USA > Michigan > Cass County > History of Cass county, Michigan > Part 7
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In the survey of the Territory, three lines were
31
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
run parallel with the base line, called "auxiliary " or plan was considered advantageous to the speculators, " correction lines." They are about sixty miles and on account of that fact and some others the sys- tem of public sales was finally abolished. apart and all north of the base line. Another pre- caution taken against errors was the establishment of " Guide Meridians," surveyed at convenient distances -usually forty-eight miles apart.
The lands of Cass County-Townships 5, 6, 7 and 8, south of the base line, in Ranges 13, 14, 15 and 16 west of the Principal Meridian-were surveyed in the years 1826 to 1830. Most of the boundary lines (township and range divisions), were surveyed by William Brookfield in 1827, and it is probable that he was responsible for the work done in all. The County Surveyor's book indicates, however, that the boundaries of Township 8 south, Range 13 west, were run by Robert Clark, Jr. The earliest date reported as that of the survey of any of the lands of Cass County is December, 1826. William Brookfield certifies that he finished running the boundaries of Township 7 south, Range 13 west, at that time. In the following year his company consisted of Orlean Putnam and Chester Ball, chainmen ; Nathan Young (after whom Young's Prairie was named), ax- man ; a packer, named Joel Wellman ; and Emory Stewart, who served in the capacity of cook. In 1828, Orlean Putnam's brother, Benjamin, took the place of Ball as chainman, a man named Bartlett was ax-man, and one George Claypole, cook. Of this company of surveyors, Orlean Putnam, of La Grange Township, is believed to be the only one still living. Brookfield died in Texas. Besides the surveyors mentioned, there were engaged in running the sub- divisions (section lines) in Cass County and adjoining. lands, John Mullett and Calvin Britain.
LAND SALES.
In 1818, there was brought into market the first public lands sold under United States governmental provision in Michigan .* A land office had been es- tablished in Detroit in 1804, and a few titles given, which, although they may not have been strictly legal, were confirmed by subsequent acts of Congress.
The lands sold in 1818 were all in the vicinity of Detroit. In 1823, the Detroit Land District was divided, and a land office established at Monroe, at which all entries of lands west of the principal merid- ian were made up to 1831. All lands were at first offered at public sale, and, after the bids were all in, the office was closed while they were being examined, causing a delay which greatly annoyed those pur- chasers who were or intended to become settlers. The
In 1831, a land office was opened at White Pigeon (St. Joseph County), for the entry of lands west of the principal meridian, and in 1834 it was removed to Kalamazoo (then called Bronson), where it was con- tinued until about 1858. Another office was estab- lished at Ionia, in 1838. The sales, while the office was at White Pigeon, were comparatively small. At Kalamazoo they were extensive, and reached the max. imum in 1836, when upward of $2,000,000 was re- ceived there. The amount of lands disposed of from 1831 to January, 1838, are shown in the subjoined table :
YEARS.
Acres.
Amt. Rec'd.
1831
93,179.93
$ 117,128 26
1832 ..
74,696.17
98,060 23
1833.
95.980.25
123,465 25
1834
128,244.47
160,321 85
1835
745,661.34
932,076 64
1836
1,634,511.82
2,048,866 87
1837.
313,855.15
394,316 77
The total amount of moneys received in the Kala- mazoo Land District from 1831 to 1858, was about $4,375,000, of which all but about $400,000 was re- ceived while the office was in Kalamazoo Village. The area of the district was 118 townships, which would have included, had all been full Congressional town- ships, 4,248 square miles, or 2,718,720 acres. The fractional townships along the Indiana line somewhat reduces these estimates. The entire counties of Cass, Berrien, St. Joseph, Branch, Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren, and all of the counties of Barry and Allegan, except the northern tier of townships in each, were included in this district. The Registers of the Kalamazoo Land Office were Maj. Abraham Edwards, from 1831 to 1849; T. S. At Lee, from 1849 to 1857, and Volney IIascall in the years 1857 and 1858.
When the lands were first offered for sale in 1818, the price per acre was fixed at $2, one-fourth of which was required to be paid down, and the remainder in three annual payments. The lands bought were sub- ject to forfeiture if the payments were not met. The Government, however, did not choose to take the im- provements of those settlers who were delinquent, and finally, about 1832, the credit system was abol- ished, and the price reduced to $1.25 per acre.
An unfavorable report made upon Michigan lands by a military board of survey, had a marked effect in retarding the settlement of the Territory. An act of Congress of May 6, 1812, authorized the survey of two million acres of land in Michigan (and the same amount in each of the Territories of Louisiana and Illinois), to be set apart for the payment of the bounty awards of the Revolutionary soldiers.
* The earliest legal conveyance of land in Michigan was in the time of the French eccupation, in the year 1707, by Antoine de la Motte Cadilac, the French commandant, to Francis Falfarde Delorme. In the American State papers (Public Lands), it is stated that but eight legal titles to lands in Michigan were given during the French and English cccupation.
32
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
The surveyors reported, after an examination of the eastern part of the State, that there were no lands there fit for cultivation, and that the character of the country appeared to grow worse toward the interior of the State. Congress assuming the re- port to be substantially correct, in April, 1816, passed an act repealing so much of the law of 1812 as per- tained to Michigan and ordering the location of a simi- lar quantity of lands in Missouri and Arkansas. The report and the consequent action of Congress deterred many people from seeking homes in the Territory, and it was not until after 1830 that the bad reputation of Michigan lands was removed by the representations of actual settlers and the tide of emigration which had been flowing to the farther West was turned. The report was not, however, without its good effect. Had it been favorable to the location of the soldiers' lands, the Territory would doubtless have been over- run with speculators and "land sharks," who would have bought up many of the warrants, and in that event great tracts of lands would have been held by non-residents.
Cass is one of the seven counties in the State in which there are no public lands for sale, the others being Hillsdale, Lenawee, Macomb, Shiawassee, Wash- tenaw and Wayne. This argues well for the quality of Cass County lands.
SCHOOL LANDS.
The ordinance of 1785, for the survey of the terri- tory of the United States, northwest of the River Ohio, provided that Section 16 of every township should be reserved for school purposes. One of the clauses in the famous ordinance of 1787 declared that "schools and the means of education shall ever be encouraged." The legislators of the old States laid well the foundations of the new. An act passed in 1804 providing for the sale of the lands in the Indiana Territory, from which was afterward carved the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, reiter- ated the principles laid down in former instruments, and expressly reserved the school sections from sale, and the action taken by the Territory of Michigan, when it was formed in 1805, was confirmatory. When the State government was formed in 1835, it was provided that Section 16 should be granted to the State for the use of schools. It had originally been designed to give each township the section within its own limits, but as it frequently was the case that the section was entirely worthless that plan would, had it been carried out, have resulted in an unjust distri- bution of benefit, which could only have been recti- fied through an immense deal of trouble by making grants in lieu, and it is doubtful indeed whether such
proceeding could be resorted to. As it is, all of the schools of the State have shared alike in the school fund. The number of acres. of school land in the State is not far from 1,000,000, of which over one- half has been sold. The fund derived from the sale is upward of $2,500,000, and, when all the lands are sold, it will probably reach $5,000,000.
INDIAN TREATIES.
We have intentionally left for the conclusion of this brief chapter a review of those measures by which the Indian title to the soil was extinguished, although some of them belong chronologically to a period earlier than topics already treated of.
The National Congress, for a few years, acted upon the policy that the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, had invested the United States with the fee simple of all the Indian lands ; but, about 1787, the Government came to regard the Indians as possessing a proprietary right in the soil, and all of its treaties with them subsequently were treaties of purchase, or treaties confirmatory of purchase. The various tribes were, of course, frequently forced to accept terms which they bitterly repented. Especially was this the case, when they came to realize how fast they were being dispossessed of their old domain, and pushed toward the far West by the provisions of the treaties which they had signed.
The first treaty which bore directly upon the abro- gation of aboriginal title to the soil, now included in the bounds of Michigan, was that which was concluded at Greenville, Ohio, on the 3d of August, 1795, in which the United States was represented by Gen, Anthony Wayne. Among the many Indian tribes. whose chiefs and head men were present and signed this treaty, were the Pottawatomies, Ottawas and Chip- pewas, who had their homes in Michigan. They were the tribes chiefly affected by the cession to the Govern- ment of a strip of land six miles wide, extending along the west bank of the Detroit River, from the River Raisin to Lake St. Clair, including, of course, the military post at Detroit. Appended to this treaty was the name of Thu-pe-ne-ba (Tofinabé), head chief of the Pottawatomies.
At the treaty of Detroit, negotiated in November, 1807, by Gov. William Hull, the Pottawatomie, Chip- pewa. Ottawa and Wyandot tribes ceded to the United States their claim to a region which may be best described as including the whole southeastern part of Michigan, all east of the line on which the principal meridian was afterward established, and south of the present center of Shiawassee County.
Instead of enforcing the forfeiture of their lands, of which it was considered the Pottawatomies, Ottawas
33
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
and Chippewas were deserving, because of their alliance with the British during the war of 1812, the Govern- ment adopted a friendly and conciliatory policy toward them. At the treaty of Springwells (near Detroit), negotiated by Gen. William Henry Harrison, Gen." f Duncan McArthur and John Graham, Esq., all of the possessions, rights and privileges which these tribes enjoyed before the war, were restored to them.
An immense tract of Michigan territory was ceded to the United States at the treaty of Saginaw, con- cluded September 24, 1819. This treaty was brought about through the instrumentality of Gov. Cass, ex officio Indian Commissioner. The ceded land was a tract which extended from the boundary line of 1807 as far westward as the center of Kalamazoo County, and northward to Thunder Bay River. The cession was made by the Chippewas and Ottawas, the Potta- watomies making no claim to the territory.
The Chicago treaty of 1821 was the one at which the lands now contained in Cass County were ceded. It was negotiated upon the 29th of August, at Fort Dearborn, by Gov. Cass and Solomon Sibley, with the Pottawatomies, Chippewas and Ottawas, the first named being the tribe principally interested. and the others signing the instrument as auxiliaries or friends. The boundary line of the ceded territory was described as follows :
" Beginning at the south bank of the St. Joseph River of Michigan, near Parc aux Vaches (the cow pasture), thence south to a line running due east from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan ; thence along that line to the tract ceded by the treaty of Fert Meigs, in 1817, 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; thence northward along that tract to a point due east of the source of Grand River; thence west to the source of that river ; thence down that river on the north bank to its junction with Lake Michigan ; thence south ward along the east bank of the lake to the St. Joseph River ; and thence up that river to the place of beginning.'
This tract contained nearly eight thousand square miles, and embraced the whole of the counties of Cass, St. Joseph, Branch, Hillsdale, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Van Buren, Allegan, Barry and Eaton, large portions of Berrien and Ottawa, and parts of Kent, Ionia, Jackson and Ingham. From these lands, five small tracts were reserved. At least three-fourths of the tract belonged to the Pottawatomies, and the United States, in consideration of their cession, agreed to pay the tribe yearly, for twenty years, the sum of $5,000 in specie, and to make for them an annual appropriation of $1,000 for fifteen years, for the sup- port of a blacksmith and a teacher.
Upon the 19th of September, 1827, a treaty was held at the Carey Mission, by Gov. Cass, the object of which was to gain the cession of a number of small Indian reservations "in order to consolidate some of the dispersed lands of the Pottawatomie tribe in the Ter- ritory of Michigan, at a point removed from the road leading from Detroit to Chicago, and as far as prac- ticable from the settlements of the whites."
A second treaty was held at Carey Mission by Cass and Pierre Menard on the 20th of September, 1828, at which the chiefs and head men of the Pottawatomies ceded all of their remaining lands in Michigan (they had already been confined to the region west of the St. Joseph), except a tract estimated to contain forty- nine square miles, upon which their principal villages were situated. This unceded tract extended from the St. Joseph River, opposite Niles, to the South line of Berrien County.
Five years later, this last foothold of the tribe, in Michigan, was signed away, and the chiefs of the St. Joseph band of the Pottawatomies agreed that they and their people would remove from the country in 1836. This, the last cession of Indian title to the soil of Southwestern Michigan, was made at the second treaty of Chicago, signed September 26, 1833, and negotiated on the part of the government by George B. Porter, Thomas J. V. Owen and William Weatherford.
CHAPTER VI.
THE POTTAWATOMIE INDIANS.
They Succeed the Mlamis in the Occupation of the St. Joseph Country -Hostilities in which they were Engaged-The Chicago Massacre -Customs of the l'ottawatomies-A Festival and Medicine Dance Described by the Rev. Isaac McCoy-Bertrand's Story of Sangana's Dream-Modes of Burial-Religious Ceremonies-Evidences that Cannibalism was Practiced by the Pottawatomies and Other Tribes-Deplorable Effects of Ardent Spirits-Seasons of Extreme Destitution.
A S has been shown in a previous chapter, the Miamis were the occupants of the St. Joseph country when it was first penetrated by white men- by the French explorers and missionaries in the seventeenth century. They were succeeded by the Pottawatomies, who remained in possession until crowded out by the irresistible stream of emigration. The time when they entered this region is not definitely known, but it was probably very early in the eighteenth century, and as they were not removed until 1840, their residence here extended through a period of more than a century and a quarter.
The Pottawatomies were a fragment of the great Algonquin® subdivision of the Indian race, which included nearly all of the Northwestern tribes. They were cousins-german of the Ottawas and the Ojibways
34
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY. MICHIGAN.
(more commonly known as the Chippewas), and were leagued with them for a long period in a confedera- tion.
The earliest authentic information which the whites received concerning this tribe was given by the French Catholic missionaries, Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jouges, who found many of its members as well as the Ojibways in the country around the Sault Ste. Marie. The seat of their greatest population at this time, however, was doubtless in the vicinity of Green Bay, and upon the islands at its opening into Lake Michigan. The tribe was certainly settled on Green Bay and the northwest shore of Lake Michigan in 1669, when the mission of St. Francis Xavier was founded by Dablon and Allouez. At the great coun- cil, held at the Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, when all of the Indians of the Northwest were formally declared under the protection of France, the Pottawatomies were represented by a very large delegation. They welcomed Marquette and Joliet when they were striv- ing to reach the Mississippi in 1673; many of them accompanied the former to the country of the Illinois in the succeeding year, and they greeted La Salle in 1679, when his unfortunate little vessel, the Griffin, sailed into Green Bay. They were the steadfast friends not only of La Salle, but of Hennepin, Tonti and other explorers.
One of the Catholic Fathers-Marest-alludes in a letter written in 1706 to the formation of an alliance between the Pottawatomies and Ottawas against the Miamis, and it is probable that at this time was begun the movement which resulted in the displacement of the latter tribe and the occupation of their country by the Pottawatomies. The migration once begun, was carried on slowly until almost the entire tribe had removed from the northwestern to the southeastern shore of the lake. Their territory extended to the head-waters of the St. Joseph, the Kalamazoo and Grand Rivers. Upon the north their neighbors were the Ottawas ; still farther to the northward were the Ojibways. The three nations occupied, or called theirs, nearly the whole of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.
The Pottawatomies at the time Pontiac organized his great confederation, placed themselves under his command, and took a prominent part in the war against the English. In 1764, at the council held by Col. Bradstreet, at Detroit, they transferred their allegiance from the French to the English. During the Revolution, and afterward. until Wayne's signal victory over the united tribes in 1794, they served the interests of the British, and were almost constantly waging war against the border settlements, either in Virginia, Kentucky or Ohio.
At Wayne's treaty held in 1795, at Greenville, Ohio (commonly called the Treaty of Greenville), this tribe, like the other important ones, received $1,000 and the promise of a small annuity. This was chiefly in consideration of the cession to the United States of a six-mile tract at Chicago, which was within the bounds of the territory the Pottawat- omies claimed to own. In 1807, at a treaty made with Gov. Hull, they ceded their interest in lands lying in the Southeastern part of the Territory of Michigan, and in 1808 surrendered the claim which they assumed to certain lands along the south shore of Lake Erie.
The famous Shawanese chieftain Tecumseh visited the Pottawatomies in the autumn of 1810, to induce them to enter a league with the other Western tribes, for the purpose of driving the whites from the coun- try. He was successful in his mission, for a large number of the St. Joseph band, with Topinabe at their head, and some members of the tribe from the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, in all about three hundred warriors, promised to enter the confed- eracy. In the following year, they were present and engaged fiercely in the battle of Tippecanoe, fought on the 7th of November-a sharp engagement in which Gen. Harrison's force of about seven hundred soldiers were opposed by upward of one thousand Indians. The whites finally repulsed the Shawanese and Pottawatomies, and they fled in all directions. The Pottawatomies returned to their villages on the St. Joseph after this defeat, and from that time until the Chicago massacre upon the 15th of August, 1812, their history exhibits no remarkable exploit.
THE MASSACRE AT CHICAGO.
Allusion has already been made to a tract of land six miles square ceded to the United States by the Pottawatomies at the treaty of Greenville. Upon this land, where the city of Chicago now is, was per- petrated the greatest atrocity upon the whites of which the tribe was ever guilty. To the credit of the St. Joseph band of Pottawatomies, be it said that only a small number of their warriors were engaged in the wholesale murder and that Topinabe, Winne- mac (or Winneneg) and other chiefs made strenuous endeavors to avert it.
At the breaking-out of the war of 1812, Fort Dearborn (which had been built in 1804), and named after Gen. Henry Dearborn, at one time Commander- in-Chief of the United States Army), was garrisoned by about seventy-five soldiers under Capt. Heald. The same dispatch, from Gen. Hull at Detroit, which announced the declaration of war, contained instruc- tions that Fort Dearborn should be evacuated, and
35
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
that Capt. Heald's force should march to Fort Wayne the action already taken had rendered that plan or Detroit. The bearer of the dispatch, the friendly absolutely impossible, and there was nothing before the garrison but the course on which Heald had stub- bornly insisted. Seeing no alternative, Capt. Wells did what he could to hasten the departure. A second council was held on the afternoon of the 14th, at which the Indians expressed great indignation at the destruction of the whisky. The ammunition had been withheld from them and thrown down in an old well. "Murmurs and threats were heard from every quarter." Pottawatomie, Winnemac, finding the country be- tween Detroit and Fort Dearborn swarming with hostile savages, labored strongly to dissuade thie com- mandant from carrying out the order of his superior. He argued that a retreat would be extremely danger- ous, but that if made at all, it should be done at once, and that the goods in the fort should be left undis- turbed, in order that the Indians, while plundering them, might allow the fugitives a better start in their flight. Mr. Kinzie, the post trader, gave advice simi- lar to that of Winnemac, but Capt. Heald paid no attention to his counsel, or to that of the subordinate officers.
The Indians had, as soon as war was declared, at- tached themselves to the British, thinking that they saw an opportunity to drive the whites beyond the Ohio. Every day they had become more bitter in their hatred of the Americans. Before Capt. Heald had finished his preparations for evacuating the fort the Pottawatomies in the vicinity, were aroused to the highest pitch of war feeling. Those who were friendly to the trader Kinzie and a few other inmates of the fort, were unable, as it proved, to restrain the greater number, who thirsted for blood. Upon the 12th of August, Capt. Heald met the Indians in council, telling them that it was' his intention to dis- tribute among them all the goods in the storehouse with the provisions and ammunition, and requested the Pottawatomies to furnish him an escort to Fort Wayne, promising them a liberal reward on their ar- rival there, in addition to the presents which he would give them before setting out. They were profuse in their professions of friendship, and assented to all that was proposed. Mr. Kinzie endeavored to make the commander realize the danger of the course which he proposed to pursue, but in vain. Capt. Wells, a brave man, who had had much experience with the Indians, arrived at the fort on the 14th, escorted by fifteen friendly Miamis, with whom he had made a forced march from Fort Wayne. He had heard of Gen. Hull's order for the evacuation of the fort, and foresaw the danger to which its occupants must be ex- posed. Mrs. Heald was his sister, and it was doubt- less the hope of saving her life, which had led him forward on his perilous journey. When he arrived, the goods had been distributed to the Indians, though the whisky, of which there had been a large quan- tity in Mr. Kinzie's possession, was withheld, and subsequently poured into the river, and this fact com- ing to the knowledge of the Indians, had greatly enraged them. It had been Capt. Wells' intention to dissuade the commander from leaving the fort, but
Preparations were made for the evacuation and march. The reserved ammunition, twenty-five rounds to a man, was distributed, the baggage-wagons and wagons for the sick, the women and children were got in readiness.
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