Delaware Days
Each spring the people of Oakhaven celebrate the small native American group who settled east of town in the early 1800s.
The History
The Lenape (the "true people") lived along the Delaware River in what is now New Jersey. When Europeans arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Indians were pushed out of their lands by treaties that forced them to move West.
Although most Lenape were sent to the Oklahoma Territory, some communities continued in Kansas, Wisconsin, and other areas of the U.S. and Canada.
In 1818 a small group of Indians arrived in Hill County. Known by the locals as Delaware Indians, they settled in a cove east of Oakhaven. When the treaty was receded in 1829, a few families remained in the area.
When officials from the government came to move the remaining Indians in the 1860s, local residents hid the families. They left the cove and became part of the Oakhaven community.
Legend of the Lenape
Although the cove is now part of the county park system, a local legend tells the story of ghosts who still wander the woods at night trying to return home. Some say that ancestors of the original Indian settlers still live in the caves.