History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Edwin Orin Wood
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Federal publishingcompany
Number of Pages: 861

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GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE.

From the point to which we have now come, the autumn of 1916, it may be well to glance at the natural resources of the state, its industrial and commercial interests, its development of land and water transportation, its progress in education, and its social elements.

Above the rocks of the Michigan peninsulas lies one of the most fertile soils of the Union. It has furnished the backbone of industry in Michigan; as many persons are engaged in agriculture as in all other industries com- bined. The climate also is favorable for the growing of all crops profitable in any part of the United States, except cotton, sugar cane and rice. Wheat and corn have always been staple and reliable crops, but a striking charac- teristic of Michigan's agricultural products is their great variety. The latest to be cultivated extensively is the sugar beet.

In the earlier days of the lower peninsula one of the most prominent industries was lumbering. Practically the whole of the peninsula was cov- ered with dense forest. The removal of the forest went hand in hand with the advance of agriculture. Great quantities of pine were taken from the Saginaw country, beginning in earnest about 1860. It was estimated that in 1872 two and a half billion feet of pine lumber was sawed there by fifteen hundred saw-mills, employing twenty thousand persons and representing a capital of twenty-five million dollars. The entire amount cut in the state in 1883 was estimated at four billion feet. The industry still thrives on a large scale in the upper peninsula.

The lumber industry naturally gave rise to the manufacture of furni- ture. Grand Rapids and Detroit became world-renowned centers of furni- ture making. The manufacture of agricultural implements was a natural accompaniment of the clearing of the forests and the growth of agriculture. The same is true of the manufacture of vehicles. In Detroit, Flint and Lansing the manufacture of automobiles has grown to large proportions. Detroit, among other cities, is also the home of a large industry in stoves, ranges and furnaces and all varieties of heating devices. Other large De- troit industries are the manufacture of cigars and tobacco goods, boots and shoes, and drugs. Chemical laboratories have been an important item in the aggregate industries of the state. The cities along the shores of the Great Lakes have engaged largely in the fresh water fisheries, the most productive in the United States. Labor conditions in all these industries have been excellent in Michigan, evidence for which is the attitude of organized labor

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GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

and the absence of any strikes of consequence in any of them. The farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant and the laborers have recognized that labor disturbances are wasteful for all concerned and, by mutual concessions, all differences have been harmonized in the interest of the general progress.

The first minerals mined in Michigan were copper and iron. Actual operations in copper mining were begun in 1842, in the vicinity of Kewee- naw Point, by Boston capitalists. In 1866 the discovery of the Calumet and Hecla conglomerate lode marked a new era in copper mining. Until the development of copper mining in the Rocky Mountain states in the early eighties, the Michigan mines produced almost the whole domestic supply and nearly twenty per cent of the world's supply. In the production of iron, Michigan leads all the states, her principal iron districts being the Mar- quette, Menominee and Gogebic ranges in the Lake Superior region. The first ore was taken out in 1854 from Marquette district.

In 1835 coal mining in Michigan began at Jackson; but the extensive operations have been since 1860. Michigan coal has not been able to com- pete in price with the coal from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. About 1860 began the development of the salt industry. It has been mainly confined to the Saginaw country. Michigan is still a leading state in the production of salt. Another important mineral industry is the manufacture of Portland cement. It began in 1872, when a plant was built near Kala- mazoo. Upwards of a million barrels are now produced annually. The manufacture of land fertilizers from the gypsum deposits has become an important industry in several localities. The largest gypsum mills are at Grand Rapids, where the first was built in 1841. Clay for brick making has furnished material for about three hundred brick kilns in the state. Building materials abound in the fine sandstones, slates and other stones. Grindstone quarries have been opened in Huron county, and graphite mines · have been worked to some extent in Baraga county in the upper peninsula.

TRANSPORTATION.

The building of cars has from early days been an important industry in Michigan. Since 1852, when the Michigan Central railway was com- pleted between Detroit and Chicago, railroad building has developed rapidly. This was substantially aided by grants of land for the purpose, given to the state by the national government. The Michigan Central now has branches to all parts of the state feeding the great trunk line from every direction.

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GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the second earliest line, has likewise acquired numerous tributary lines. The Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwau- kee railroad, the Pere Marquette system, the Ann Arbor railroad, the Grand Rapids & Indiana, and the extensions of the Grand Trunk system of Can- ada, afford abundant means of trans-peninsular communication and trans- portation. Similar facilities are afforded in the upper peninsula by the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic, the Chicago & Northwestern, the Minne- apolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie, and numerous branch lines. The development of the automobile had its inception in Michigan, and in the marvelous advance made in the motor car industry Michigan stands first in number of cars manufactured and volume of business in that line. The motor car industry is third in money value in the United States, only steel and cotton exceeding it. Electric roads extend into nearly every section of lower Michigan and in addition to passengers, do a large freight and express business.

Water transportation, on the Great Lakes, has kept pace with the rail- roads and has given rise to the industry of ship-building. Michigan forests have furnished the finest ship timber in the world. In the days of wooden ships the principal centers of this industry were at Detroit, Bay City and points on the St. Clair river. With the coming of the steel ship, the works at these places were expanded to meet the demand and are now rivalled only by those near Cleveland. Of late years the growth in lake tonnage has been very rapid and the size and number of water craft have increased in proportion. Great leviathans carry coal, iron, copper and grain from the far end of Lake Superior to lower Lake Erie and to Chicago and Milwaukee, and smaller craft carry full loads into all harbors. Each year witnesses a substantial increase of investment in great plants to meet the demands of the Great Lakes carrying trade.

EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT.

With the material advancement of the state has gone hand in hand the expansion of Michigan's educational system. Rural schools, primary schools, grammar schools, high schools, academies, colleges and the State University -all have advanced together. Over the state are thousands of school dis- tricts, with a school population of near a million. In the cities, manual training has gained headway in recent years, and industrial schools, of the type of the Ferris Institute, have multiplied, where the talents and inclina- tions of boys and girls, in any given direction, are developed and that train- ing of hand and eye given, which in after life is useful in a thousand ways

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GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

regardless of vocation. These schools have a sociological as well as an edu- cational aspect, for through their training, genius may be discovered, to the manifest advantage of humanity. Another feature of recent progress is the kindergarten, starting the very youngest children along lines of health- ful instruction to education in the schools. Teachers' institutes mark a notable advance in improving the quality of the teaching force in all the schools, and the training of teachers in normal schools has enlisted the service of some of the best trained educators of the state. The oldest of the normal schools is that at Ypsilanti, opened in 1852. Others are the Cen- tral State Normal School, at Mount Pleasant; the Northern State Normal School, at Marquette, and the Western State Normal School, at Kalamazoo; in their names the word "College" has now been substituted for "School."

The crown of this system of schools is the University of Michigan. From the kindergarten to the university, the Michigan boy or girl will find the successive studies carefully graded to each stage of development and to the general needs of a great variety of vocational and cultural attain- ments. Since the Civil War the university has had three presidents, includ- ing Erastus O. Haven, who was president at the close of the war; the others have been, the well-beloved and late lamented Dr. James B. Angell, and the present incumbent, Dr. Harry B. Hutchins. Dr. Henry S. Frieze was act- ing-president for one year, between President Haven and President Angell. Doctor Angell served from 1871 to 1909, and during this long period under his wise guidance the university gained recognition world-wide as ranking among the first of the leading universities of the United States. In 1870 women were admitted on an equal basis with men, a courageous step, in view of the fact that no institution of similar rank had yet taken it. Women are now to be found in all its departments-in literature, science and the arts, engineering, medicine and surgery, law, pharmacy and dentistry. These departments are housed in over twenty-five principal buildings at Ann Arbor, on tracts of land containing over one hundred and fifty acres, valued at nearly six million dollars. During the current college year over seven thou- sand students have there received instruction. Since its organization over thirty thousand graduates have gone out from its walls into every leading profession, into public life, into educational work, and are to be found today in every state of the Union and in nearly every foreign country helping in every good work of the world.

Two other state colleges, each in its line doing a great work for the honor of Michigan, are the Agricultural College, at East Lansing, and the Mining College, at Houghton, in the upper peninsula. The former, estab-

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lished in 1857, and endowed by the national government with two hundred and forty thousand acres of public lands, is the oldest institution of its kind and standing in the United States. Besides being a professional school in the sciences upon which agriculture depends, it aims to prepare its students for the duties of social and civil life. In connection is an agricultural farm for purposes of experimentation. Women are now admitted to all its classes. Like the state university, it receives part of its financial support through the Legislature. The Michigan College of Mines is in the heart of the great "copper country" of Lake Superior. It was first opened in 1886. It is also supported by the state.

In addition to these state institutions of higher and special learning are the denominational colleges. Of these, the most important are at Albion, Olivet, Kalamazoo, Hillsdale, Holland, Detroit, Adrian, Alma and Battle Creek. Albion was founded by the Methodists in 1861 ; Olivet in 1859, by the Congregationalists; Kalamazoo in 1855, by the Baptists; Hillsdale was founded in 1855, and Hope College, at Holland, in 1866. The latter was contemplated from the establishment of the Dutch colony at Holland in 1847, and was preceded by the Holland Academy in 1851. Detroit University, organized in 1881, was established by Roman Catholics of the diocese of Detroit, and is in charge of the Jesuits, an order of the church devoted to education. Adrian College was founded in 1859. Alma College was founded by the Presbyterians in 1887. Battle Creek College was estab- lished in 1874 by the Seventh-Day Adventists. Besides these there are many denominational academies, seminaries and schools.

Michigan's unparalleled advantages for agriculture, her unequaled inducements to labor in a great variety of factories and mines, and her unex- celled system of common schools and higher education, have brought to her farms, cities and mines, a diverse population of all nationalities-Scotch, Irish, English, Dutch, German, Scandinavian, Hungarian, Polish and Italian -to make homes for themselves in her two peninsulas. At an early day the French came in from Canada and settled along the shore above and below Detroit and to the Mackinac country; and, later, the pine lumbering brought numbers of French-Canadians to Saginaw and farther north to the lands above the bay. Direct immigration from France has never occurred to any extent. During the period of the British occupation of the North- west, English settlers came in considerable numbers, mainly to the vicinity of Detroit, and also some persons of Scotch and Irish descent. The great immigration of the Irish came with the troubles in the homeland in the first half of the nineteenth century.

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CHAPTER II.

THE INDIANS OF GENESEE COUNTY.

It is unfortunate for the memory of any race to have its history written by its enemies. This is the sad fate of the Indians. Their place in history has been determined by those who belong to an alien and antagonistic people with whom relentless warfare was waged almost from the period of their first contact. The result of these wars was the defeat of the red man, the spoliation of his territory, and the loss of his pristine freedom and with these went all those virtues and peculiarly interesting habits of mind that characterized him in his native wilds. In writing the history of those ene- mies and so justify in the eyes of posterity his own conduct, there is a grievous temptation to the conqueror, who may have many acts of oppression to palliate, to exaggerate the offenses of his enemy, even to construe into offenses acts which were meant to be friendly.

The history of the Indian is at best fragmentary and often written to subserve some ulterior purpose; and, paradoxical as it may seem, in addition to the incertitude of the white man's incomplete and often prejudiced record, the information we get from the Indian about himself is often less reliable than that given us by the white man. This grows out of certain inherent ethical concepts of the Indian, coupled with an inability to understand the white man's motive, whose insatiable desire for knowledge is quite beyond the ken of the less tutored or rather differently tutored red man.

The Indian was taught from his childhood that curiosity was a vice leading to gossip, which soon developed into the detestable habit of mis- chief-making. There was not a more contemptible character, from the view point of the red man, than that of the mischief-maker, and any tend- ency toward idle curiosity which developed among the youth of the forest folk, and which naturally led to mischief-making, was sternly rebuked, not by any corporal chastisement, but by the sharp shafts of ridicule and scorn which seldom failed to correct the incipient habit. Had the Indian's feel- ing toward corporal punishment been different, the ducking-stool might have been invoked to put down the habit of gossip or mischief-making; but corp- oral punishment was so utterly irreconcilable with his conception of personal

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liberty, as to be inadmissible as a corrective. Among the Iroquois a visit to the offender by a delegation of the tribe each wearing a husk nose four or five inches long, suggesting that the wearer had to so elongate his natural nose in order to associate with one who had the habit of putting his nose into other folk's affairs, was generally a sufficient hint to correct the mis- chief-making propensities of the offender.

Such was the result of this trait of Indian character and his ideas of social ethics, that when a white man came among them asking questions as to the affairs of the red man, which from their angle could not in any con- ceivable manner concern the white man, he was placed in the category of the mischief-maker, and as such regarded as a legitimate butt for his ridi- cule. This found its exercise in some versatile Indian of imagination, who, with the air of a Roman senator and a face immobile and inexpressive of any humor, would improvise legends, folk lore, history, tradition, or what- ever seemed to appease the prurient desire of the white man; thus many a faked tale has come into the literature of the white man as veritable Indian lore.

We might also add to the difficulties above specified the contradictory accounts of various writers, who so much differ even in those matters that palpably came within their own observation and which were the very sub- ject matter of their investigation; these further impress one with the need of critical examination of all the records. A prominent example is the estimate of the Indian by the Recollects, who brand the red men as gross, stupid and rustic persons, incapable of thought or reflection, with less knowl- edge than the brutes, and utterly unworthy of any missionary effort for their redemption. Over against this opinion is the judgment of the Jesuits, who attribute to these same men good sense, tenacious memory, quick appre- hension, solid judgment, and add that they take pleasure in hearing the word of God.

By some whose observation has been obviously superficial, the Indian has been described as taciturn and stoical. Such a characterization is per- haps excusable in one who has seen the Indian in the presence of strangers, standing like a statue, immobile for hours, with no word but a grunted exclamation of negation or assent, betraying neither emotion not interest in his environment. But let the observer follow the apparently stolid Indian into his home, where he is unrestrained by the presence of strangers, and he would have found him the rustic humorist, rollicking, given to the exer- cise of practical joking, quick in repartee, ready to give and to take and

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with that philosophy that enables him to laugh at the joke upon himself, however rough, as heartily as when another is the victim. All of these suggestions would seem to emphasize the need of presenting, if possible, the Indian as he was, carefully eliminating those matters of incertitude, and attempting to present him as a man, a father, husband, to introduce him to his fellow men as a provider-so we may see him in his family; in fine, to accentuate the human interest element in writing this account of the forest men whom our early writers properly called "silviages," or forest folk, but whose epithet has been corrupted into "savages," even as our con- ception of them has been corrupted. As Genesee county has an Iroquois Indian name, sonorous and beautiful in its suggestiveness, so let us do, at least, justice to these men and women from whom we have adopted the name, for these people have a closer connection with the history of our locality than has generally been known.

In considering the Indians of this county and vicinage, it is plainly necessary to go beyond the narrow confines of our county and take a com- prehensive view of the Indians of Canada and the United States. It is quite obvious that the American Indians, or Amerinds, to use the new word coined by the ethnologists, with their inborn wanderlust and frequent enforced migrations resultant from the exigencies of their status and hostile environment, could not have any distinctive history in any locality, where they may have for a time lived, which would form anything like a com- pleted narrative, or have any particular historic value if treated without reference to antecedent conditions.

The discoverers of North America found north of Mexico a land whose extent baffled the imagination, whose inhabitants were so few that the greater portion of the country . was entirely unoccupied-so few that every conception of territorial dominion, possession or occupancy, based on European standards, is fallacious and misleading when applied to the new world. Here and there regions were held by some tribe or nation, under a title which the other tribes conceded, but it was all based on force, the good old rule of Rob Roy that they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can. Here and there were villages of a few families, located by some stream or lake, with an indefinite hinterland forming the hunting grounds of the people who wandered over them in summer and returned to winter in the village. The intertribal boundary lines were gen- erally the watersheds that separated one drainage basin from another.

A great portion of these Indians still depended on the chase and the

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spontaneous gifts of nature in the way of fruits, nuts and edible roots for sustenance, and these naturally had less claim on the soil of any region where they roamed; some, however, had developed a crude agriculture and, as tillers of the land, had a more ethical basis for their claims of ownership. Not only had they become more stable in their habitations, but, by reason of a more dependable supply of food, they had become more numerous and, what then, as now, is more important, more able to defend their claims regardless of any ethical basis or abstract right. It was the variant stand- ards of the whites and Indians as to land tenures that caused most of the wars, and it is to the credit of the whites that they generally recognized the claims of the Indians, however worthless from European standards, and extinguished the same by purchase, although it must be acknowledged that in the bargaining for such titles the Indians were often overreached by their better informed purchasers.

THE STORY OF AY-OUN-A-WA-TA.

Many, many years ago, as the Indians say to designate time long past, there was born among the people of the hills, Ono-nun-da, a boy who grew to manhood among the warriors of his tribe, but, unlike them, averse to war and oppressed by a consciousness of its wickedness and inutility. He saw around him the results of this wrong. He saw that his people were victims of the wrongs inflicted by other tribes and that in retaliation they gloried in returning wrong with wrong; that consequently they were feeble in numbers and slept insecure, for with the dawn might come a war cry of an enemy. The war lust had seized upon his people. He looked to the east and there saw the people of the stone, the O-ney-yote-car-ono, whom we call the Oneidas, and in them a people of the same language as his own, but they were his enemies; he looked farther toward the rising sun and there were the Ga-ne-gao-ono (Mohawks), also of his own language, but they, too, were enemies; when he looked toward the setting sun he beheld the men of the Gwe-no-cweh-ono, the Oneidas, of his own blood and lan- guage, and beyond them the Nun-da-wa-ono, the people of the big hill, and they, too, were of his own speech and blood, but all were enemies. It grieved him that he was to go out some day to kill these people whose father's' fathers had been his fathers' fathers, and who were his brothers.

He often sat with bowed head and brooded over these things that were in his mind, while other youths exercised with the bow and the club. The old men said of him that he would be greater than these warriors, for his

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words burned, and that it would come to pass that he would lead the men who make war, and they would follow.

And when it came for him to dream his dream, he went out into the deep forest and there he lay for days, fasting, and when he came to be like one dead, his dream came to him, and he saw a beautiful vision of a world at peace. After he saw the wonder river, the O-hee-o, and upon its bank grew the great trees and their branches hung over its waters, filled with fruits and nuts; and he saw the canoes on the river, those on the right side floating down stream, and on the left side, they floated up the stream, and the paddles were idle, for they needed no propulsion. And when the people in the canoes were hungry they held up their hands toward the trees, and the boughs bent down and gave their fruit into the hands of the hungry. And there were no thorns on the briers, nor on the trees, no beasts of prey, and no wrong, for such was the world before the pride and ambition of the Indian had challenged the power of Rawennyo, who made the world, and wars had not come, nor hunger and pestilence, to curse the people of the world.

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History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Edwin Orin Wood Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Federal publishingcompany Number of Pages: 861

Author: Edwin Orin Wood
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Federal publishingcompany
Number of Pages: 861