Half Day

From HistoryWiki

Many people mistakenly believe that the Village of Half Day, Illinois was so named because it was regarded that Half Day was a half day's distance from Chicago by horse and carriage.

In reality, a horse and carriage could make it to Chicago in a half day but some believe the area was actually named after Potawatomi Chief Halfda, (a.k.a. Chief Aptakisic) the chief at the time the area was settled. A cartographer spelled it "Half Day", and the misnomer stuck, giving rise to the reputed, but erroneous, derivation of the name.

The Chief lived along the Fox River in Illinois.

He showed great negotiation skills at the Treaty of Chicago (1833) where he demanded that any new land reserved in the west must be inspected and approved by the tribe before they moved there.

The first reservation in Iowa was rejected and the Prairie Band Potawatomi, who migrated from Chicago in 1835, settled in the Platt Country of northern Platte County, Missouri and southern Iowa before finally relenting to live on the reservation in Kansas by 1846.