History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 18

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

USA > Michigan > Genesee County > History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 18

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Reservations numbers two, three, four, five and six, which were reserved for the following persons, "all Indian by descent," respectively, Metawan- ene, Annoketoqua, Sagosequa, Nondasheman and Messaw-wakut, were the subject of litigation. The names Metawanene, Nondasheman and Messaw- wakut are masculine, and the names Sagooequa and Annoketoqua are feminine names, so it might very reasonably be assumed that numbers two, five and six were for males and numbers three and four for females. At

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least to the lay mind, to use the language of a Connecticut judge, "in the absence of judicial construction the writing would be held to mean what it says." In the case of these reservations, unfortunately, litigation arose, leading to judicial construction, with the following results :

Jacob Smith, the trader, who had so actively aided Cass in bringing about the treaty of Saginaw, soon after the treaty built a log storehouse for his trade. The site of this trading post was in the fifth ward near the corner of Lyon street and First avenue, and not far from the present situation of the office of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company. Smith had been here at the Grand Traverse of the Flint for some years previously to the treaty. In 1806 his home was in Detroit at the corner of Woodward avenue and Woodbridge street, and his white family continued to live in Detroit until after his death. He, like other traders, doubtless had his trading post at the most convenient place for communication with the Indians with whom he traded-that is, on the Flint river where the grand trail crossed it. His residence there can only be regarded as temporary, governed by the exig- encies of his traffic with the Indians. He had during his stay there formed a strong friendship with the chief Neome, who lived at the Mus-cat-a-wing, or the Grand Traverse of the Flint, in the early years of the nineteenth century, but who had moved down the river to "Neome's town," in the present town of Montrose, some time before the treaty of 1819. The usual reference made by writers of local history to Smith's settlement at Flint, places the date immediately after the treaty. The fact is that he had a trading post there before that date, probably as early as 1810, and that he never settled there in the sense of becoming a permanent resident. He kept his family in Detroit and sojourned on the Flint for the purpose of traffic with the Indians; in 1819, he built a log trading store, of a more substantial character than his previous store of which we have no record except the deduction that during several years trading he must have had some place suitable for his business. His log store was built before the reservations there were surveyed, and when surveyed, the one numbered two, for Meta- wanene, included the site of his building. His store was built at the fork of the trail where the grand trail from Detroit after its Grand Traverse of the Flint separated into two trails, one going down the right bank of the river to Saginaw and the other following the more direct route north to Mt. Morris, Pine Run, Birch Run and Saginaw. It was a central point and especially favorable for trade with the surrounding Indians. There Smith continued to remain and trade with the Indians, his family being in Detroit. In 1822 his mother and sister were with him, for a time at least. He con-

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tinued to have friendly relations with Ne-o-me and the Indians generally. At the time Smith built his log house in 1819, another trader, a Frenchman by the name of Baptiste Cochios was also located there in trade. The friendly relations between him and Smith continued until Smith's death. An Indian boy, An-ne-me-kins, called "Jack" by the whites, also lived with Smith a considerable part of the time. Ephraim S. Williams, of Flint, whose knowledge of the matter makes his statement of high authority, says : "He [Smith] lived there [at Flint] during the trading season, making occa- sional visits to his family in Detroit. In 1825 he died, from neglect as much as from disease, at his trading post, after a lingering and pitiable sickness. A good-hearted Frenchman, by the name of Baptiste Cochios, who was with him upon the trading ground in 1819 and was himself an Indian trader, having his posts upon the Flint and on the Saginaw, per- formed for the brave but unfortunate man the last sad rites of humanity. An Indian lad who had lived with Smith for several years and who attended him in his sickness, was the only household mourner-a few Indians gath- ered in mournful groups about the grave as the remains of the unfortunate man were committed to the earth. Ne-o-me was there, his trusty and reli- able friend, mute with grief. With that feeling of gratitude which belongs to the Indian character, and which takes rank as a cardinal virtue in their untutored minds, the Indians proved true and faithful throughout his sick- ness to the last. The brave, warm-hearted, generous Indian trader, Jacob Smith, the earliest white pioneer upon the Saginaw and the Flint, lingered and died in a sad condition and, but for the good Cochios and his Indian assistants, would have gone to his grave uncoffined. Within a few days after his decease, his son-in-law, C. S. Paine, came from Detroit to the trad- ing house, which had so recently been the scene of such long, unrelieved suffering, and gathered up most carefully and carried away the few poor remnants of the earthly store left by the noble-hearted Indian trader. Sa-gos- e-wa-qua, the daughter of Ne-o-me, in recounting this history, expressed herself with a sententious brevity peculiar to the Indian, which is worth recording ; it points to a moral if it does not adorn a tale: 'When Wah- be-sins [Smith] sick, nobody come; him sicker and sicker, nobody come. Wah-be-sins die, little tinker come and take all him blankets, all him cattle, all him things.' Neome soon followed his friend Wah-be-sins, to the spirit- land. He died in 1827, at the tribal home, a few miles above Saginaw city, faithfully attended through a long and severe sickness by his children and relatives, enthroned in patriarchal simplicity in the hearts of his people, beloved and mourned."

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At the time of his death Smith had a family in Detroit, consisting of a son, Albert J. Smith, and four daughters, Harriet M. Smith, Caroline Smith, Louise L. Smith and Maria G. Smith. Soon after the death of Smith, Major Garland, the husband of one of these daughters, took posses- sion of the place where Smith had had his post, and made claim in behalf of the heirs to the title of the five reservations from 2 to 6 inclusive, his claim being that the Indian names of the persons for whom these reservations were made were the names of these children of the trader; that Metawanene, the owner of the second reserve, did not mean the grandson of chief Neome, an "Indian by descent," but it meant Albert J. Smith, the white son of Jacob Smith the trader; that Annoketoqua did not mean the daughter of Ne-o-me by that name, an Indian by descent, but it meant the daughter of Smith, of Detroit, a white woman; that Sagosaqua, the daughter of Ne-o-me, an Indian by descent, was not intended as the beneficiary of reserve number four, but that the real Sagosaqua was another white daughter of the trader in Detroit; that Nondasheman, a man's name, did not mean any man at all, but it meant the white daughter of Smith at Detroit; the sixth reserve, for Messaw-wakut, a male Indian by descent, also meant another white daughter of Smith. It was claimed that the Indians who had visited Detroit had given these names to the children. Such occurrences were not uncommon, but this casual use of such names by individual members of a tribe was not equivalent to adoption, which was a matter of ceremony and an act of the tribe. Only formal adoption by act of the tribe in its collective capacity could give any tribal rights and, in the language of the whites, such adopted member probably could not be called an "Indian by descent."

The great demand for lands in the vicinity beginning in the early thirties gave the five square miles involved a prospective value to which the claim- ants were fully alive. In 1839, Albert J. Smith came on and took actual possession of the lands in question for himself as reserve in number two, and for his three sisters then living and for the heirs of the one who had died. They claimed, and asserted, ownership of the same, and at the next session of congress they brought the matter before that body, asking its authority for grants of the five reserves to the children of Smith. Their claim was based upon the services of the trader at the treaty of Saginaw, the successful termination of the same being attributed largely to these services. The following is an excerpt from their petition to congress:

"Although the reservations intended for your memorialists under the treaty of Saginaw have been partially occupied under them, and always known and acknowledged as being intended for them, yet they never have

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received or obtained such a title from government as would authorize them to sell or convey any portion of the said lands, in consequence of their hav- ing been embraced-unintentionally, as your memorialists believe-among the number of reservations intended for persons being 'Indians by descent'; owing to which the general land office has not felt authorized to issue pat- ents for the said land in the name of your memorialists."

The claimants had, in January, 1835, procured a certificate signed by ten of the one hundred and fourteen Indian signers of the treaty. Of the obtaining of this certificate Ephraim S. Williams, of Flint, gives the fol- lowing account :

"This document being an important one, it is given here entire. With- out it the heirs of Smith could never have obtained titles to their lands, for the government had refused for years to grant them; and many, even members of Congress, in those days doubted the right of Congress to pass an act to set aside the treaty of 1819 and grant these lands to others than persons of Indian descent. Many persons have thought that Congress might as well pass an act to grant one man's farm to another. All those acts were a violation of the granted rights of the treaty of 1819.

"STATEMENT.

"The subscribers, chiefs and head men of the Chippewa nations and subscribers of the treaty of Saginaw, do hereby certify that the five reservations at and near the Grand Traverse of the Flint river, made by the treaty of 1819, were made and intended for the five following named persons, viz: Metawanene, alias Albert J. Smith ; Messaw-wakut (a man's name), alias Harriet M. Smith; Sagosaqua, alias Caroline Smith : Annokitoqua, alias Louisa I. Smith ; Nondasho-man (man's name), alias Maria G. Smith (each six hundred and forty acres) ; known to us and distinguished by the aforesaid names, as the children of the late Jacob Smith; and further certify that the aforesaid donations to the children aforesaid were made in consideration of services rendered by said Jacob Smith (deceased) to the Chippewa nation, and the friendly intercourse that subsisted between the parties for many years. We further certify that Metawanene, alias Albert J. Smith, now present at the execution of this certificate, is the son of Jacob Smith, deceased, and we recognize him as one of the four children to whom the before mentioned donations were made and intended.

"Signed.

THOMAS SIMPSON, E. S. WILLIAMS, G. D. WILLIAMS, CHAS. H. RODD, Witnesses present.

"Saginaw, January 22, 1835.

O-GE-WAW-KE-KE-TO,

NONONIPENASEE,

W ARBETOUNCE, SARWARBON, CHUNETOSH, SHANOE, WASHWIN,

KAWGATEGO, WAYSHONONO, MOMEMEG,

Totems.

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"Territory of Michigan,

"Oakland County,

"Personally appeared before me the subscriber, a justice of the peace within and for the county of Oakland, Ephraim S. Williams, Esquire, who being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith that he was present at the execution of the within certificate and saw the within named chiefs and head men make their marks to the said certificate. Deponent further saith that the subscribers, chiefs, and head inen as aforesaid, reside in the vicinity of Saginaw, Oakland County, Territory of Michigan. Deponent further saith that the contents of the certificate aforesaid were by him fully explained and were cheerfully assented to by the aforesaid chiefs and head men.

"(Signed ) E. S. WILLIAMS. "Signed and subscribed before me this twenty-second day of January, 1835. "THOMAS SIMPSON."

"This statement of the Chippewa chiefs was made at a council that had been called for the purpose at the place and date mentioned, chiefly through the influence and instrumentality of the brothers, G. D. and E. S. Williams, who were then traders at Saginaw."

The council was attended by Albert J. Smith and Col. T. B. W. Stockton, representating the Smith heirs. At the first meeting the "chief speaker," O-ge-maw-ka-ke-to, spoke, claiming that the reserves were made for Indians by descent and not for the white children of the trader. At the second meeting after "certain influences brought to bear upon the chiefs," to quote from William's account, the chief speaker and the other nine chiefs signed the certificate. Similar certificates were procured from other signers of the treaties, one at Big Rock village on the Shiawassee, one at Flint River, and another at Grand Saline. We again quote Ephraim Williams, who had probably as great knowledge of these transactions as any disinterested witness :

"All the above documents were laid before Congress in support of the petition of the Smith claimants; also a memorial from persons residing at Flint and vicinity. Here follow the names of fifty persons, not one in twenty of whom knew anything of the treaty besides what they had heard talked by others.

"How inconsistent and ridiculous to suppose for a moment that Jacob Smith would have done so inconsistent a thing as to have presented, at the treaty of 1819, the names of three Indians for the names of three of his daughters as given in the treaty; not at all probable. I knew Mr. Smith and I never believed he did any such thing.

"The result of the laying of all these things before Congress was the passage of an act, 'To authorize the President of the United States to cause

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to be issued to Albert J. Smith and others, patents for certain reservations of land in Michigan Territory.'

"In accordance with the provisions of this act, five patents were issued June 2, 1836.

"This was, at that time, considered a final settlement of the question of title to those reservations, but it was not very long before the opinion began to be entertained by some (an opinion that was afterwards sustained by the courts) that these patents did not and could not convey a title as against any person or persons who could prove themselves to be the right- ful reservees in the true intent and meaning of the treaty. It would seem that the proofs adduced by the Smith heirs had been ample for the estab- lishment of their claims, but there were still doubts whether they could hold under the article of the treaty which provided that the lands granted should be for the use of persons of Indian descent only.

"About this time it was discovered that a young Chippewa whose name was Jack, and who had been brought up and protected by Jacob Smith, claimed to be the real Metawanene, and consequently, the owner of the reservation numbered two on the land plat, and that some Indian women made the same claim to sections that had been patented to the daughters of Jacob Smith.

"In March, 1841, the Indian claimant to reservation numbered two deeded this tract to Gardner D. Williams, of Saginaw, who, in June, 1845, conveyed one moiety of the same to Daniel D. Dewey, of Genesee, and by these persons a suit was commenced in the circuit court for the establish- ment of the claim of the true Metawanene and the possession of the lands.

"After many years of delay, this cause came to a final trial in 1856, at the March term, held by Judge Sanford M. Green, in the city of Flint. Plaintiff, Messrs. Williams and Dewey; defendant, Chauncey S. Payne."

"Albert J. Smith had, in 1836, deeded to Mr. Payne an undivided three- fourths, and to T. B. W. Stockton, an undivided one-fourth of the reserva- tion. In 1840 Mr. Stockton conveyed his interest to Mr. Payne, who thus became the sole owner. Attorneys for the plaintiffs were Hon. Moses Wis- ner and James C. Blades ; for the defendants, Messrs, E. C. and C. I. Walker, of Detroit, John Moore, of Saginaw city, and Charles P. Avery, of Flint, which last named gentleman had then recently purchased an undivided half of Mr. Payne's interest in the property thus becoming equally interested with him in the result of the suit. Many witnesses, both white and Indian, were produced on both sides and, after an expensive and lengthy trial, it was decided in favor of the defendant, thus deciding a case which during years

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of litigation had caused much excitement and some bitter feeling, and which is a matter of general historic interest in the annals of the county of Genesee.

"The trial of a similar suit, involving the title to reservations numbers three and four, was also had before Judge Green, at Flint, in the December term in the same year, resulting, as in the case of section two, adversely to the Indian title. The suit was brought in the names of two of the Indian women before mentioned, who claimed to be the real Annoketoqua and Sagosequa, and consequently owners of the tracts that had been patented respectively to Louisa L. Smith and the heirs of Caroline Smith, deceased. For the plaintiff there appeared several Indians who were, or claimed to have been, at the treaty of 1819, and whose testimony was given to show that the reservations were not intended for the children of Jacob Smith, but for the daughters of Ne-o-me, and that the Indian claimants in this case were the daughters of that chief. There were other claims made, under the treaty, to those reservations, by persons of Indian descent, but they were defeated by the claims and influence of the white Smith children and the treaty set aside and violated.

"The violation of sacred treaties by the government, made with the Indians, has been one great cause of so much trouble with the western tribes of Indians, I think."

The above resume of the litigation over the five reserves by Mr. Will- iams seems very just in its conclusions. That the Indians, in parting with their title to their lands, reluctantly giving to the whites, whom they hated, the territories that had been their homes, should in making reserves from the grant consider the children of any white man in preference to their own children is quite unbelievable, and the final determination of the claim to these reservations adversely to the Indians must stand as an example of fraud, legalized by the white man's courts, and a justification of the distrust that the Indians have of the white man's justice.

From the contents of a letter written by General Cass in 1831, it would be implied that Smith had a flock of half-breed children, as well as a legiti- mate family at Detroit; from this letter it would appear that the provision as to reserving the lands for Indians by descent was inserted in the treaty to prevent the fraud afterwards legalized by Congress and the courts, which Cass had reason to believe Smith anticipated. The letter is as follows:

Detroit, June 22, 1831.

I have been requested to state the facts connected with the reservation of eleven sections of land at Flint river, made under the treaty of Saginaw, so far as respects

(12)

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any interests held therein by the children of Jacob Smith. At the time this reserva- tion was made, I understood that the Indians intended that a number of the sec- tions-I believe five or six-should be granted to the children of Smith, and the names given by them to the grantees of these sections were said to be his children.

From circumstances not necessary to detail here, I was led to suspect that Smith designed the land for his white children, and that most of the names purporting to be those of his Indian children were, in fact, the names of his white children, which the Indians who were in the habit of frequenting his house had given to them. To guard against the consequences of their attempt, I therefore inserted in the article providing for these reservations a clause confining them to persons of Indian descent. I have an indistinct recollection that one young girl was spoken of as an Indian daughter of Smith, but cannot remember the name. I know Lewis Beaufait and Henry Connor well; they were both at the treaty of Saginaw, and they are very honest men in whose statements full confidence may be placed.

(Signed) LEWIS CASS.

Of reserve number seven, on the south side of the river, the beneficiary was plainly one Edward Campau, the half-breed son of the trader. His Indian name was Nowokezhic, and he was here in the possession of his reserve when John Hamilton, Ephraim S. Williams, Harvey Williams and Schuyler Hodges came through Flint, in the winter of 1822-3, en route for Saginaw with supplies for the garrison there. His title was conveyed to John Todd, the tavern keeper, and there is no reason to suggest that the intent of the treaty was not fully carried out so far as this one reserve was concerned. As to reservation number eight, to Mokitchenaqua, there were two claimants, one a half-breed daughter of Archie Lyons, who married a squaw by the name of Ka-zhe-o-be-on-no-qua. This woman outlived him and was a witness on the trial of Dewey and Campau at Saginaw in 1860. The Mokitchenqua, daughter of above, was Elizabeth Lyons by her white name. Another claimant was Marie Lavoy, and still another was Nancy Crane. All of these were halfbreeds, and so answered the requirements of the treaty that they should be of Indian descent; all were Mokitchenaquas. As the Indians had no surname, the reservation to Mokitchenaqua was quite like a reservation for "Mary" in a white man's deed. The determination of identity naturally depended on evidence of facts and circumstances out- side the document itself. Each of these three claimants had applied for and obtained certificates of identity from the authorities of the land office at Detroit. The Lyons woman received hers, August 2, 1824; the Lavoy woman received hers, February 27, 1827, and the Crane woman, claimed to be the half-breed daughter of Jacob Smith, by name Nancy Smith, received hers July 22, 1831. This certificate to Nancy Smith Crane as the Mokitchenaqua entitled to reservation number eight received sanction from

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the general land office, whose commissioner, on August 5, 1835, approved the same, and a patent was granted to her on March 7, 1840. Major John Garland appears to have been the real party in interest in urging the claim of his wife's half-breed sister, for her rights had been transferred to him before patent issued. The interest of the Lyons claimant had been trans- ferred to Gardner Williams and Kintzing Pritchette. Garland's title had been transferred to Payne and Stockton, and the litigation was between Williams and Pritchette, on the one hand, and Payne, Stockton and others, on the other hand, involving the question as to whether Elizabeth Lyons or Nancy Smith was the Mokitchenaqua for whom the reserve was made. On trial, the court determined that Elizabeth Lyons was the true owner of the reserve and that Williams and Pritchette were entitled to it under their

deeds. In this case, Payne, who was the husband of one of Smith's white daughters and whose title had come through John Garland, the husband of

another of Smith's white daughters, was confronted by a certificate of cer- tain Chippewa chiefs similar to those upon which their wives predicated their claims to the reserves north of the river, to the effect that Elizabeth Lyons was the person entitled to the reserve and not the Nancy Smith from whom they claimed title. This case is reported in Walker's Chancery Report, page 120, and in Douglass's report at page 546 and the following pages, and forms an interesting chapter in our local history.

Reserves numbers nine, ten and eleven, from their location, had little value as compared to the other reserves, and consequently were not so allur- ing to the white men and did not become the object of their cupidity and litigation. They went to the half-breeds, Jean Visgar, son of the trader who was at the treaty, and who had been in the attempt to acquire lands in Mich- igan at nine dollars a county (this reservation was probably intended for the son of Ne-o-me) ; to Phillis Beaufait, half-breed daughter of the French trader, and to Catherine Mene, half-breed. It is to be noticed that in each case the reservations south of the river were given to persons of the gender suggested by the Indian name of the reservee, contrary to the case of the claim of the children of Smith to certain of the reserves north of the river.

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History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 18

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