From the end of the war until 1829, St. Joseph Island was virtually uninhabited. Exploring a creek in the southeast corner of the island, one of the commission survey teams reported "a neat log house far up in the woods, with a patch of Indian corn, and other vegetables. It was inhabited by an Indian widow and her daughter. Nothing could exceed the cleanliness of the lodge in the wilderness. The surveyors saw no one else on the island and reported it as a jungle containing only bears and other wild animals."