade had better things to do. They were going to the girl’s camp.

Steve got up from his bed and hurried across the wood floor to the front of the tent. The tent was brand new, and the canvas smelled like soap. “Are they still over there talking to Billy?” he asked Wade.

Wade pulled the string through the hole he’d cut. “Yeah,” he said.

Steve looked out the front of the tent. The lodge was all lit up, even the craft shop. Whatever was happening this night was important.

“What are you doing?” Wade sounded impatient.

“Checking the lodge.”

“Well, you’d better come back.”

Wade and Steve waited until the camp was quiet again. Billy wasn’t snoring, but he was asleep, and after quietly dressing, Steve and Wade left Spotted Eagle without a sound.

The going wasn’t as easy as they thought. The lapping of the water covered the noise they made, but the rocky lakeshore tripped them, and the trees they thought would be an ally, grabbed and tore at their clothing.

“This isn’t going to work,” Steve said.

“You want to quit?”

“No, but—”

“Then let’s keep moving,” Wade said.

They stumbled along the shore for a while, the trees pushing them further into the lake. If they could make it as far as the lodge, they’d be just on the other side of Minnetonka, the girl’s camp.

“Let’s go ashore,” Steve said when he saw the lodge. “We can check things out from the ravine.”

Wade didn’t say anything, but by the time they came to the ravine’s opening, and the camps’ central lodge, both boys were ready to get out of the water.

They scrambled up the bank like combat soldiers. “Go see if the coast is clear,” Wade ordered.

Steve didn’t like Wade bossing him around, but they’d gone too far together to stop.

“Okay,” Steve said. “But you wait here. I’ll throw a rock if it’s clear.”

And with that, Steve crawled up past the craft shop, toward the center of the lodge.

From the darkness, Steve could see the counselors inside. Like on the deck of an old cruise ship, they were playing shuffleboard, or just walking around. There were no screens on the windows, and he saw Richard Parrot, and their counselor from Spotted Eagle too.

Spying on them was fun at first, but Steve quickly tired of it. He had known most of these guys for years, and just a week earlier had practically been a counselor himself. His parents dropped him off early, and he’d been only teen in camp. If not for the counselors, and particularly Richard Parrot, he would have been taking naps with the kindergartners.

Of course, things were different now. He no longer worked with the counselors. He'd become just a camper. But the adjustment had not been easy. Early on, he and Wade had become fast friends. Wade didn’t like being a camper either, but it didn’t stop there. He put everything down. Even Richard Parrot—and especially when he’d learned Steve and Parrot were friends.

Richard Parrot was known for his enormous appetite. The counselors knew it, the campers knew it, and everyone else. He had a supply of peanut butter and crackers in his tent for emergencies—just in case he got hungry.

“There goes Parrot again,” the counselors often mumbled whenever he went for seconds, and sometimes thirds. But it wasn’t until Billy Daniels decided to count that Wade elbowed Steve. Parrot had gone for fourths!

“Polly want a cracker?” Wade cried. “Polly want another cracker?” Squawk!”

Richard Parrot ignored this, but suddenly everyone in the dining hall started doing bird imitations. The steward rang the dish-washing bell for everyone to quiet down, and Wade elbowed Steve again. Billy Daniels had plugged his ears. Surprisingly, Wade didn’t get in trouble. Richard Parrot went back to his table, and the steward called for all the dirty plates. Wade gave everyone a huge wink and a thumbs up.

Now, as Steve looked through the window of the lodge, he again had second thoughts. He and Wade had remained friends, but their journey to the girl’s camp troubled Steve. He liked the counselors, and remembered how they'd made sure there was something to do when he’d been all alone at camp.

Steve watched as Richard Parrot talked with Stacey, a camp counselor over at the girls’ camp. He and Wade were risking everything. What if they got caught? Richard and Stacey walked to the camp director’s office, and without giving it another thought, Steve decided to head back to the tent; back to bed.

He started toward the ravine when suddenly someone in the craft shop turned out the lights. Behind the lodge, the darkness filled the area with safety, and Steve heard Wade running to it.

“Look at this,” Wade hissed when Steve went by. He was pointing into the craft shop window.

“I’m going back,” Steve said, and he turned to leave.

He was almost to the water but stopped cold when people started coming out of the lodge. They came quickly and quietly. Their flashlights flooding the ground with light.

He turned back. “They must have seen me,” he said to Wade, “quick—”

Wade grabbed him. “Look!” It’s the ghost!”

And sure enough, inside the room, a pair of red eyes stared at Steve from behind a banner on the fireplace mantle. In a blur of fear and panic, Steve raced toward the glaring lights bearing down on them. “We found it!” he shouted and pointed toward the window. “Howard’s head! He's in the craft shop!”

Wade stood silent behind him, dumbfounded.

“I told you,” someone shouted in the din, “We found them!” And in a flash, Steve and Wade were unceremoniously dumped in the program office.

“We didn’t do anything bad,” Steve said. “We found Howard’s head.”

Richard didn’t say anything; he just closed the door.

“I ought to bust you in the mouth,” Wade said.

Steve turned and scowled. “You got us into this, Wade. I’ll get us out.”

“Yeah, sure,” Wade fumed. “Run and tell.” He glared at Steve, his rubbery lips set in a firm hard line, a stranger with blond, dripping-wet hair.

“They were coming for us,” Steve hissed. "I did what I had to do."

“You’d better hope you’re right."


They sat for quite a while—forever, it seemed. Their counselor brought them some dry clothes, and when they’d changed, Richard took Steve into the craft shop.

The banner on the fireplace mantle had been pulled back to reveal a cubbyhole in the brick chimney. The skull, which had flashlight eyes, sat on a table. Pink curtains flapped in the breeze of an open window facing the girls’ camp. Steve looked at the white, plastic skull, its eyes still burning bright.

“What were you doing out there?” Richard asked, and Steve told him. He had known Richard Parrot for three years, and when he left to question Wade, Steve looked at the skull in disbelief. Someone on the staff must have done it. How many times had he heard the story? The renegade, an insane chieftain who killed settlers wantonly? What was his weird name? Inkpaduta?

They never caught the guy, but he and his men caught Howard crossing the lake. Spirit Lake was sacred to the Native Americans, and when they saw him, they killed him, a man who wasn’t hurting anyone. Inkpaduta had asked for food, and the unsuspecting settler gave his men flour and coffee. Steve knew this because someone found the head without its body. That much, he knew.…

“Steve?” He looked up and found Richard Parrot standing in the door. Wade was standing behind him. “I’m taking you both back to your tent,” Richard said.

Wade had told the truth. Steve learned this in the council ring, where Richard Parrot took them after they’d left the lodge. There they talked before heading back to the tent. A lot had been going on this week, and as they sat down on the logs, Richard grew reflective. “You know,” he said, “boys have been trying to reach the girl’s camp for years. But what you did was wrong.”

He turned off his flashlight. The light from the lodge shone out onto the lake, and a swirling, gentle breezed rustled the leaves in the oaks towering over their heads. “The legend of Howard’s head stops now,” he continued. “It was a stupid prank and we will find out who did it, eventually.”

Wade and Steve were silent.

“I’m curious,” Richard said, turning to Wade, “Did you know about Howard, before you came to camp?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so,” Richard said. “It didn’t happen like everyone thinks.”

“But there was a headless body...” Wade said.

“No,” Richard said, “there wasn’t a headless body. It’s true Inkpaduta killed settlers, and the tale has become a legend. The Spirit Lake Massacre happened, but the story about a crazed Indian chief is not. Howard may have lost his head, but no one knows for sure about the rest.  And Howard's head certainly doesn't go looking for a body. What happened was revenge. Inkpaduta’s bother had lost his head to a man named Henry Lott.  Settlers routinely decapitated Native Americans back then. They did it to instill fear.

“Inkpaduta reported the death, and its aftermath, but the prosecuting attorney skewered the head on a pole. It was an ugly, cruel time in our history, that's a fact. Joel Howe had all his body parts when they put him in the ground, as best I know, and we’ll be talking about that, and the prank, at the campfire tomorrow night. It’s time we put Howard the ghost to rest once and for all.”

The next morning after breakfast, everyone filed into the council ring for morning roll call—everyone except Wade and Steve. They had to clean the latrine.

For Wade, it was a big deal. But Steve knew better. They’d gotten off easy. Cleaning the latrine was no big deal. And that’s just what he told Wade.

“But we could have made it home free,” Wade said as he shoved the mop bucket inside the building with his foot, knocking it over.

“Stop complaining,” Steve said. “Let’s just get this done.”

But Wade was in no hurry. And when Steve had finished mopping up the mess, he found Wade standing outside, his dry mop still leaning against the building.

“I don't like this kind of stuff,” Wade said as Steve put the mops away, “You finish. I'm taking off.”

“No problem,” Steve said.

The area around the building still had to be raked, and Steve went back to work.

He had no idea where Wade had disappeared to, and when he finished, Steve walked back to the tent alone. As he neared Spotted Eagle, he saw several guys heading down to the lake. They had swim trunks on and beach towels around their necks. “Hey, wait for me!” Steve shouted, as he hurried to change.

When he came out of the tent, they were still waiting.

As they headed off to the waterfront, Steve knew it was going to be a good day. And it was.