USA > Michigan > Cass County > History of Cass county, Michigan > Part 11
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50
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
mind; and lastly, if he ever did draw a bead upon him across his rifle, a moment after there was one Pottawatomie chieftain less in Michigan."
As a rule the Indians in Cass County were very respectful to the whites and seldom made any trouble. Among themselves they had many difficulties and sev- eral murders were committed. The white settlers paid little or no attention to these crimes, and the Indians themselves allowed them to pass unpunished. Shortly before the Pottawatomies were removed to the West, a murder occurred in Pokagon Township (on Section 19), Schotaria, a " medicine man," killing his squaw. The body of the dead woman was taken on a pony to Bertrand, on the St. Joseph River, and there interred in the Catholic burying-ground. About the same time a murder was committed in Howard Township, on the road that led from Summerville to Niles. An Indian, named Wassatto, slew his brother- in-law, Mashkuk, in a peculiarly brutal manner. The only cause known for either of these murders was the drunkenness of their perpetrators.
The Indians came very near murdering a white man soon after the first settlement of the county. John Baldwin, who lived in what is now Porter Township, and after whom Baldwin's Prairie was named, was assaulted in his cabin by a party of Indians who claimed to have been cheated by him in a bargain. They came to his cabin in the night, gave him a terrible pounding with clubs, jumped upon him, and when there was no longer any indica- tion of life in his bruised and motionless body, left, uttering the most exultant yells. A son of Baldwin's, a young man, mounting a horse, galloped to White Pigeon and summoned a doctor, having first found that his father's life was not quite extinct, and with careful medical treatment Baldwin was restored. He subsequently recovered from the Indian agent nearly $3,000 damages, which was deducted from the annuities of the offenders. It was asserted that the cause of the Indians' grievance was that they had received in payment for some oxen they had sold Baldwin a quantity of whisky which was so diluted with water as to render it entirely useless for the pur- pose of producing the intoxication they had fondly anticipated.
REMOVAL OF THE INDIANS.
By the Chicago treaty of 1821, the Pottawatomies had ceded to the United States their right and claim to all of the territory lying west and north of the St. Joseph River. Still further cessions were made by the treaty of 1828, all of the possessions of the tribe within the Territory of Michigan being at that time transferred to the Government, with the exception of a reservation of forty-nine square miles in Berrien
County, west of the St. Joseph, and bordered by it. On this tribal reservation were the chief villages of the Pottawatomies, and the larger part of their popu- lation. Their last foothold was destined soon to be taken from them. On September 26, 1833, at Chi- cago, they ceded this reservation, and at the same time agreed to remove from the lands they occupied. The articles of the treaty were signed by George B. Porter, Thomas J. V. Owen and William Weatherford, Commissioners for the United States, and by Topina- be,* Pokagon, Weesaw, and forty-five other chiefs and head men of the Pottawatomies. The ceded land is described in the treaty as " the tract of land on the St. Joseph River, opposite the town of Niles, and extending to the line of the State of Indiana, on which the villages of To-pe-ne-bee and Pokagon are situated, supposed to contain about forty-nine sec- tions."
The clause stipulating the removal of the Indi- ans was the third supplementary article which read as follows : "All the Indians residing on the said reserva - tions (there were soine other than the tract above described, smaller and farther east, but none of them in Cass County), shall remove therefrom within three years from this date, during which time they shall not be disturbed in their possession, nor in hunting upon the lands as heretofore. In the meantime, no inter- ruption shall be offered to the survey and sale of the same by the United States. In case, however, the said Indians shall sooner remove, the Government may take immediate possession thereof."
Pokagon and some of the members of his band who were present at the treaty, refused to sign the instru- ment until they had received guarantees that they should be exempted from the obligation to remove.
The Pottawatomies had no right to occupy the lands now included in Cass County after 1821. In 1833, as we have seen, they were nominally restricted to the reservation west of the St. Joseph, but until their de- parture from the region, they roamed freely over the adjacent country, and, indeed had a scattered popula- tion in the territory now within this county. They evinced considerable of an attachment for certain localities, and visited them from year to vear, or in small bands held them continuously, until absolutely crowded out, not by the provisions of treaties, but by the actual settlement of the superior race.
The time when the reservation was to be relinquished, September, 1836, arrived and passed, and the Potta- watomies still clung tenaciously to the little fraction of their ancient domain. A considerable number had scattered through the surrounding country-through
* As explained elsewhere in this chapter, the Topinabé who signed this treaty could not have been the original chief of that name.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
all the counties of Southwestern Michigan-and were living in a state of semi-civilization, upon tracts of land not entered or occupied by the white settlers. Pokagon, in pursuance of his plan of remaining in the country, began to enter land as early as 1835, taking up a small tract in Silver Creek Township. In 1836, he bought still more, and in 1837 added to his possessions enough to make the total nearly a thou- sand acres.
No definite action tending toward the removal of the Indians was taken until two years after the expira- tion of their privilege, and then, in the autumn of 1838, Government took steps for carrying out the provisions of the treaty of 1833. The preliminary to this removal, or more properly expulsion, was a gathering of the Indians near Niles for a " talk." Long before the period had expired, during which they had been permitted to remain, the Indians had repented their acquiescence to the treaty, and now at the meeting many of them pleaded most earnestly and touchingly that they might be suffered to remain in the land of their fathers. But the great father to whom they addressed their prayers was inexorable. In other words, the Government agents, Messrs. Godfroy and Kercheval, were not to be moved, and peremp- torily insisted that they must be ready upon a certain day to begin their westward journey. The agents endeavored to bring together the scattered bands, but were not entirely successful. Many were determined not to leave the country, and fled to localities remote from the surveillance of the Government's representa- tives ; some took refuge with the Ottawas in the Grand River region, and not a few hid in the forest near their homes. Some were assisted in secreting them- selves by the white settlers, who felt sympathy for them. Upon the day appointed for the exodus, it is probable that about two-thirds of the St. Joseph Pot- tawatomies rendezvoused at Niles, and under the escort of two companies of United States troops, detailed for the purpose by Gen. Brady, moved out on the Chicago road, destined for the land beyond the Father of Waters. It was a sorrowful and dejected body of human beings, this remnant of the once powerful tribe, which slowly and wearily wended its way from Michi- gan to Kansas, and their departure was no doubt witnessed with sincere regret by many who reflected upon their situation, and realized what their feelings must be. During the journey some escaped, and returned to the St. Joseph country, and in 1839 these, with most of those who had avoided removal in the preceding year, were collected by Alexis Coquil- lard, and under his charge taken to their brethren in Kansas. The old trader, Bertrand, accompanied those who were removed in 1838,
After the departure of the other Indians, Pokagon and his little band of Roman Catholics moved into the lands they had bought in Silver Creek Township. The old chief was thus near one of his old dwelling places-the prairie named after him. Although the lands in Silver Creek, amounting to about a thousand acres, were entered in Pokagon's name, most of the other Indians in his band had contributed funds for the purchase, and the chief made deeds to each for tracts proportionate in size to the amount of individual investment. Pokagon exerted a benign influence over his fellows, setting them a good example in temper- ance and morality. He was a zealous Catholic, and in 1839-40 built the first church in Silver Creek-a substantial log structure, which John G. A. Barney and other white settlers helped him to raise. The good old chief was sadly victimized by the priest in charge of this church, when approaching his death. The holy father induced Pokagon when he was very sick, in the autunm of 1839, to give him a deed for forty acres of land as the price for receiving absolu- tion. The deed proved to be for six hundred and seventy-four acres instead of forty. It was received for record by Joseph Harper at 6 o'clock A. M., upon the 10th of August, 1840, the day being Mon- day. The priest came to Cassopolis in great haste on Sunday and urged that the document be immedi- ately filed, but the Register compelled him to wait until the next day. Pokagon had died upon the Saturday succeeding, and the news of his demise was first brought to the county seat by the priest. The deed transferred two tracts of land ; one consisting of four hundred and seventy-four acres, and the other of two hundred, from Leopold Pokagon and his wife, Ketesse, to Stanislaus A. Bernier, providing for a small reservation upon which Ketesse Pokagon and her four children should be allowed to live. Very soon after the deed was recorded, Bernier deeded the property to Celestine Guynemir de la ITislander, from whom it was subsequently recovered by the rightful heirs through a verdict of the Court of Chancery which sat at Kalamazoo, it being proved that the original deed was procured through fraud.
The descendants of Pokagon and the other Potta- watomies of his band nearly all live in Silver Creek and number not more than seventy-five persons. The whole number of the tribe in Michigan does not ex- ceed two hundred and fifty. They are distributed in the Counties of Cass, Calhoun, St. Joseph, Berrien and Van Buren, and until his death in February, 1882, their chief was Augustine Topash, who lived in Silver Creek, near the suburbs of Dowagiac.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CAREY MISSION.
Its Establishment near the Site of Niles in 1822-Its Effect on the Set- tlement of Cass and Berrien Counties-The Rev. Isaac McCoy- Trials of the Missionaries-Scarcity of Food-Successfulness of the School-How Regarded by the Pottawatomies-Necessity for Re- moval-Crowded Out by the Whites-Improvements at Carey Ap- praised, in 1830, at over $5,000.
A N interesting book might be written on religious zeal as a factor in the development of new countries. We have had occasion, in this volume, to remark upon the holy aspirations and ambitions which led the French Roman Catholics to penetrate the Western wilderness two centuries ago, and now we call the attention of the reader to the history of the Baptist Mission among the Pottawatomies, founded just west of the site of Niles in 1822, which very mate- rially affected the settlement of Southwestern Mich- igan. It was, indeed, the Mecca toward which jour- neyed nearly all the pioneers who located in the western portion of Cass and the eastern portion of Berrien County. No sooner had the fact become generally known that Isaac McCoy had pushed for- ward into the Indian country and there established a religious mission and a school than many adventurous spirits in Ohio and Indiana prepared to follow in his footsteps, and the surrounding country was speedily settled.
The man* who, under the auspices of the Baptist Mis- sionary Association, of Washington, founded the Carey Mission(so-called after a celebrated pioneer missionary in Hindostan), was in many respects a remarkable man, and his services in the cause of Baptist missions among the Indians, extending through a long period, were very valuable. His labors were not confined to the propagation of Christianity among the Indians, but he materially advanced the temporal condition of several tribes, and assisted in bringing about some of the most salutary measures of national legislation upon the Indian question that were ever enacted.
Mr. McCoy's first mission school among the Indi- ans was established in 1804, near Vincennes, Ind. In 1820, he removed to Fort Wayne, and from there to the St. Joseph River. It was in May, 1822, that the missionary made his first visit to the scene of his fut- ure labors. "On the 16th," he writes, " we reached the French trading-house (Bertrand's) at Parc-aux- Vaches (the cow pasture), by traveling through the rain. I was sorry to hear that many of the chiefs, whom I wished to see in reference to our settlement in that country, had gone to Lake Michigan to engage in a drunken frolic, a trader having arrived in that
locality with a quantity of whisky." The effect of this discouraging circumstance, however, was in a large measure counteracted by the utterances of those mem- bers of the tribe whom McCoy did see, and who, he says "appeared delighted with the prospect of our settling near them, and by many rude expressions of friendship, welcomed me to their country."
On the 9th of October, Mr. McCoy, with Mr. Jack- son and his family, four hired men and a number of Indian boys, old enough to make themselves useful --- in all twenty persons-set off from Fort Wayne for the purpose of erecting buildings at the site chosen for the new mission. On arriving there after a jour- ney full of privation, they immediately began cutting down trees, chopping out logs and preparing them to be laid up in house walls, Mr. McCoy himself taking an active part in the work, although he was still suf- fering from the effects of a serious fever. About the middle of November, leaving his men to finish the work, he set out for Fort Wayne and arrived there after a three days' ride, wet, cold, almost famished with hunger, weary and sick. There were many preparations to be made before the final removal to Carey could be accomplished, and the little company was not in readiness for the journey until the 9th of December, 1822, on the morning of which day they started from Fort Wayne into the woods destined for their new home. Mr. McCoy says in his History of Baptist Indian Missions :* "Our company con- sisted of thirty-two persons, viz .. Seven of my own family, Mr. Dusenberry (a teacher), six work hands and eighteen of the Indian part of our family. The health of many was by no means firm. One of our children was still unwell with its late sickness. Wc had three wagons drawn by oxen and one by horses, fifty hogs and five cows. On account of the ice, we found much difficulty in crossing the St. Mary's River, and were able to make only about three miles of our journey the first day. The. snow was about three inches deep, which we raked away with hoes, until we found earth to make our beds upon, and where we could kindle a fire. On the 10th, traveling was extremely difficult on account of snow and ice and many deep quagmires, in a flat, wet country. I lent my horse to enable some hands to go back after cattle that had escaped on the preceding night, and being compelled now to go on foot, became greatly fatigued and not a little indisposed. I took a hand and went ahead, and had a fire burning by the time the company came up at dark." Slowly and tediously the missionaries and their company made their way through the woods, fording streams, crossing swamps and encamping at night after the wearisome march
* The Rev. Isaic MeDoy was born Juge 13, 1788, near Uniontown, Penn .; removed, with his parents, to Jefferson County, Ky , in 1794; was married to Christiana Polke in October, 1803, and licensed to preach In March, 1804, when hie immediately began his services among the Indians. He died at Louisville, Ky., in 1846.
* Published in 1840; now very rare.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
of the day in the most sheltered spots they could find. Various circumstances conspired to delay their pro- gress. Their cattle strayed away and they had to search for them many hours at a time ; their wagons broke down and it was necessary to mend them before the company could proceed. The weather was dis- agreeable and dreary; the journey full of vexation and discomfort and peril. On the 12th, they passed an encampment of Miamis who resided in the Potta- watomie country and with whom Mr. McCoy says he " had previously little acquaintance." Mr. McCoy had by exposure contracted a serious cold, and on the 13th he was so ill that he could not ride on horse- back and was compelled to get into a wagon. On the 14th, the company, after traveling all day through the falling snow, reached the bank of the Elkhart River, where they encamped and butchered a hog, which furnished them with supper and breakfast. On the following day, great difficulty was experienced in crossing the river, the ice having to be first cut away. On the morning of the 16th, McCoy left the camp early and went on before the rest of the company to the St. Joseph River, ten miles, to examine a crossing. On returning, he found that the company had not left camp on account of fifteen oxen having gone astray. By night they were recovered. On the morning of the 17th, McCoy, though quite sick, took two men with him ahead of the company and made a large fire on each side of the St. Joseph, by which the men might warm themselves occasionally while the work of getting their wagons and stock across the icy stream was going on. All got through safely but with much discomfort. " On the morning of the 18th," says the missionary, "our oxen were almost worn down and the company all ex- ceedingly anxious to terminate the journey. We there- fore made a vigorous effort to reach Bertrand's trading- house, which we accomplished at dark. Here we found a shelter from the cold and freezing rain which had been falling on us half the day." On the follow- ing day, which was the eleventh of their journey, they reached the mission, which was six miles from Bert- rand's. They forded the river, says the late Judge Bacon, where is now the foot of Main street in Niles, " crossing it diagonally, and landing near the rear of the garden of Mr. Colby .. In an hour thereafter, they reached their home in the woods."* They found their cabins unfinished, but they afforded a shelter so much superior to what they had experienced on the road that, in the language of the patient pioneer of Christianity, they " were not inclined to complain."
Mr. McCoy notes in his book that upon the 1st of
January, they invited Topinabe and Chebass, “prin- cipal chiefs and some others, to partake of a frugal meal with us, some attention having generally been paid to the 25th of December and the 1st of January, by white men among them, most of whom have been French Catholics, from whom the natives derived a knowledge of these holidays." The Indians fully appreciated the treatment they received from the mis- sionaries, upon this and other occasions, and one of them said privately to the interpreter, that " they could not think there were any more such good people among the whites."
The experience of the people at Carey, during the first winter they spent there, was very severe. The earth was covered with snow from the time they reached the station until the 20th of March, and it was generally from ten to fifteen inches deep. The weather continued cold, and the houses being unfin- ished, were very uncomfortable. For the comfort of fifty people, there were but four fires, and one of them a kitchen fire. "Out of doors, business went on slowly, on account of the severity of the weather," says the historian, and he adds, " our religious services ap- peared to be attended with cold hearts as well as cold feet.""
Added to their other troubles during the winter of 1822-23, was the scarcity of food. The teams which they had dispatched to Ohio for a supply of flour soon after they arrived at Carey, and which they sup- posed would return within a month, were delayed, and from the middle of January until the 13th of February, when they finally did arrive, there was actual suffering for want of sufficient provisions. A few extracts from the mission journals show with painful plainness the situation of these isolated pioneers :
" February 1st .- Having eaten up our corn, and having only flour enough for one meal, we sent five of our stoutest Indian boys five miles to an Indian trader, and borrowed a barrel of flour and a bushel of corn. Our teams were absent and the boys carried it home on their backs. The flour was damaged ; nevertheless it was very acceptable to us."
" February 7 .- Ate our last meal of bread for break- fast, which was so scarce that we had to divide it carefully, that every one might have a little. We had saved a few pounds of flour for the small children, whose necessities were increased by"the want of the valuable article of milk. Sent out an Indian to en- deavor to buy corn, who returned with about six quarts, which was all he could get. We sent an In- dian and a white man to Fort Wayne to see what was detaining our wagons ; and should they not meet the teams on this side, they are directed to hire horses and fetch flour to us."
* Judge Bacon, In an address before the Old Settlers' Society, at Niles, in 1869. The address was published In the Niles Republican of April 22, of that year.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
"February 8 .- Breakfasted upon the corn we had procured the preceding day. Blessed be God, we have not yet suffered for want of food, because corn is an excellent substitute for bread. But having now eaten our last corn, we cannot avoid feeling some un- easiness about the next meal."
Regardless of the deep snow, and of his poor health, McCoy now set forth attended by an Indian, in quest of corn. His thought was to procure some from the Indians in the neighboring villages, who had small quantities buried in caches, but scarcely as much as they would themselves need. The missionary says : "My own anxieties were very great. I could not contemplate the destitute condition of so many persons, among whom were my wife and my children, when the probabilities of extreme suffering, not to say perishing, were thickening around us, withont feelings which can better be imagined than described."
He was slowly working his way through the track- less waste of snow when he met . Bertrand, the trader. The old Frenchman told McCoy that it was extremely improbable that the Indians were at their villages, and that in their absence it would be impossible on account of the snow to discover the caches, but, said he generously, "I got some corn. some flour; I give you half. Suppose you die, I die too." McCoy returned with his horse heavily loaded with corn and flour, anticipating as he laboriously made his way homeward, the joy that his success would cause at the mission. Arriving there, he was not a little astonished to find his people regaling themselves with a substan- tial meal of sweet corn. He had scarcely ridden out of sight of the mission in the morning when an aged Pottawatomie woman, a widow, their nearest neighbor, who herself had nothing on which to live except a limited supply of corn and beans, appeared at the house with a sufficient supply of sweet corn to make a liberal meal for the entire "family." "Thus," says the pious missionary, in chronicling an account of the day, "thus we had scarcely eaten our last meal, when God sent us another." On the same day, four other Pottawatomie women, whom the kind widow had told of the condition of want at the mission, came in, bear- ing upon their backs about three bushels of potatoes. On the 10th of February, two Indians brought a bushel of corn each, and two traders, who had received news of the scarcity, came into the mission a distance of fifteen miles, bringing "half of a pittance of flour they had." These instances of the kindness of human nature would bear chronicling in letters of gold.
But now that one immediate peril was escaped, another arose. McCoy, whose system had been severely worn by labor and exposure, privation and anxiety, became very sick with a fever, suffered much
physical pain, and for a time lay in delerium. His life was despaired of, but, after a number of days of extreme illness, he began to improve upon the 20th of February.
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