USA > Indiana > LaPorte County > Michigan City > History of Michigan City, Indiana > Part 7
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While the people "back in the states" were arguing, in Indiana's first decade of statehood, about such questions as tariff, banking, slavery, internal im- provements and constitutional construc- tion, the pioneers of the border were oc- cupied with Indian treaties, new lands and trading. Before ever priest or sol- dier rested in the shadows of Hoosier Slide it is probable the fur trader was
there, and from that unrecorded traffic until now the business has never been wholly discontinued or intermitted. La- Salle's voyageurs and the independent coureurs de bois of the latter years of the seventeenth century gave way in the eighteenth to the regularly licensed trad- ers and their engages, first of the French, then of the English, and after these came the keen and hardy employes of the American traders and companies, also li - censed by government authority. Michi- gan City is an exception to the general rule that the first inhabitants of cities and towns now existing and of many long forgotten in this part of the west were the agents or employes of some of the great trading companies, but it is possible that the ancient and mysterious establishment marked down at the mouth of Trail creek as A-ber-cronk was a post for exchange with the Indians. How- ever that may be, such posts were very numerous within a short distance of the place and they had much to do with bringing the attractions of the region to the attention of outsiders. The early stations on the St. Joseph and Chicago rivers have been mentioned. The first of the large corporations interested at those points under the dominion of the United States was the American Fur company. It employed voyageurs at from two hundred and fifty livres (fifty dollars) per annum to three times that sum, equipped them with a Mackinaw blanket, two cotton shirts, a capote, and a few small necessaries each, and sent them out from Mackinac in the fall to gather furs until spring, exchanging therefor the beads, bright prints, knives, and such baubles as their packs contain- ed for the distraction of the red men. While out on the trail they subsisted largely on salt pork, corn and tallow. In the spring the furs were taken by sailing vessels or pirogues to Mackinac and, there repacked for the New York mar-
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ket. The voyageurs were selected among the young, athletic, adventurous Canadian habitans and an agency was maintained in Montreal to engage them.
The American Fur company was or- ganized and chartered by the New York legislature in 1809 and John Jacob Astor constituted the entire company. In a few years hc absorbed the Northwest com- pany, the Mackinaw company and the Southwest company and crowded the Hudson's Bay company, dating back to 1670, out of his field. At the close of the war of 1812 he succeeded in getting through congress an act prohibiting for- eigners from dealing in furs in the Uni- ted States and territories, and by the cnd of 1817 he had in his employ seven- cighths of the traders about the upper Mississippi and its tributaries and the great lakes. Ncar the headquarters of cvery independent trader he located an agency with orders to make such terms with the Indians as would get the busi- ness. Kinzie at Chicago and Burnett at the St. Joseph went into the Astor trust quite early, and that combination had ex- clusive control of the trade in the dis- trict between those places and between the Kankakee and the lake. The ques- tion being raised as to the propriety of issuing licenses to forcign traders in the employ of Astor's company under the act of 1815, above mentioned, hc found the means of obtaining "specific indul- gences" in respect to his own men and even of having blank licenses issued to him in numbers, which benefactions wcre denied to other employing com- panies. On this point a letter written to him June 23, 1817, by his western man- ager, Ramsey Crooks, is interesting in the light of the "literature of exposure" that is now so prevalent. Mr. Crooks, a very canny Scotsman, said :-
"Governor Cass, although positively instructed to be guided by the orders of the War Department of last year in rc-
gard to the granting of licensing to for- cigners, and having no directions from Acting Secretary Graham to bestow any specific indulgences on your agents, has written Major Puthuff [Indian agent at Green Bay, afterward dismisscd]to at- tend particularly to our wishes; and should he act as the discretionary nature of his orders will allow, he can serve our purpose almost as effectually as if for- eigners had been excluded generally and we had obtained the number of licenses in blank which you at one time so confi- dently expected. With this knowledge of the disposition cvinced by the Gover- nor of Michigan Territory for our suc- cess, you may well supposc no effort on our part to engage the Indian Agent here [Colonel Bowyer, at Mackinac]in our cause, but his not being bound to pursue any particular system will leave all we obtain to be acquired by our own exer- tions. So conflicting will be the claims on his indulgence, and so many strata- gcms will be tried to thwart our vicws, that it would be the cxtremc of folly to hazard an opinion of the result, but if he only remains truc to the line of con- duct we may prevail on him to adopt. we flatter ourselves with getting hold of a larger share of the trade than last year.
The nature of the goods which the company used in exchange with the In- clians at far above the usual market rates, may be seen from a list containcd in one of the letters of Mr. Crooks datcd in 1819 :- "5 common calico shirts, 19 Cotton Handkfs., 5 Snuff Boxes, I Skein Worsted Yarn, 30 Strings Wampum, 62 Hawk Bells, 781/2 pairs Large Squarc Ear Bobs, 117 small Double Crosscs and 30 yds. Indian Calico." Another sidelight is cast upon this traffic with the savages by a letter from David Stone, the com- pany's Detroit agent, to Mr. Crooks in 1825 :-
"I understand from Coquillard [Alcx- is, then agent at South Bend, of which he was the first settler] that it is very im- portant for his trade that there should be somc whiskey deposited at Chicago sub- ject to his order. He says Bertrand [ the
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY.
trader at the place now bearing that name, independent of the company] al- ways sells whiskey to the Indian trade, which gives him a great advantage. He says the whiskey can be landed on one side of the St. Joseph River where it will be on United States lands, that it may be transported all the way to his house on Government land. His house is also on Government land, and this he thinks a protection. If I understand Judge Polk's construction of the law regulating Indian trade, this would be no protection to the property so long as the country is occupied by Indians. To me this seems like a forced construction to meet the case of Wallace & Davis's goods [inde- pendent traders near Chicago]. I could not say anything definite to Coquillard on this subject, as I did not know what would be done."
In harmony with the established pol- icy of the government to place satisfac- tory goods within the reach of its Indian wards at reasonable prices, under what was termed the factory system, a factory was opened at Fort Dearborn in connec- tion with the Indian agency there in the year the first blockhouse was built. It was destroyed with the other buildings within the government enclosure at the massacre and was reopened in 1816 when the new fort was built. During the for- mer period, before the American Fur company had grown to its later propor- tions, it thrived and was much resorted to by the Indians. But its second period of life was not prosperous. The com- pany drew the attention of the red men by selling them goods of a class the gov- ernment would not handle, making up in gorgeous colors what was lacking in quality, and also by selling or giving them whisky. The government factors were unable to compete with the traders in the matter of mendacity also, and the Indians were very credulous and readily followed the biggest stories. The efforts of the federal officers to enforce the laws regulating the Indian traffic were fol- lowed by the appearance at Washington
of Mr. Crooks, at the session of 1819-20, to such purpose that he was able to re- port to Mr. Astor in a letter dated in May that "the new-fangled obnoxious Indian system died a natural death. * We will not suffer ourselves to be trampled upon with impunity, either by the military or any other power." In the same month the factor at Chicago wrote: "The Indians have been induced to come here this season by the facility with which they were enabled to procure whisky. In fact the commerce with them this season has been almost exclusively confined to that article. I will venture to say that out of two hundred barks of sugar taken, [maple sugar, in forty- pound bark cases] not five have been purchased with any other commodity than whisky. I have not been able to procure a pound of sugar from the In- dians, but can get a supply from the traders at ten cents a pound." In 1822 the government factory was closed and the fur company was the purchaser of its house and stood supreme. But there was a measure of poetic justice in the outcome, for the savages were so corrupted by the drink and treatment of the traders that they abandoned the hunt and became utterly worthless hangers-on of treaty councils, leaving the company without a supply of furs for which to trade its goods. By 1828 the trade was practical- ly gone, and a few years later, when the redskins were moved west, it ceased alto- gether. Its one service to the white set- tlers in this region was that it enabled them to make payments on their land by prowess in the chase at a time when their farming operations were not yet productive of much cash.
While some of these gun and trap products of our first settlers were sold at Niles, the greater part went to Alexis Coquillard or Lathrop S. Taylor at South Bend. As early as 1820 Pierre F. Na- varre, who married a squaw and had a
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large family of children, some highly ed- ucated, located near the old portage at that point and his operations included the Trail creek region. He lived until De- cember 27, 1864, and is buried at Notre Dame. In the spring of 1824 Coquil- lard, an agent of the American Fur com- pany, opened a branch house there and is regarded as the first permanent white resident of South Bend. He had been in the service of the company for some years at Detroit, Mackinac and Niles, and became well known to the pioneers of this entire region. One of the com- pany's representatives wrote of him to the manager thus :- "In Relation to Mr. Coquillard, it may be proper to observe that he is an excellent clerk but rather of a singular character, and must have carte blanche, otherwise nothing can be done for him." He was killed in 1854 by falling from the upper part of his mill, which he was inspecting after a fire. Col. Taylor, as agent for an independent trading firm at Fort Wayne, opened a South Bend branch in September, 1827, was the first clerk, recorder and post- master, and lived there to a ripe old age, one of the most highly honored residents of the place. The nearest trading estab- lishment to the mouth of Trail creek was on the north bank of the Little Calumet about two miles west of the present site of Porter and made its last appearance on the map under the name of Bailey Town in the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1881, at which time the place had long ceased to be even a hamlet. The earliest known map, on which it was shown, one made for Governor Hull prior to 1812, presented it as the Little Fort. There is some slight evidence that a station, perhaps merely a log shed for the temporary storage of furs while the voyageurs were working in the vicinity, was placed there as early as in 1796, and ten or a dozen years later Alexander Robinson was using it in his business.
From it the present name of Fort creek was derived. The first inhabitants of Michigan City knew it as Baillytown, or, as the French twist made it, Bye- town, so called after the trader, Joseph Bailly, who occupied it when they came.
Joseph and William Bailly, brothers, located, the latter on the Grand and the former on the St. Joseph, in 1802 bear- ing Gov. Harrison's license dated Jan. 7, as Indian traders. In 1822, as Rev. T. H. Ball has fixed the date, Joseph opened a store and established a trading post for the American Fur company at the place mentioned, the Little Fort, and remained there at least twelve years af- ter that time. His wife was Tou-se-qua, an Ottawa squaw, and they had six beautiful daughters and two sons. One son died in 1827 at the age of ten years and the father erected a Catholic chapel near his house as a memorial. The name of the other son was Robert, and the daughters were Esther, Rosene, Eleanor, Sophia, Hortense and Therese, all of whom, with the father, received cash do- nations by the Chicago treaty of 1833, while the mother was remembered in that of October 27, 1832, at the Tippe- canoe. Bailly made money, more partic- ularly when he did business independent- ly after he ceased his connection with the company when that institution droop- ed, and quite an Indian population set - tled about his store. In 1834 he laid out some ground in town lots, but nothing ever came of it; "no American inhab- itants came," says Mr. Ball, "the Indians that were there could not make a city, and in a few years the trader himself died." Some of his descendants are yet living in that locality. When he died, in April, 1835, his wife and daughters were spending the winter in Chica- go as was their custom after the family was enriched by trade and treaties, and a swift Indian runner was despatched to inform them of the unexpected event. In
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spite of their best efforts they were unable to reach the bereaved home until after the burial, which could not be delayed in those days. Jacob Beck, one of the first inhabitants of Waverly where Porter is now and an early lot owner in Michigan City, was the volunteer undertaker. Bail- ly's associate, Alexander Robinson, at the station on the St. Joseph river for a time, was born at Mackinac about 1762, the son of a Scotch trader and an Otta- wa woman, through the latter of whom he became an Ottawa and Pottawattomie ยท ties were given him in several treaties and he died on his reservation on the Des Plaines river April 22, 1872, at a very great age.
chief. His Indian name, Che-che-pin- qua, variously spelled in the treaties, means "blinking eyes." After marry- ing a native wife he removed to the St. Joseph and entered the ser- vice of the American Fur Com- pany with Bailly. "No battle deeds of his have been found on record to be recorded here," it is written, "but as early as 1809 he is found engaged in taking corn around the south shore of Lake Michigan." The corn was raised by the Pottawattomies, whose maple sugar he also handled, and he carried these products in bark-woven sacks on the backs of ponies. He likewise han- dled furs and regularly visited Trail creek, occasionally using a portage from its headwaters to the Little Calumet, a path not now capable of identification but probably starting from a point in section twenty and terminating in section thirty- one in Coolspring township, perhaps three miles in length. On the day pre- ceding the massacre at Fort Dearborn he was bound for Chicago river in his canoe when some friendly Miamis hailed him from the shore and told him it would be best for him not to go there, as "it would storm tomorrow." He therefore pro- ceeded on his journey until he reached the mouth of the Big Calumet, in Lake county, and there he hid his canoe and went toward the fort, arriving while the slaughter was in progress. He did all in
his power to shield the whites and help- ed to save and remove to the St. Joseph the Kinzie family. Two years later he settled near Chicago and continued to trade in the coast region to the St. Jo- seph, becoming prominent in the early history of the present western metropo- lis. For his second wife he married the daughter of the chief of a Pottawattomie village on the Calumet, Francois Cheva- lier by name, at whose death he succeed- ed to the chieftancy. Land and annui-
Another half-breed trader, and one who was familiar to the first settlers in Michigan City and whose name, writ- ten in beautiful copperplate script, is at- tached to the first petition for a road from Michigan City to his land on Door Prairie and to many other papers on file at the LaPorte county court house, was Jean Baptiste Chandonnais, and he too was in the service of Astor's company for a time. The difficulties encountered by the Americans in the matter of French names are well illustrated by the variations of this name found in the let- ters, treaties and records of his time, for it has been written Chandonnait, Chan- donet, Chandonia, Shaderny and Shad- ney, the last being the pronunciation used while he lived in this county This man was the son of a Canadian French- man by Chippewaqua, a Pottawattomie woman, who had another son named Jo- seph Daze. The former was well edu- cated and must have been born in Can- ada about 1780 to 1790. His mother was a sister of Topinabee, another of whose sisters married Burnett, the St. Joseph trader. Upon completing his ed- ucation in Detroit young Chandonnais came to Burnett's station and, about 1804, was employed as clerk by John Kinzie, with whom in that year he went
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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN CITY
to Chicago and continued in a confiden- tial capacity, traveling often between that place and the St. Joseph posts on the business of the fur company, until the war of 1812. When the massacre at Fort Dearborn occurred he was chosen to effect the escape of the Kinzie family and in addition to accomplishing that he saved the lives of Captain and Mrs. Heald. As soon as he had seen the Kin- zies in safety he went to Detroit with his employer, then a prisoner to the British, and immediately entered the American military service, engaging in several of the battles and skirmishes of that year. He fell into the hands of the British and was imprisoned at Malden, but soon es- caped ; being pursued by a squad led by his own paternal uncle, he killed the uncle and fled into the wilderness, whence he made his way to Harrison's army and, under that commander and Lewis Cass, was a scout of exceptional value. After participating in the battle of the Thames he saw no more fighting but was with Cass until after the close of the war, one particular service being the great influence he exerted in persuading the Pottawattomies to attend and sign the treaty at Greenville in 1814, whereby they were won away from the British in- fluence. Thirty years later General Cass wrote of him thus :-
"From the commencement of our diffi- culties with Great Britain, Chaudonia espoused our cause, notwithstanding the exertions of the British agents to seduce him to their interest, as he was an active, fearless young man, with connection in the tribe ; they were exceedingly desir- ous to gain him, but their efforts were useless. From the first to the last he never swerved in his attachment. * * * From Greenville he accompanied nie to Detroit, for which place I marched a considerable force of Indians for the re- lief of that frontier, which was then suffering from the invasion of hostile Indians. I had no white troops with me, and my position was therefore difficult
and dangerous. He attended the treaties for the purchase of land, and always aided the commissioners in their efforts, and I can say from personal knowledge that General Harrison had the same opinion of him that I had."
May 11, 1846, the congressional com- mittee on public lands submitted a re- port in which Chandonnais received the following mention :-
"Chaudonia, at the commencement of the late war, being young, active, enter- prising, and daring-understanding well the manners and customs of the Indians -being well skilled in their mode of warfare, admitted into their secret coun- cils, and possessing an influence over them that no one else, who favored the American cause, did-all these circum- stances combined gave him the power of rendering to the United States greater services than any one else at that time, which he at no time omitted to exercise when it was necessary to save either the lives of the citizens of the United States, or their property, from destruction. During the existence of the war his life was devoted to our cause, and his prop- erty freely sacrificed for the protection and safety of our citizens."
After his military service, and prior to 1818, he returned to Kinzie at Chi- cago and soon embarked in business for himself, carrying on an extensive trade with the people of his own race in and about LaPorte county. Through an in- troduction given by Captain Kinzie he was given large credit by Mr. Crooks, western manager of the American Fur company, and became indebted to that corporation in a sum exceeding five thou- sand dollars, which for some reason he neglected to pay. He had been sent '0 Mr. Crooks at Mackinaw (for so the name came to be used after 1812, instead of Mackinac) with Captain Kinzie's young son, who was to learn the busi- ness, and the manager conceived a very good opinion of the half-breed. When the default occurred Kinzie was urged repeatedly to use his personal influence
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with Chandonnais to obtain a settlement with the company, and in one such letter, written August 11, 1819, Mr. Crooks said :-
"With surprise and astonishment I learn the very questionable course Mr. Jean Bte. Chandonnait has thought prop- er to pursue; but relying with the ut- most confidence on your influence over him, I still flatter myself that at least a part of the amount he owes us would have been remitted before this time, more particularly as several gentlemen informed me he had in his possession $1,000 arising from the sale of his pel- tries to Mr. Crafts [a competitor of the company]. * *
* Strange and unac- countable it is, that we have not received any kind of remittance, notwithstanding the extravagant conduct of this person ; but, as you introduced him to us, I am bound to hope, although you have not mentioned even his name in any of your letters this summer, that you have done, and will continue to do, all in your power to insure the payment of our claim, at no very distant day."
More than a year afterward Kinzie's chief is again urging him to push the claim, now amounting to less than four thousand dollars, and suggesting that the debtor be induced to mortgage the lands granted him by government treat- ies of that year. The lamentable fact was that the old soldier was drinking. The land grants referred to were not made at that time, but the Chicago treaty of August 29, 1821, contained, among others, the following specific donations :
"To Jean B. Chandonai, son of Chip- pe-wa-qua, two sections of land, on the river St. Joseph, above and adjoining the tract granted to J. B. La Lime.
"To Joseph Daze, son of Chip-pe-wa- qua, one section of land above and ad- joining the tract granted to Jean B. Chandonais."
To this land, which was on the north side of the river about ten miles from its mouth and near a tract of six sec- tions given to his five Burnett cousins,
Chandonnais removed and there he re- mained until perhaps about 1829, trad- ing some and attending several councils by invitation of the government commis- sioners because of his influence with the Pottawattomies. When the Michigan road lands were surveyed, as will be hereafter described, members of his tribe disputed the state's interpretation of the treaty authorizing it and stopped the work, breaking the chains of the survey- ors ; but Chandonnais was called upon to enlighten the Indians. He procured an ox and a great quantity of whisky from the public authorities and invited the tribesmen to a feast, and in the presence of the ensuing barbecue and spree the white man's view was accepted and the work was allowed to proceed. This suc- cess may have had some influence with the government commissioners, all Indi- ana men, who negotiated the treaties of October, 1832, on the Tippecanoe river, for one stipulates a grant "For J. B. Shadernah, one section of land in the Door Prairie, where he now lives;" and another, one day later, awards "To Kesis Shadana, one section ; to Louis Chadana, one half-section ; to Charles Shadna, one half-section ; to John B. Chadana, one section." Earlier in that year the senate committee on Indian affairs had reported a bill giving him a section of land on his petition submitted two or three years before, but no action had been had; the ground of the petition was his service to the nation during the war of 1812. Also, in May of that year, at the time of the Black Hawk alarm, when General Joseph Orr and others were providing for the public defense and the few scattering settlers on Door Prairie were fortifying. the half-breed was consulted and gave much valuable information and advice. The section allotted to him as the one "where he now lives" was number 28 in Scipio township, where he had his family gathered in a typical Indian wigwam;
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