Mystery and history: Lemont author Pat Camalliere talks about ‘The Mystery at Black Partridge Woods’

Standing at a podium in the Lemont Area Historical Society and Museum, which used to be a church, author Pat Camalliere recently discussed mystery and history as it relates to her writing style and her hometown of Lemont.

Camalliere, who has written four books, talked Tuesday to women’s and men’s book clubs members from Smith Crossing, a senior living community, about her second book, “The Mystery at Black Partridge Woods,” and Lemont history.

“Writing about the area I live in makes it easy to visit the places the story took place. Amazingly, some are not much different today than they were 200 years ago,” Camalliere said.

In her second book, Wawetseka, a Potawatomi woman, must solve the murder of a white man that her son is accused of committing, Camalliere said. The book tells a parallel story of Wawetseka’s descendant and his friends who are working on a book about Wawetseka’s experiences, Camalliere said.

Wawetseka’s portion of the book is set in 1817, so Camalliere said she did extensive research to find that Native Americans and white people resided along the Des Plaines River near present day Lemont. Black Partridge Woods, which is located in Lemont, is now a reforested area where many Native American artifacts have been found over the years, she said.

Initially, Camalliere said she wanted her book to include comparisons between past and present day challenges Potawatomi people experienced. Camalliere said she visited a Potawatomi Tribe, which welcomed her, but once she told them she was writing a book they did not want to cooperate based on previous experiences with nonnative authors.

“They wanted to speak for themselves, not have outsiders speak for them,” Camalliere said.

So Camalliere said she researched the tribe for two years to be sure she was historically accurate, and limited comparisons to things that were common, like personal challenges and values that all people would share.

“I believed that there would be natural bonds between mothers and their children, that husbands and wives would always come across challenges that they viewed differently and would need to work out those difficulties, that most people were good but to varying degrees,” Camalliere said.

After the Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Chicago and most relocated west of the Mississippi River, Irish immigrants moved into the area and established farmland and the Illinois and Michigan Canal, Camalliere said. The canal benefited Lemont in three ways: It brought more people to Lemont; opened the land to farmers; and led to the discovery of the limestone quarry, she said.

The quarry industry in Lemont boomed by the 1850s as Irish, Polish, German, Swedish and Italian immigrants all worked in various quarries, Camalliere said. Limestone from Lemont quarries were transported along the I & M Canal and used in many buildings in Joliet and Chicago after the Chicago Fire, she said.

Lemont has multiple churches as each immigrant community established its own church, she said, and became known as The Village of Faith. For example, the Lemont Area Historical Society and Museum is located in the building known as the Old Stone Church, which was the Lemont Episcopal Church from 1861 to 1970, Camalliere said.

In 1970, the Lemont Area Historical Society and Museum took over the building and established the museum in the basement of the chapel, she said.

Lemont Mayor John Egofske said many of the immigrant communities that first came to Lemont still live in the village and go to the same churches.

“Over the centuries, this town was built on hard work and faith,” Egofske said. “I say you’re a newbie unless you’re about six generations here. It’s really cool to see a lot of the families still here.”

But with a hard work ethic came a “play hard” mindset, Egofske said. When the sanitary and ship canal was built in the 1890s, he said, there were close to 60 taverns along the road near the Old Stone Church. The road was referred to as Smokey Row, Camalliere said.

Smokey Row also had establishments for gambling, drugs and loose women, Camalliere said, so in total there were more than 100 such businesses along the road by 1895.

“What do you think that the pastor of this church thought on Sunday morning as he was greeting or saying goodbye to his parishioners and looking over at that street?” Camalliere said. “Lemont has a quirky past is what I like to say. There was a lot of fun that went on here too, and hard work.”

The group then took a bus tour around Lemont, where Camalliere showed a few locations mentioned in her book. Most notably, Camalliere showed them a parking lot along the Keepataw Preserve, when she had her present day characters look out to the I & M Canal.

When she wrote the first draft, she wrote the scene to describe what they saw, Camalliere said, but while editing the book she said the scene didn’t feel right. She drove out to the parking lot and realized what she was missing: Seeing the I-355 bridge from the area.

“I had to go back and rewrite the scene,” she said.

Bobbie Hett, who leads Smith Crossing women’s book club, said she enjoyed learning more about Camalliere’s book and Lemont’s history.

Hett said “The Mystery at Black Partridge Woods” was well-written, engaging and detailed. While the book club didn’t officially read the book, Hett said after the trip it’s likely the book club members will check it out.

“After being on the trip, that would be more of an incentive,” Hett said.