USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 14
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With Sandwich held by Colonels Cass and Ball, and Fort Shelby guarded by McArthur, Perry disembarked a considerable detachment from his fleet and joined Harrison. The entire command overtook Procter near Chatham, where Tecumseh vainly attempted to shame his commander into making a stand and giving battle in the open. But the "fat dog" weakened and continued to retreat. The savages held their ground for a time, sus- taining a heavy fire from the Americans, but finally fell back, overtaking Procter. On October 5th the battle of the Thames was fought, at a point between Chatham and the old Moravian settlement at Moraviantown. Colonel Johnson's cavalry outflanked the British regulars on the right, Procter's left being protected by the Thames. The British were
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thrown immediately into such confusion by the suddenness of the American onslaught that their commander left the field in flight before the whole of Harrison's army could be brought into action. Procter's front had been formed behind a strip of marsh and behind this the Indians continued to fight for some time after the English had asked for quarter. Tecumseh had entered this battle of the Thames fully convinced that he would not survive the action. He determined to disregard the movements of Procter, whom he held by this time in great contempt, and to stake all on the ability of his Indians to stand off Harri- son's columns. Forced to dismount because of the character of the field, Johnson's men swung into a charge against the savages, who held their fire until the Americans were close at hand. Governor Shelby was compelled to send the reserves to Johnson's assistance before the Indians could be dislodged. Tradition has it that Tecumseh was killed in the last stand of the Indians by a ball from Colonel Johnson's pistol, although the latter had been twice wounded in the desperate hand to hand fight on the edge of the marsh. The English his- torian, James, is authority for the statement that the Kentuckians scalped the Indian leader, actually flayed his body with their knives and converted parts of his skin into razor strops. Nearly seven hundred British soldiers were captured and a detachment under Colonel Payne was ordered in pursuit of the fleeing Procter, who had left the scene of battle in a wagon. The gallant Englishman was finally forced to leave the highway and seek cover in the woods, where he successfully secreted himself until after the departure of the Americans. He was later denounced by his superior officers for his rank cowardice.
Following his return from Chatham to Detroit and the dispatching of the English pris- oners to Ohio, Harrison proceeded to Buffalo, intending to join the American army on the Niagara frontier. A sufficient number of officers had been assigned to the army in the east, however, and Harrison was given permission to retire into Indiana. Brigadier General Cass was left in civil and military control at Detroit, with four regiments of regular infan- try, one company of artillery and a regiment of militia. Cass assumed command at Detroit, October 29, 1813, resigning his command in the army of the United States, but continuing as the military and civil head of Michigan Territory and "Upper Canada."
Though the victory at the Thames was decisive and though it resulted in the discour- agement of the assemblage of any material force of the enemy in the vicinity of Detroit, several small parties of British assembled on the Thames shortly after the withdrawal of the American troops from that territory. Cass' resources were such, however, as to preclude the possibility of any dangerous attack from this source.
Following the evacuation of the British, who had occupied Detroit a little more than one year, the inhabitants were practically destitute. Crops had been destroyed, houses had been plundered and almost all the available supplies had been confiscated. Cast off by the English, the Indians were in still sadder plight. Many were in a state bordering on starva- tion, a circumstance which induced detached parties to attack and rob isolated settlers. Several whites were killed, their buildings burned and their cattle stolen. As a result of these forays the local militia was assembled and severe punishment was ministered in sev- eral instances, the bulk of the hostile savages finally withdrawing either into Canada or into the vicinity about Saginaw bay.
Following the example of General Harrison, Cass sought to placate the unfriendly sav- ages by assuring them fair treatment at the hands of the whites. During the governor's temporary absences from Detroit, Colonel Butler of Kentucky and Lieutenant Colonel Croghan were left in command of the post. Butler led an unimportant expedition against the English to the eastward of Lake Erie and shortly after his return to Detroit left for
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his home. Lieutenant Colonel Croghan assumed the American command and on March 21, 1814, Fort Malden was evacuated by the American force, which had held the place since Procter's flight.
The British, under Colonel McDougall, still held Mackinac and the Lake Superior re- gion, and were reported to be fitting a naval force at Georgian Bay, preparatory to again contesting the supremacy of the lower lakes. For some time prior to the war of 1812, the English had also maintained a garrison at St. Joseph's island, between Mackinac island and the Sault. Captain Arthur St. Clair, who was in command of five vessels of the lake fleet, was joined by Croghan and a portion of the Detroit force in July, the resultant com- mand leaving Detroit during that month to attack the enemy in the north. Proceeding to St. Joseph's island, the Americans found the fort unoccupied. In the meantime McDoug- all, at Mackinac, had opportunity to strengthen his position and on the arrival of the Ameri- cans at the straits, was enabled to show a much superior force. A shore party was landed, however, which, with the support of the guns of the ships, engaged the English advance for- tifications in a hot encounter, finally dislodging the enemy. A detachment of hostile Indians harrassed the Americans from the cover of the woods and as the landing party were unable to reply from shelter, it was forced to retire, leaving several killed, among whom were Major Holmes, Captain Van Horn and Lieutenant Jackson. A second attack being deemed inexpedient, St. Clair withdrew his fleet with the exception of two ships, the Scorpion and Tigress, a council of officers having decided that an effective blockade would soon force the enemy to surrender their temporarily invulnerable position. Following the withdrawal of St. Clair, however, McDougall surprised one of the ships in a night attack from small boats and later succeeded in capturing her consort. , He held Mackinac until the fort was turned over to the American government under the terms of the treaty of Ghent which ter- minated the war.
Prior to and during July, both General Harrison and Governor Cass were engaged in the promotion of treaty agreements with the Indians of the northwest. Both followed a policy of purchasing lands from the savages and of recommending the strict observation on the parts of the settlers of Indian property rights except on the lands so purchased. On July 22d the second treaty of Greenville was concluded with the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Senecas and Miamis, General Harrison and Governor Cass acting as commis- sioners on behalf of the United States. Under this agreement these tribes engaged to assist the United States in war with the British and with the hostile tribes. Thus peace was tem- porarily restored in and about Detroit. Freedom, however, from Indian raids was short lived, repeated outbreaks occurring within the year.
The war in the east, along the Niagara frontier, was still being vigorously waged by both the British and Americans. Congress now adopted extreme measures to add to the efficiency of the army. General Wilkinson, in command in the east, had suffered defeat and a heavy loss in an expedition against the British at the Canadian river La Cole. Every available man was needed in this emergency to swell the command of General Izard, Wil- kinson's successor. General Brown, of the eastern army, advanced into Canada and Gov- ernor Cass sent from Detroit nearly all of the regulars comprising the garrison of the place. This encouraged the Indians in Michigan to further depredations. Ananias McMillan, a resident of Detroit, was shot from ambush, almost in sight of the fort, and other settlers suffered similar fates. With no regular soldiers at his disposal, Governor Cass called for volunteers whom he could lead against the savages. A considerable force responded, and so determined an advance was made that the savages who had fled to the woods for protection
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were overtaken and severely punished, many of their number falling before the muskets of the volunteers. A flag of truce was sent to the Americans and most of the hostile Indians withdrew to the Saginaw valley, leaving Detroit again safe from attack.
The war with England was ended by the treaty of Ghent, December, 1814. England hastened to sign this treaty because she needed all of her troops to defend herself in Europe. Shortly after the treaty Napoleon escaped from Elba and began gathering his troops to oppose the northern armies; he met them at the battle of Waterloo, in 1815.
CHAPTER XIII.
Readjustment of Affairs in Detroit Under Cass-Record Concerning General Lewis Cass- Dawn of Brighter Era in Detroit and Michigan Territory-New Order of Govern- ment-The Cass Code-First Newspaper Established-Birth of the University of Michigan-Liberal Appropriations and Subscriptions for the Support of the New Institution-Building of New Highways-First Steamboat Arrives in Detroit-En- largement of Michigan Territory-Development and Prosperity-Bank of Michigan Established-Bishop Flaget Visits Detroit-Cass Effects Further Indian Treaties- Expedition to Lake Superior District-General Cass Secures Treaty with the Chip- pewas-Governor's Expedition One of Great Value-Michigan Secures Federal Representation-Woodbridge Elected-Other Delegates From the Territory-A Remarkable Campaign-Father Richard, a Catholic Priest, Elected Michigan Dele- gate to Congress.
Though the war with England still retained the characteristics of a hot and somewhat doubtful contest in the east, Detroit, now that the Indians had been forced into submission, was enabled to concern itself with the readjustment of its own affairs. The community, long the victim of arrogant misgovernment and but recently relieved of the brunt of the burden of frontier warfare, had arrived at a crisis whose vital import was fully appreciated by one man. Fortunately for the town of Detroit and for the Territory of Michigan, that man was none other than the new governor, Lewis Cass. Though his motives in pressing so vigorously the charges brought against his predecessor have been severely impugned, his zeal for the public welfare and his untiring efforts to meet with precision and force the difficult governmental problems confronting the early days of his administration, have stamped him as a loyal citizen and a man of unquestionable merit and ability.
Of the forebears and early days of Lewis Cass, Andrew C. McLaughlin has written : One who examines the genealogical records of New England will observe that the name Cass appears not infrequently. One branch of the family is easily traceable to James Cass of Westerly, from whom seems to have come Joseph Cass, who was living in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1680. A son of Joseph who bore the national prænomen of Jonathan, was, in the latter half of the last century, a young man of vigor and promise in Exeter. At the outbreak of the Revolution Jonathan was an energetic young blacksmith, too full of life and eager restlessness to be wedded to the fiery joys of the forge, and too full of patriotism to await the second call to arms when the battle of Lexington proclaimed that war was
actually begun. * * In 1781 he married Mary Gilman, who belonged to a branch of the Gilman family which traces its ancestry back to Norfolk, England, where in 1558 were living the forefathers of those who in 1635 landed in Boston, and began life in the New World. In a house which stood on the east side of Cross street, now Cass street, Exeter, Lewis Cass was born October 9, 1782. Lewis was the eldest of six children, the youngest of whom was only eight years his junior. His boyhood fell in the uneasy, anxious times of the confederation. The air was full of political clamor, and electric with dreaded disas- ter. State selfishness and political greed were the accompaniments of personal selfishness. Avarice and dishonesty were the natural effects of a demoralizing war. In after years
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Lewis Cass looked back upon those boyhood years with a memory retentive of their deep impressions. If in later years he had a never failing love for the Union and the constitu- tion, he might trace it in part to the relief that came when the constitution was adopted, and the union was no longer a shadow. "You remember, young man," he said to James A. Garfield in 1861, "that the constitution did not take effect until nine states had ratified it. My native state was the ninth. It hung a long time in doubtful scale whether nine would agree; but when at last New Hampshire ratified the constitution, it was a day of great re- joicing. My mother held me, a little boy of six years, in her arms at the window, and pointed to me the bonfires that were blazing in the streets of Exeter, and told me that the people were celebrating the adoption of the constitution. And so I saw the constitution born."
It usually falls to the lot of the biographer to narrate at least a few instances of prophet- ic precocity. But none are to be told of Lewis Cass. It is clear that in early years he was fond of study, and evinced a capacity that encouraged his father to give him an education beyond the means, one would think, of the mechanic and soldier, who must have had some difficulty in making both ends meet. In 1792, when the boy was scarcely ten years old, he entered the academy of Exeter and came into the stimulating presence of Benjamin Ab- bott. The stern discipline and accurate scholarship of the principal had a moulding influ- ence on the minds of his pupils, and the years spent at the academy were important ones in the life of Cass. Meantime his father, who had been unsuccessfully presented to Wash- ington as a suitable marshal for the state, had accepted a commission in the army raised for the defense of the western frontier, and was with "Mad" Anthony Wayne in his cunning and vigorous campaign. Major Cass (the father) was left in command at Fort Hamilton (Cincinnati) and retained command until the treaty of Greenville. * A few months passed in teaching in an academy seem to have satisfied young Cass that the uneventful life of a schoolmaster was not to his liking. The Major had returned from the new west with glowing accounts of opportunities, and pedagogics were laid aside for the hardships and excitement of pioneering. The family slowly made their way into the Ohio valley. Lewis, with his bundle on his back, plodded over the mountains into the "Old Northwest."
Lewis Cass seems to have settled in Marietta in 1799 and to have begun there his study of the law, in the office of Mr. R. J. Meigs, who was afterward governor of the state of Ohio. Lewis spent a portion of his time on his father's farm in the wilderness. The set- tlers in the west of after years needed to tell him nothing. He knew their needs, he real- ized their capacities, he sympathized with their longings. All this appreciation of north- western characteristics moulded his career and increased his usefulness.
Cass came to Detroit as an officer in that army of Ohio volunteers which Hull led to the northwest from Dayton. He was thirty-one years old when he assumed the arduous duties of his new office as governor of Michigan Territory.
Under the peculiar circumstances of location and political environment, Detroit had never been considered, save for the fur trade, as a place of substantial business importance. Its strategic value alone had made the town the bone of contention first between the French and English and later between Great Britain and the newly established American con- federacy. But during the Cass administration dawned a broader and brighter era.
At the time the new governor assumed office, Michigan Territory was still struggling under the onus of those unprecedented laws enacted by the governor and judges subsequent to 1806. One of the first concerns of Governor Cass was to repeal the Woodward code and to establish a truly democratic form of governoment for Detroit. On October 24,
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1815, Judges Witherell and Griffin, acting in conjunction with Cass, adopted an enactment recreating the rule of the town trustees. The act provided that the highest municipal au- thority should be vested in the chairman of the trustees, to be chosen from its numbers by the board, instead of in the mayor. At the election of November 30, 1815, the town board was elected, Solomon Sibley being made chairman and Thomas Rowland secretary. This board held office until the election of its successors, which occurred on the first Mon- day in May, 1816. Following that date the town elections were held annually. The new town board was formally organized at a meeting held on December 4, 1815, at which time sixteen general regulations were adopted for the government of the community. The last vestige of the British regime was obliterated by the setting aside of the old English laws, some of which were still in force in Detroit. In their stead what was known as the Cass code was ratified and this superseded in their entirety, as well, whatever laws of the Northwest Territory had been applicable in Michigan.
But the planning of the readjustment of the laws of Michigan Territory was not the only problem arising to vex the administration during 1815-16. Aside from the settling of the Indian troubles, Cass, in order to maintain the dignity of his government, became in- volved in a sharp controversy with the British military authorities who sought, in more than one instance, opportunity for a breach of any good feeling that might otherwise have been possible. As late as 1816 the English openly violated American rights by stopping and searching, at various points on the Great Lakes, Detroit bound vessels. In addition to this, a series of letters in the archives of the state department at Lansing, attest a vigor- ous correspondence between Cass and Colonel James in command of the British forces, rela- tive to various troubles with the soldiers in Canada. Nine months after the close of the war a British lieutenant and boat's crew entered the United States in search of a deserter from one of the men of war. Several houses were entered and searched, much to the dis- comfort of their owners. Niles states that the party even policed a section of highway with sentinels and fired on American citizens. The invaders finally found and arrested the de- serter, but Mclaughlin writes: "Meanwhile the behavior of the party had so exasperated the citizens that they flew to arms and turned the tables on the intruders by arresting the lieutenant and conducting him with due pomp to the fort, while the boat's crew hurried their captive on board their vessel." Colonel Miller gave up jurisdiction in the matter to Governor Cass as the head of the civil authority. Commodore Owen demanded the return of the lieutenant. Cass answered at some length. With only a half starved territory at his back he knew how to resent contempt and neglect for well known principles of law. Instead of complying with the demand for the lieutenant, the man was imprisoned, tried, convicted and fined. The Washington government was then appealed to by the British, but the action of Cass was upheld.
Two of the most important events occurring in 1817 were the establishment of De- troit's first semi-permanent newspaper, the Gazette, and the birth of the University of Michigan. The first issue of the Gazette appeared July 25th, under the management of Shel- don and Reed. Its original home was in what was known as the old Seek house, in the vicinity of Wayne and Atwater streets. Governor Cass encouraged the new journal and was for many years its patron.
Sitting as a legislative body, the governor and judges passed, on August 26th of that year, an act which provided for an appropriation of three hundred and eighty dollars for the establishment of a university. So great was the zeal of the pioneers and so proud were they of this new institution, which was destined to rise and outstrip many of the older centers
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of learning in the east, that they were willing to make sacrifices that few can fully appre- ciate to-day. The act provided for an additional tax of fifteen per cent., and within twenty- nine days of the passage of the act, the corner stone of the university building was laid, the chosen site being on the west side of Bates street, midway between Larned and Congress streets. In addition to several succeeding appropriations for the support of the new insti- tution, individual subscriptions were made by many of the ambitious citizens of the time, and a portion of the relief funds sent to Detroit for the relief of the fire sufferers of 1805, which had never been distributed, was also added to the university fund. Under the original act, which was drawn up by Judge Woodward with all the flourishes of his grandiloquence, the university was to include thirteen professorships and was to be known as the "Cath- olepistemiad, or University of Michigania."
The youth of the territory were to receive instruction in universal science, to be taught by the president of the university; in "literature, embracing all the sciences relative to lan- guage;" in natural history, mathematics, chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, ethics, economics, medicine, military science, and in what was termed "intellectual science," which was to embrace the "sciences relative to the minds of animals, to the human mind, spiritual existence, to the Deity and to religion." Before the corner stone had been put into position, before even it had been cut, the thirteen professorships were divided between two men, the president and vice-president of the university, the Rev. John Montieth, the pastor of the protestant church, and the Rev. Gabriel Richard, Roman Catholic priest of the parish of Ste. Anne's, respectively. In 1818 what was known as the "Classical Academy" was established as a part of the university, in charge of H. M. Dickie, and in the summer of the same year James Connor, Oliver Williams and Benjamin Stead were appointed as directors of a "Lan- casterian" school, which opened under the tutelage of a Massachusetts man, Lemuel Shattuck. The original university act was superseded, April 30, 1821, by a subsequent act, under which the jurisdiction of the affairs of the university was placed in the hands of the governor of Michigan Territory and a body of twenty trustees. Many names prominent in the early annals of Michigan were associated with the university, which continued at Detroit, with varying fortunes, until its removal to Ann Arbor, its present location, by act of the state legislature, approved March 20, 1837.
Almost as important as the adjustment of the territory's internal civil affairs was the establishment of convenient transportation facilities between Detroit and the settlements in Ohio and Indiana. The only roads of consequence were those forced through the wilder- ness by the movement of troops and military supplies. The settlement of the territory by eastern immigrants was one of the governor's fondest ambitions, but this could not be real- ized as long as the territory was inaccessible. Before reliable communication could be es- tablished an extensive policy of road building was necessary, but this could not be carried on to advantage until the title to large tracts of land in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana could be legally wrested from the Indians. In 1816, Indiana Territory forced its way into the Union, the new state taking with it a portion of the southwest corner of Michigan. This spurred Michigan to action. The construction of roads was a necessity. Accordingly Duncan Mc- Arthur was appointed to co-operate with Cass in affecting additional treaties with the In- dians. In 1818 large portions of Ohio and Indiana were ceded by the Indians. In the same year Governor Cass impressed upon the federal government the importance of a road "around the end of Lake Erie, as a highway for commerce and an actual necessity for military movements in case of war." The struggling territory then made an appropriation for
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