Pre-glaciation '' Around 1 million years ago, just prior to the
Pleistocene epoch, northern Indiana was covered by the
Teays River system, which flowed northwest out of
Virginia,
West Virginia, and
Ohio, entering Indiana at
Adams County and flowing about 49 miles south of what is now Syracuse Lake.
Post-glaciation After the last
glaciation period, the land was left with
kettle holes and hilly
moraines. The land supported large vast
Picea evergreen forests and
balsam poplar, which gave way to hardwoods of
oak and
hickory. Animal life included
Glyptodon,
saber-toothed cat,
mastodon,
short-faced bear,
dire wolf,
ground sloth,
giant beaver,
peccary,
stag-moose and
ancient bison. Lakes would have
sturgeon,
whitefish,
pike,
pickerel, and
muskellunge.
Human inhabitation The ground around Syracuse Lake and Syracuse was first settled by the people of the
Glacial Kame culture, who would leave behind artifacts and burial sites.
The Syracuse dugout In 1959, Dick Jamison of Syracuse was fishing in of water just off the southeast shore. He saw beneath the water what he thought was a large, water-soaked log, with one end protruding from the green
algae moss. He and his father returned and removed moss,
marl, and slime, exposing a blackened
dugout canoe made of a
tulip tree, measuring and between wide. Age and exposure had rotted away most of the boat's sides. It was thought that the canoe belonged to
Miami Indians or fur traders, or by very early settlers, and that it was abandoned on the old shore before the lake was raised by a dam built in 1834.
Indian Hill Indian Hill is located on the north shore of Syracuse Lake, 1.5 miles to the east of the town of Syracuse. It was a cemetery for the Indians of the area, who interred their dead in trees. Eventually the wrapping around the dead would disintegrate, causing the skeletal remains to fall to the ground.
Accounts of sturgeon In 1912, Bing Raymond caught a
sturgeon in Lake Syracuse off the lake's extreme northwest side, near a place called China. Another sturgeon was seen about the same year by four men. The third account occurred in the 1920s, when Charlotte White discovered a disabled sturgeon measuring , 3 inches and weighing 130 lb, suffocated by a pair of
waterwings caught in its gills. == Current population ==