Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich., Part 3

Author: Fisher, David, 1827-; Little, Frank, 1823-
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago [Ill.] : A.W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 598

USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 3

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edifices and structures erected, if men and women are not growing better, the pomp and splendor of civilization is as sad as the flowers that embellish graves and the human race will remain powerless in the clutch of an evil destiny, ever to drop lower and lower into a degeneracy from which a steadily increasing inharmony and weakness could only spring. -

CHAPTER II.

INDIANS, THEIR LIFE AND CHARACTER.

The Pottawattomie Indians held title to the lands of Kalamazoo county until the Chicago treaty of 1821. Before this, at Greenville, Ohio, on July 30, 1795, a treaty of peace between the United States, represented by General Anthony Wayne, and various Indian tribes brought into the ownership of the whites nearly two-thirds of the state of Ohio, a considerable portion of In- diana, and a large number of small reservations within their remaining territory, among the latter being a strip six miles wide along Lake Erie and the Detroit river, the post of Mackinac, the island on which it stood; the island of Bois Blanc, and a piece of land to the north of the straits, six by three miles in extent, a piece six miles square at Chicago; another of the same extent at Fort Wayne; one twelve miles square at the Mau- mee rapids, and various others. The Indians were to be allowed the privilege of hunting upon the ceded lands, and the government and people of the United States were to freely navigate the lakes and streams within the Indian territory. The consideration which the tribe received from the United States was twenty thousand dollars in goods, distributed at the treaty equally among them, and an annuity of nine thousand five hun- dred dollars in goods thereafter forever. The annual payments were to be divided among the contracting nations as follows: to the Wyan- dots, the value of one thousand dollars; to the Delawares, one thousand dollars; to the Shaw- nees, one thousand dollars; to the Miamis, one thousand dollars; to the Ottawas, one thousand dollars; to the Chippewas, one thousand dollars ; to the Pottawattomies, one thousand dollars, and

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to the Kickapoos, Wcas, Eel Rivers, Piankeshaws, and to the Kaskaskias, the sum of five hundred dollars each.

At the Chicago treaty of August, 1821, the Pottawattomies ceded to the United States all of their lands lying south of Grand river with the ex- ceptions of five small reservations, one of them being in Kalamazoo county and covering the site of Kalamazoo city. The Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawattomies werc represented in force and the latter tribe, as occupants of the land, having the consent of the other tribes, their allies in peace and war, took the leading part in the cession. The official description of the ceded lands describes it as "a tract of land extending nearly across the state" and "Beginning on the south bank of the St. Joseph river of Michigan near Parc aux Vaches (a short distance above its mouth ) ; thence in a line running due west from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan : thence along the line to the tract ceded by the treaty of Fort Meigs in 1817 (which was far to the east of Kalamazoo county), or, if that tract should be found to lie entirely south of the line, then to the . tract ceded by the treaty of Detroit in 1807 (the western boundary of which was twenty miles west of Lake Erie and the Detroit river) ; thence northward along the tract to a point due cast to the source of the Grand river ; thence west to the source of that river; thence down the river on the north bank to its junction with Lake Mich- igan ; thence southward along the east bank of the lake to the mouth of the St. Joseph river ; thence up the river to the place of beginning."

In consideration of this cession, the United States agreed to pay to the Ottawa Indians one thousand dollars a year forever, in addition to one thousand five hundred dollars annually for fifteen years to support a teacher, a farmer and a blacksmith. The Pottawattomies were to be paid five thousand dollars annually for twenty years, besides one thousand dollars a year to support a teacher and a blacksmith. This treaty is of peculiar interest, as these provisions were among the first attempts made by the United States government to civilize the savages.

This treaty is the basis of all of the land titles of Kalamazoo county. The Kalamazoo res-

ervation was called in the treaty the Match-e-be- nash-e-wish reserve. In September, 1827, all of the Pottawattomie reservations mentioned in the Chicago treaty were exchanged for a con- solidated reservation called Nottawasepee, a por- tion lying in St. Joseph county and the rest in Kalamazoo. The Match-e-be-nash-e-wish land was by this exchange brought into white pos- session. The Nottawasepee Reservation included one hundred and fifteen sections, sixty sections of it lying in Kalamazoo county and including all of the township of Brady and a short strip two miles wide on the west side of Wakeshma, be- sides a strip two miles wide on the cast side of Schoolcraft township.

The township covering the site of Kalamazoo city was surveyed in 1827 by John Mullett and became township 2 in range 11 west. The reser- vation remaining was surveyed in June, 1829, by Orange Risdon. By a treaty made at a council held at the Indian reservation in St. Joseph county in September, 1833. the Pottawattomies, through the kindly influence of gifts from the whites of military trappings, baubles and inex- pensive trinkets of the value of ten thousand dollars, ceded all of the lands still held by them in the state to the United States. They were to retain peacable possession of these lands for two years when they were to remove to a new reser- vation selected for them west of the Mississippi river. They, however, manifested such reluct- ance at lcaving the state at the end of the two years that they were allowed to remain for five years longer, when the strong arm of the United States government forced them from their Mich- igan home and escorted them to their new land of freedom in the unknown West.

Their villages in this county were located on Gull prairie, on the site of Galesburg, on Prairie Ronde, in the town of Portage, at Kala- mazoo and at other places. The settlement at Kalamazoo was doubtless the largest and most prominent. Here the chief, who is variously spoken of as Saginaw and Noonday, held his residence, and at the advent of the whites sixteen diverging trails centered. Evidences of a large Indian population at this locality are plentifully supplied by the three burial grounds

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

which were found within the present city limits. Here was probably the best fishing grounds of the entire western portion of the Lower Peninsula, for the largest fish of Lake Michigan could come up from Kalamazoo river and here, during the springs and early summers of many successive years, a year's supply of fish was caught in a short time by a great number of people.

The Pottawattomies were by nature Indians of . peace with agricultural tastes. They cultivated extensive tracts of land and the "Indian fields" are said to have occupied hundreds of acres. Whether these fields were identical with the pre- historic gardens alluded to elsewhere we can not assert with any certainty. The menial work of the aborigines was done by the squaws. These Indians loved to cover themselves with gaudy blankets and to display gewgaws, medals and any thing. of a brilliant or a showy character. Their ponies they decorated in the same manner and these were highly valued and well cared for. Good at hunting and in the trailing game, the warriors were as brave on the warpath as they were peaceful at other times. James Fenimore Cooper laid the scene of his novel "Oak Open- ings" in the Kalamazoo valley. This indicates that he possessed a fine appreciation of the Indian character.

Indian manners and customs are graphically described in a letter received by Henry Bishop, of Kalamazoo. in 1880. A. H. Scott, the writer, was then a resident of St. Joseph and was probably as conversant with Indian life as any man in the county. It was published in the Kalamazoo Tele- graph of January 14, 1880, as follows: "I came to Kalamazoo county early in June. 1833, as a member of the family of James Smith, in company with his brother Addison. Hosea B. Huston and E. Lakin Brown carried on the merchandising business under the name of Smith, Huston & Company, and had two stores, one at Schoolcraft and the other at Kalamazoo (or rather at Bron- son, as it was then called). I soon picked up enough of the Indian language to enable me to trade with them. They then owned a reservation of land ten miles square, which took in the eastern part of Gourdneck prairie, and had a small village

or collection of wigwams in the grove just east of the prairie, on the farm now owned by James N. Neasmith, Esq. The wigwams were all built with a frame of poles, covered with elmbark, with the exception of the wigwam of the chief, Saginaw, which was built for him by his friends among the early white settlers, of logs and covered with oak shakes. You wish me to inform you how they received the first settler, how they lived and how much they mingled with and how they traded with the white men. First, I think, as a class, they re- ceived the early settlers very kindly, and were in- clined to live peacefully with them. Second ques- tion, How they lived. Deer were plenty in those days, and, as they were good hunters, they had no difficulty during the greater part of the year in supplying themselves with meat. They also used . the flesh of the raccoon, muskrats, etc., for food. Fish were plenty in the rivers and lakes. They understood how to catch them both with spear and hook. They raised corn on land that some of the early settlers plowed and fenced for them. In their season wild fruits, such as blueberries, blackberries, etc., were obtained by them for feed, and also to 'swap' with the white man for flour, salt, sugar, etc. Third question, How much they mingle with the white man? In our stores and the dwellings and cabins of their acquaintances they make themselves very much at home. The squaws and pappooses would come in crowds and sit down on the floor (never taking a chair) till they were so thick that you could hardly find a place to put your foot. They turned out en masse on all public days, and at horseraces and shows. They were greatly delighted with cir- cuses. Shooting matches and foot races they took great delight in. In answering the fourth ques- tion, How they traded with the white man, I an- swer that the trade with the Indian at that early day was mainly an exchange (or as they call it, 'swap') of their furs, venison, dressed deerskins, moccasins, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, etc., for flour, salt, tobacco, powder, lead, sugar and all the articles that the Indian used to clothe themselves. I never knew an Indian to offer to sell to white people any part of the carcass of a deer except the ham. The price for a ham of

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venison was always two shillings, no matter how white man could have shown more respect and po- liteness. If he wished for any credit at the store, he had it, and paid it promptly. Any Indian that he told us it was safe to trust was sure to pay us. He always told us never to trust his son, Cha- na-ba, who was a very worthless fellow. great or small it was. Whenever we sold a squaw any goods that had to be made up into any of their garments, a needle and thread for each gar- ment must be given. Only the goods for one gar- ment would be bought or swapped for at a time. It required a good knowledge of their ways and "In regard to the number of Indians that lived in Kalamazoo county and vicinity at that early much patience to be a successful dealer with the Indians. We frequently sold them goods on . date, I can not make any estimate that would be credit, and found them about the same kind of of value. They were continually coming and go- ing and scattered about in little squads. In re- gard to the effect it had on the character of the In- dian to closely associate with the white race, I have no doubt the effect was bad. He seems (as many writers have said) to take in all the vices of the white man and reject all his virtues. Whis- key, the great demoralizer of the white man, was and is the principal factor in the destruction of all that is good in the Indian character, when he comes in contact with the white race. paymasters as the ordinary white man ; some paid promptly, some after a long time, and some never paid. They would have been splendid customers if they had been blessed with plenty of money ; but they were poor and shiftless, and I may say with truth, a vagabond race, and consequently their trade was of no great value. They received an annual payment from the government, which was mainly in necessary goods for their use and comfort, and a small amount of silver money. The money was soon gone, and in most cases did them no good, but the goods furnished by the government was just what they needed, and added greatly to their comfort.

"In regard to the personal characteristics of any noted Indian, etc., I would say that the best specimen of an Indian that I ever saw in those early days was Sagamaw, the chief of all the Pottawattomies in and about Kalamazoo county. The name 'Noonday' was probably his popular appellation. He was a man of great good sense, of noble bearing, of great integrity, and in every way a dignified gentleman. He was called a great orator by his people. He was a true friend to the whites. I have heard him make speeches to his people, and, although I could not under- stand him, his manner and voice were very in- teresting, and the effect of his speech on his people was very great.

"Sagamaw was the only Indian that I ever saw who was polite and attentive to his squaw. When they came to the store at Schoolcraft to do their trading, he would help her off her pony, and when they were ready to return he would place his hand on the ground by the side of her pony, and she would place her foot in it, and he would lift her with apparently great ease into her saddle, and no

"The longer the Indians remained here among the whites the more worthless they became. Game became scarce, they were too indolent to work, and they became drunkards and beggars. The great end and aim of most of them was to get whiskey to get drunk with, and as it cost only twenty-five cents per gallon, they generally got all they wanted. When they purchased whiskey they usually announced that they were going to get 'squibby' (drunk). The quality of the whiskey sold to the Indians was very bad. hav- ing been watered and drugged for their especial use. I recollect, in 1833, that some Indians came to Schoolcraft from Kalamazoo and made bitter complaint to Addison Smith about H. B. Huston. They said that he put so much 'bish' (water) in his whiskey that it made them sick before they could get 'squibby' (drunk). As to myself, I sold no whiskey whatever to the Indians, except dur- ing the first two or three years after my arrival in Schoolcraft. What I have said about the In- dians has been mainly about those whose head- quarters were near Schoolcraft."

In November, 1840, the federal government took stern measures in the removal of the Potta- wattomies to the west of the Great Father of Waters. It sent soldiers to aid the Indian com-

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

missioner, Hon. H. M. Rice, who was later promi- nent in Minnesota. At the various Indian vil- lages camps were established and at each the troops conducted the regular western cowboy "round-up" operations to capture the Indians. The fated children of the forests and plains were dragged like the western steers into an enforced temporary captivity, all of their home ties being relentlessly severed. One writer states that Mr. Rice "performed his duties with fidelity and with utmost kindness."

The Indians did not resist, but the young men would break away from control whenever they could do so, and the squaws concealed themselves so adroitly that it required great skill and much time on the part of the soldiers to gather them in. Guarded by an armed escort, each company was brought to Kalamazoo, some Indians coming from St. Joseph and Hillsdale counties, and here they were joined by other parties brought from the North and West. Not alone the Pottawatto- mies, but the Ottawas felt in this manner the re- lentless hand of destiny in their complete sever- ance from the only home they ever possessed and held dear and the complete breaking of all of the tender ties of association, which the Indians in their silent, taciturn manner conceal so warmly under an exterior of stolidity.

Of the many Indian trails leading to and through Kalamazoo, the principal one was that which came to be known as the Washtenaw trail, which crossed the state from east to west nearly on the line of the Michigan Central Railroad. Along this trail were Indian villages at Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Gull Prairie, Kalama- zoo, Schoolcraft. South Haven and St. Joseph. At these places were important centers of savage population and the most of the inhabitants were Pottawattomies. These trails became the routes followed by the pioneer visitors and the first sur- veyors of roads found the routes of the trails, al- though winding and devious, the best adapted to the condition of the country, for they had been selected by the Indians, the acknowledged great- est masters of woodcraft.

Concerning the villages and early trading posts, Louis Campau, one of the most prominent

fur traders of the early days, wrote, "Before and at a short time after the war of 1812 there was a line of Indian villages from Ypsilanti to the mouth of the St. Joseph river, located as follows : At places where are now Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek, Gull Prairie, Kalamazoo, Prairie Ronde, South Bend and St. Joseph, all of the Pottawattomie tribe. There were trading posts at some of these places. At Ypsilanti, Mr. Schamber had a post; at Jackson, Mr. Bacrotiea ; at Kalamazoo, Mr. Numaiville; at Elkhart, Mr. Mordaunt ; at South Bend, Mr. Bertrand; Ben- nett & Brother were traders at Michigan City. When I passed through Kalamazoo, in 1827, there were but two log houses there (traders' cabins)." Following Numaiville at Kalamazoo, Rix Robinson was stationed in the employ of the American Fur Company. He was succeeded by Gurdon S. Hubbard who wrote to the State Pi- oneer Society in 1875: "I was then eighteen years old. This was my second charge of a post, following Rix Robinson, who was transferred to Grand River. Under me were five good men, one being Cosa, a pure-blooded Indian. We had strong opposition from traders at Bertrand and Coldwater. My trade was with the Pottawatto- mies and the Ottawas, and we were kept on the go all winter carrying our goods on our backs to the Indian hunting camps, returning laden with furs and peltries. The season was a success. I sold all my goods and got pay for say nineteen- twentieths. I left early in the spring, my boat heavily laden, entering Lake Michigan and reach- ing Mackinac early in May. In the fall I had buried in the sand at the mouth of the Kalamazoo river some very heavy articles because of the rap- ids. In March I took a large canoe and with one man went after them. We camped at the foot of the rapids in a snowstorm. In the morn- ing (still snowing) we with great effort poled up the rapids. We had reached the upper end, I being in the bow poling, my man seated using the paddle. A tree had fallen into the river. Pushing out to round it, the current being still strong, the bow struck it and my man being careless, the canoe would have upset if I had not jumped into the water. Telling my man to follow me down

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the rapids, I swam and reached my camping place in safety, though much exhausted." This was Mr. Hubbard's third year of service with the American Fur Company, of which the noted John Jacob Astor, of New York city, was the founder.

Mr. Robinson stated that the first trading-hut at Kalamazoo was on the north side of the river. and was erected in the fall of 1823, by an old Frenchman by the name of Numaiville, who traded there that fall and during the winter of 1824, and in the spring returned to Mackinac. "In the fall of 1824 I caused more substantial build- ings to be erected, and employed the same old man as clerk to trade for me for a number of years, my own trading-post being on the Grand river.

"This old Frenchman could not read or write a single word, but would keep the accounts by hieroglyphics or imitation-pictures, and rehearse them to me in the spring with almost exact ac- curacy in the name of the article or the price. I continued to occupy the place by different clerks until 1837, when I closed up my Indian trade. 1 generally visited the post once, and sometimes twice, during the winter, but never remained there more than a day or two at a time. I some- times kept men there to trade the whole year round, but generally only during the fall, winter and carly part of the spring. In the month of May we generally left in our Montreal barges for Mackinac, returning again in October."

This little trading post, built partly of logs and partly of bark, stood not far from the ferry within the enclosure and near the southwest cor- ner of Riverside cemetery. Mr. Robinson, after 1837, settled permanently in Ada. Kent county, where the principal one of his numerous trading posts was located, and became extremely promi- nent, serving very creditably as a member of the state legislature and as a useful member of the state senate in 1846, 1847. 1848 and 1849. His intelligence, the purity of his private life, which distinguished him above the ordinary class of "traders." gave him prominence when civiliza- tion became dominant in the West. With in- flexible integrity and untiring assiduity he nobly fulfilled every trust reposed in him, and died, as

he had lived, "without fear and without re- proach."

Beside Robinson and Hubbard there were other traders stationed at Kalamazoo, either as employes of these, or traders on their own ac- count. Among them were Recollet, Peter Co- teau, and one Leiphart. "Recollet had two daugh- ters who were the pride and idols of his heart. Year after year they unfolded new graces and new beauty, and made the wilderness a merry place with their ringing voices and laughter. Like the waters of the Ke-Kalamazoo they loved so much, the current of their lives flowed sweetly and smoothly on. Fearless as Indian braves, lithe and sinewy as the wild deer, tireless as eagles, and sure-footed as the scout, there was not a nook, hillside or streamlet for miles around which they did not explore ; not a spring, lake or meadow brook but returned their fresh mocking glances, laved their Camillan feet, or bubbled up fresh breakers to kiss their thirsty lips. But at last the time came when the father, who had long wrestled with the thought of separation, yielded to what he believed to be his duty, and determined that they should be educated and fitted for a bet- ter life-for he held 'the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.' He went with them to Montreal and placed them in a convent. They were permitted twice to revisit their old home, and finally, their education completed, they started once more homeward. But they were destined never to tread the old familiar hills. While on a brief visit to Mackinac they were both drowned, the boat in which they were enjoying an excur- sion being overturned by a sudden storm.

"When the sad tidings reached the aged father, he became like one who, by a sudden stroke, is deprived of all hope and comfort. He remained here but a little time afterward, and disappeared, none knew whither.

"The stock in trade of these frontier posts. brought from Detroit on packhorses through the wilderness which then covered the lower penin- sula, or in batteaux from Detroit and Mackinac, consisted of ammunition, tobacco, blankets, cloth- ing, beads, hats and caps, steel traps, spears, hooks, a small assortment of boots and shoes, and a generous supply of white men's fire-water."

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN

CHAPTER III.

INDIAN SUGAR MAKING.

Roswell Ransom, Cyrus Lovell and Ralph Tuttle, of Toland prairie, in the spring of 1832, visited the Indian "sugar-bush," some three miles southwest of Galesburg. Reaching the locality, they beheld an interesting scene. Here was a hive of busy workers, "Nitch-e-naw-bees," gath- ering sap from the trees and "toting" it to the camp. And they found the workers in this hive, like those of another, composed of the squaw- bees, while the males played the drones' part by idly looking on, which they seemed to enjoy hugely. Long poles, supported by stakes driven into the ground, held a number of iron kettles filled with sap, while a small fire was blazing un- der each kettle. From the boiling liquid columns of smoke arose in wreaths and ringlets that float- ed away among the treetops. The fresh sap, brought from the troughs under the trees, was poured into the first kettle, while the one next to it was filled up from the first and the third from the second, and so on to the last, which was . used for "sugaring off." In the second kettle our visitors noticed some strange objects bobbing up and down with the boiling sap. These they, on closer scrutiny, found to be chipmunks, squirrels and an occasional woodchuck. The squaws were cooking them for those lazy drones lounging about the camp, who were called their husbands. The dusky matrons, taking the cold sap in their mouths, would spurt it over ladies filled with hot sugar to cool it off, and then pre- sent it to their white visitors to eat. But they were ungallant enough to decline eating any of it.

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Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich., Part 3

Author: Fisher, David, 1827-; Little, Frank, 1823- Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago [Ill.] : A.W. Bowen & Co. Number of Pages: 598

Author: Fisher, David, 1827-; Little, Frank, 1823-
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago [Ill.] : A.W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 598