USA > Michigan > Cass County > A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan > Part 4
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"The spot was covered with a very dense forest seven months be- fore the time we visited it, but by the great activity of the superin- tendent he has succeeded in the course of this short time in building six good log houses, four of which afford comfortable residences for the in- mates of the establishment ; the fifth is used as a school room, and the sixth forms a commodious blacksmith shop. In addition to this they have cleared about fifty acres of land, which is nearly all enclosed by a sub- stantial fence. Forty acres have already been plowed and planted with
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maize, and every step has been taken to place the establishment on an independent footing.
"The school consists of from forty to sixty children,and it is con- templated that it will soon be increased to one hundred. The plan adopted appears to be a very judicious one ; it is to unite a practical and intel- lectual education. The boys are instructed in the English language- reading, writing and arithmetic. They are made to attend to the usual occupations of a farm, and perform every operation connected with it, such as plowing, planting, harrowing, etc. In these pursuits they ap- pear to take great delight. The system being well regulated. they find time for everything.
"The girls receive the same instruction as the boys, and in addition are taught spinning, knitting, weaving and sewing, both plain and orna- mental. They are also made to attend to the pursuits of the dairy, such as milking cows, making butter, etc. All appear to be very happy, and to make as rapid progress as white children of the same age would make. Their principal excellence rests in works of imitation. They write astonishingly well, and many display great natural taste for drawing.
"The institution receives the countenance of the most respectable among the Indians. There are in the school two of the great-grandchil- dren of To-pen-ne-bee, the great hereditary chief of the Pottawottomies. The Indians visit the establishment occasionally and appear well pleased with it. They have a flock of one hundred sheep, and are daily ex- pecting two hundred head of cattle."
From a later official report, made in 1826, it appears that the mis- sion "has become a familiar resort of the natives, and from the ben- efits derived from it in various shapes they begin to feel a dependence on and resource in it at all times, and especially in difficult and trying occasions. There are at present seventy scholars, in various stages of improvement. Two hundred and three acres are now enclosed by fences, of which fifteen are in wheat, fifty in Indian corn, eight in pota- toes and other vegetable products ; the residue is appropriated to pasture.
"There have been added to the buildings since my last visit a house and a most excellent grist mill, worked by horse power. The use- fulness of this mill can scarcely be appreciated, as there is no other of any kind within one hundred miles at least of this establishment, and here as benevolence is the preponderating principle, all the surrounding population is benefited." In fact, there were few, if any, of the first
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white settlers of the surrounding country who did not resort to the Mis- sion mill to get their grist ground.
Thus the Indian occupants of the territory of Cass county had been taught many of the arts of eivilized life before the record of the first white settlement in the county is recorded. This dependence on the assistance of the white man, while it tended to ameliorate the naturally hostile feelings between the races, at the same time subjected the settlers to the burden of their improvident neighbors as long as they remained in the county.
The Indians found in Cass county at the advent of the white set- tlers were in three bands. The chiefs of two of these-Pokagon and Weesaw-were prominent characters, reputable and representative men of their tribe, and the annals of the time contain frequent mention of their names. According to the History of 1882, Pokagon's band, num- bering over two hundred, occupied originally the prairie in the western part of the county which retains the chief's name. As the settlers came in and appropriated the land, the Indians moved from place to place in the county, the majority of them finally settling in Silver Creek town- ship. Weesaw and his followers had their home in the northeast por- tion of the county, on Little Prairie Ronde, in Volinia township. The third band of Cass county Indians had as their chief the notorious Shave- head-named so because he kept his hair closely cropped except a small spot on top of his head and behind. He was a morose, troublesome and renegade Indian, never became a party to any of the treaties between the whites and Indians and viewed with sullen hostility every advance of settlement.
But long before this time the Indians had formally relinquished their claims to the region now occupied by Cass county. The Chicago treaty of 1821 provided for the cession to the United States of all the territory lying west and north of the St. Joseph river claimed by the Pottawot- tomie Indians. By the later treaty of 1828 all the possessions of the tribe within the territory of Michigan were transferred to the govern- ment, with the exception of a reservation of forty-nine square miles in Berrien county, west of the St. Joseph and bordered by it.
In 1833. at Chicago, a treaty was drawn up by the three commis- sioners of the United States and the chiefs of the Pottawottomies, among whom were Pokagon and Weesaw, by which it was provided that "All the Indians residing on the said reservations (that in Berrien county being the principal one) shall remove therefrom within three years from
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this date, during which time they shall not be disturbed in their posses- sion, nor in hunting upon the lands as heretofore. In the meantime no interruption shall be offered to the survey and sale of the same by the United States government."
Pokagon and his followers would not sign this treaty until they were guaranteed exemption from the clanse which concerned their re- moval. It was the cherished desire of Pokagon that his people should remain in "the land of their fathers," and in accordance with this inten- tion he began to enter land in Silver Creek township in 1836, and in a year or so had about nine hundred acres entered in his name, although others of the band had contributed money for its purchase. This was the origin of the Indian settlement in Silver Creek township, which, as it still continties, will be described elsewhere.
According to the treaty, the date of removal of the Indians from their reservation was set for 1836. When the time came the Indians protested. There were many delays in executing the plan of the gov- ernment. Agents were busy for some time in collecting a census of the tribes. It was difficult to assemble the scattered bands preparatory to their exile. Many escaped from the surveillance of the officers and took to hiding until the exodus was accomplished. Some were assisted in secreting themselves by the white settlers, who felt sympathy for them. Such an emigration, imposed from without, must always excite com- miseration. History is full of similar instances, as witness the exile of the Acadians made famous in Longfellow's "Evangeline."
Upon the day appointed for the exodus the Pottawottomies ren- dezvoused at Niles, and under the escort of two companies of United States troops moved out on the Chicago road toward their future home in distant Kansas. It was a sad and mournful spectacle to witness these children of the forest slowly retiring from the homes of their childhood, that contained not only the graves of their revered ancestors, but also many endearing scenes to which their memories would ever recur along their pathway through the wilderness. They felt that they were bidding farewell to the hills, valleys and streams of their infancy; to the more exciting hunting grounds of their advanced youth, as well as the stern and bloody battlefields they had contended for in their manhood. All these they were leaving behind them to be desecrated by the plowshare of the white man. As they cast mournful glances back toward these loved scenes that were fading in the distance, tears fell upon the cheek of the downcast warrior, old men trembled, matrons wept, and sighs
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and half-suppressed sobs escaped from the motley groups as they passed along. Ever and again one of the party would break out of the train and flee to their old encampments on the St. Joseph. In the following year these and many of those who had avoided removal by hiding, were collected and taken to their brethren in Kansas.
Thus departed, with few exceptions, all of the original inhabitants of Cass county. From the standpoint of humanity, their mode of exist- ence, their ascent in the scale of human development, and their pitiful decadence and defeat in the contest against a superior race, will always claim a full share of interest. But in the history which tells of progress, of building of great cities and empires, of a constantly broadening scope of human acivity, the story of the Indian has little place. He has left nothing that we have thought worthy of imitation, nothing of a funda- mental character on which we might continue to build. On the con- trary, in the history of America, the Indian seems almost without ex- ception to have been an adverse factor. He must be removed just as it has been deemed necessary to remove the forests in order that agri- culture might proceed. And fortunate were the settlers of such a region as Cass county that this removal was accomplished without a bitter and relentless warfare, such as was the inevitable accompaniment of every advance of white men in the far west.
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CHAPTER HI.
THE COUNTY'S SOUTHERN BOUNDARY.
Being one of the southernmost tier of Michigan counties, any ques- tion that affected the southern boundary of the state is of direct interest to Cass county. The county was not organized till 1829 and its settlers were comparatively few at that date. But the pioneers of that period as well as those who settled here later from other parts of the state were well acquainted with the boundary dispute that continued through the existence of Michigan as a territory and which culminated in what has gone down in history and is still remembered by the oldest inhabitants by the name of "the Toledo war."
Perhaps no one still alive in Cass county can recall from personal knowledge any of the events of this very interesting dispute. But in the early thirties the settlement of the southern boundary very nearly pre- cipitated a civil war and attracted national attention. Had government policies taken a little different turn, the southern line of Cass county might now embrace the great bend of the St. Joseph river that now sweeps through the northern half of Elkhart and St. Joseph counties of Indiana, and the boundary line between the two states of Michigan and Indiana would be ten miles south of its present direction.
If any one will take a map covering the area of Indiana, Ohio and Michigan, he will see that the northern boundary of Ohio is not on a line with the northern boundary of Indiana. The northwest corner of Ohio does not join the corner of Indiana, but is further down and runs a little upward, or north of due east, and terminates at the most north- ern cape of Maumee bay, leaving that bay within the bounds of Ohio. The question is, What has made this difference in the boundary lines ? and the answer involves the history of three different boundary lines which have to do intimately with the area of Cass county, or more prop- erly speaking, that part of Michigan territory from which Cass county was made.
In 1778-9 George Rogers Clark, a young Virginian of extraordinary character, who has well been called the Hannibal of the west, captured Kaskaskia and Vincennes, thus cutting off the supplies of the Indians.
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He liad been sent out by the government of Virginia, and that state therefore laid claim to all the territory northwest of the Ohio river, which was the same territory ceded to Great Britain by France in the treaty of 1763. On March 1, 1784, through her authorized delegates in Congress, Virginia ceded this territory to the United States. She stip- ulated that it be divided into states but specified no boundaries. By vir- tue of ancient royal charters, New York, Massachusetts and Connecti- cut also claimed large territories north of the Ohio river, but these claims were all transferred to the United States, Connecticut alone re- serving a tract which was called the Western Reserve until May 30. 1800, when she surrendered her jurisdictional claim over this tract to the United States. Thus the general government obtained the juris- diction over the Northwest Territory, and of the lands, subject however to the proprietary rights of the Indians. .
When Congress assumed the jurisdiction there was no established government anywhere in the territory. The French commandants of the posts had administered the laws dictated by France, the British succeeded them and proclaimed the common law of England to be in force, Vir- ginia also had extended her laws, but there were no courts to enforce any of them. The question of forming some kind of government for the newly acquired territory at once attracted the attention of Congress.
At first a report was made providing for the formation of the ter- ritory into ten states with fanciful names, but no action was taken upon it. This was Thomas Jefferson's scheme. From the time of its ac- quirement by the government until 1787, there was no organized control over the Northwest Territory. The people who were settling in it were left to struggle along as best they could. But on April 23, 1787, a com- mittee consisting of Mr. Johnson of Connecticut, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina, Mr. Smith of New York, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, and Mr. Henry of Maryland, reported an ordinance for the government of the new territory. It was discussed from time to time and very greatly amended, and finally, on the 13th of July, it passed Congress. This is the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, a document which, next to the Con- stitution of the United States, perhaps has occasioned more discussion than any other, on account of its sound principles, statesmanlike qual- ities and wise provisions.
It is Article 5 of this ordinance which has most intimately to do with our present subject. That article provided for the formation in the territory of not less than three nor more than five states, it fixed the
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western, the southern, and the eastern boundaries of what became Illi- nois, Indiana and Ohio, and then the ordinance said. "If Congress shall find it hereafter expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two states in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Mich- igan." We call special attention to this line, for it is the first boundary line with which we have to do, and has been of exceeding great import- ance in the so-called boundary line dispute. But for a strange combina- tion of circumstances and long continued strife, it would have been the southern boundary of Michigan. It is called the "ordinance line" because it was specified in the great Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory.
On May 7, 1800, Congress divided the Northwest Territory by a line running from the mouth of the Kentucky river to Fort Recovery, and thence due north to the Canadian line. It will be seen that this line is not the same as that prescribed in the ordinance, which was a line from the mouth of the Miami river to Fort Recovery and thence due north, making the boundary line due north and south all the way, from Canada to the Ohio river where the Miami empties into it. The mouth of the Kentucky river is several miles west of the mouth of the Miami. and a line from the mouth of the Kentucky to Fort Recovery runs east of north. This threw a three-cornered piece of territory, shaped like a church spire with its hase resting on the Ohio river, into Ohio, which, when the states were organized, was included in Indiana according to the ordinance, and afterwards Ohio from time to time set up claims to this tract.
All the region east of this line was still to be Northwest Territory, and that on the west was erected into the Indiana Territory. It will be seen that this division threw about one-half of the Michigan country into Indiana and left the other half in the Northwest Territory.
And now for the first time the ordinance line, the east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan, comes into prominence ; for all that portion of the east Michigan country which lay north of this line was organized as Wayne County of the Northwest Territory, and its settlers supposed that their fortunes were thenceforth identified with those of Ohio.
The Ordinance of 1787 had provided for the admission into the Union of the prospective states of the Northwest Territory as follows : "Whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand free inhab-
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
itants therein, such states shall be admitted by its delegates into the Con- gress of the United States on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent con- stitution and state government, provided the constitution and govern- ment so to be formed shall be republican and in conformity to the prin- ciples contained in these articles ; and so far as can be consistent with the general interests of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there shall be a less number of free inhab- itants in the state than sixty thousand" (Article 5).
The Northwest Territory was rapidly filling with settlers, and in accordance with the above provision the whole population, including Wayne county, were agitating the question of statehood. On April 30, 1802, Congress passed an enabling act, the first of its kind, according to which Ohio might frame a constitution and establish a state govern- ment, if it was deemed expedient. In that act the old ordinance line running east and west "through to the southerly extreme of Lake Mich- igan" was specified as her northern boundary. The Ordinance of 1787 seemed to prescribe this as the dividing line between the three states south of it and the two which might be formed north of it, and so it seems to have been regarded and accepted at the time. In harmony with the enabling act, a convention met at Chillicothe, Ohio, on November Ist, to frame a constitution for the new state. It is related in the "His- torical Transactions of Ohio" that while the convention was thus en- gaged an old hunter whose euriosity led him thither appeared on the scene, and, learning of the prescribed boundaries, informed the dele- gates that the southern extreme of Lake Michigan lay much farther south than they supposed, or than the maps in use indicated. This state- ment at once awakened great interest and was the subject of careful deliberation. The map used by Congress in prescribing the ordinance line of 1787, was the one made by Mitchell in 1755.
This map had been accepted as accurate by the Ohio statemakers, until the statement of the old hunter caused them to pause and consider. According to this map a line due east from the southern hend of Lake Michigan would strike the Detroit river a little south of Detroit : if, how- ever, the old hunter's statement was true and the line was farther south. Ohio would be deprived of much of her territory. Accordingly, after much deliberation, the convention embodied in the constitution the boundaries prescribed in the enabling act, but with the following proviso : "If the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so
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far south that a line drawn due east from it should not intersect Lake Erie east of the Miami (now the Maumee) river of the lakes, then * * with the assent of Congress of the United States, the northern boundary of this state shall be established by, and extend to a line run- ning from the southerly extremity of Lake Michigan to the most north- erly cape of the Miami (now the Maumee ) bay, thence northeast, etc.," or straight on through Lake Erie and Ohio to Pennsylvania. With this proviso the constitution was adopted on November 29tli.
The congressional committee on the admission of Ohio refused to consider this proviso, because, first, it depended on a fact not yet ascer- tained, and, second, it was not submitted as were other propositions of the constitutional convention. Congress, therefore, ignoring the proviso, received Ohio into the Union.
The inhabitants of Wayne county were very indignant that Con- gress should specify the ordinance line as the northern boundary of the new state. More indignant still were they when Congress received Ohio . into the Union and left Wayne county out in the cold. They contended that it was illegal to treat them thus, that the ordinance of 1787 forbade the further division of the Northwest Territory, until the northern part of it could be made a state, that to exclude the county from Ohio would ruin it. But all their protests were in vain. The reason was a political one. The Democrats, or, as they were then called, the Republicans, had just secured the presidency in the election of Thomas Jefferson. Ohio, as admitted into the Union, was on their side; but if Wayne county were a part of the state it might be thrown into the ranks of their op- ponents, the Federalists. Governor St. Clair declared that to win a Democratic state the people of Wayne county had been "bartered away like sheep in a market."
The act enabling the people of Ohio to form a state provided that Wayne county might be attached to the new state if Congress saw fit. Congress did not see fit, but on the contrary attached it to Indiana Ter- ritory, and in 1803 Governor Harrison formed a new Wayne county which comprised almost all of what is now Michigan. North and east it was bounded by Canada, but on the other sides it was bounded by a "north and south line through the western extreme of Lake Michigan" and "an east and west line through the southern extreme of the same." Here the same old ordinance line appears again, as the southern bound- ary of what is now Michigan.
But the Michigan country thus united was too strong to remain
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long a part of a territory, and hence, on January 11, 1805, Michigan Territory was formed by act of Congress. It was bounded on the west by a line extending through the center of Lake Michigan, and on the south by a line running east from the southern extreme of the same.
It will be seen that even at this time Michigan was deprived of a strip of land on the west shore of Lake Michigan, which as Wayne county Congress had given her. Had she contended for that as persist- ently as she did for the strip in Ohio, she would have sought some- thing more valuable, for Chicago is situated in that very strip. That spot was comparatively worthless then, and the future is hidden from states as from individuals. It is interesting, however, to think what would have been the result if Michigan had retained the boundary lines which she had as Wayne county.
But the fact which concerns us here is, that the ordinance line ap- pears again. After January 11, 1805, and until 1816, Michigan Terri- tory's southern boundary was a line running due east and west from the southern extreme of Lake Michigan; and though it had not yet been ascertained accurately just where that line would come out in Ohio, enough was known about it to make not only Ohio but the people of Indiana object very strongly to the southern boundary of Michigan Ter- ritory, as public documents abundantly show.
The boundary dispute was now transferred to Ohio. No sooner had the Ohio congressmen taken their seats after her admission into the Union, than they began working to secure formal congressional assent to their proviso about the boundary line. Senator Worthington secured the chairmanship of a committee to consider the question, but to 110 pur- pose ; both houses of Congress were unmoved. The boundary of so distant a state was an unimportant matter. When the territory of Mich- igan was organized, effort to have the neglected proviso confirmed was again made, but in vain : and the southern line of the territory was de- scribed precisely as Ohio did not wish. The Ohio, in session after ses- sion of her legislature, instructed her congressmen to endeavor to secure the passage of a law defining the northern boundary line of their state. It was certainly quite necessary that this be done. The lands near the rapids of the Miami (now the Maumee) had recently been ceded to the government by the Indians and were rapidly filling with settlers. Mich- igan magistrates exercised authority over the district, while the presi- dent had appointed a collector to reside at the Rapids, describing the place as in Ohio.
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