History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 12

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772

USA > Michigan > Eaton County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 12
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 12

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Some time during the month of July the Wyandots and Pottawattomies, tiring, or pretending to tire, of the war, sent embassies to make terms of peace and exchange pris- oners. With the former there was little difficulty in coming to an understanding, but the Pottawattomies were more troublesome. At length a deceptive peace was ar- ranged, and the prisoners were exchanged.

On the 29th of July, Capt. Dalzell, with a strong re- inforcement of 280 men, and abundant supplies of arms and provisions, in twenty-two barges, reached the fort from Niagara. Their arrival was hailed with the greatest joy by the garrison, for they now felt that they were seeure from the bloody machinations of the savages. But, unfor- tunately, Capt. Dalzell, like Braddock at the head of his disciplined legions, imagined himself strong enough to at- tack Pontiac in his camp and raise the siege by driving him from the country. He little understood the man with whom he had to deal.

The detachment which Capt. Dalzell commanded consisted of men from the Fifty-fifth and Eightieth Regular British Regiments, with twenty rangers under command of Maj.

HISTORY OF INGIIAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

Rogers. Dalzell, as an officer of the regular army, out- ranked Rogers, who was a provincial officer. Dalzell had been a companion of Putnam, but recently was attached to the staff of Sir Jeffrey Amherst, then commanding the British forces in America.

As soon as he arrived Dalzell insisted that the true course to pursue was to attack Pontiac with a strong foree in his camp, and was sanguine that the war might be ended at once. But Gladwyn was cautious from former experience and opposed the project. At length, at the urgent request of the captain, he gave a reluctant consent, and a strong party of 250 men left the fort about two o'clock on the morning of July 31st, and moved silently towards the Judian camps. But the wary Pontiac, who had evidently suspected some such movement, had removed his eamp to a safer position, and at the very moment when Dalzell, and Gray, and Rogers, and Grant, at the head of their gallant commands, were leaving the fort to fall upon the savages, Pontiac, at the head of 600 chosen warriors, was coming to meet them.

The result fully justified the fears of Maj. Gladwyn, for at the crossing of " Bloody Run" the detachment met with a most disastrous repulse, and after a desperate battle of six hours' continuance, it retreated to the fort with the heavy loss of sixty men, killed and wounded, among whom were Capts. Dalzell and Gray.

The Indians were greatly elated at their vietory, and sent runners with tidings to all the nations; and soon the rein- forcements began to come to the standard of Pontiae. But the fort, notwithstanding the heavy loss at " Bloody Run," still had a well-armed and disciplined garrison of upwards of 300 men, and there was little doubt that they would hold the place.

In the beginning of September the schooner " Gladwyn," which had been sent to Niagara with dispatches and letters, returned up the lake with a crew of twelve men all told, besides six Iroquois Indians, ostensibly friendly to the Eng- lish. On the night of the 3d she entered the mouth of the Detroit River, and in the morning, at their request, set the six Iroquois ashore, who disappeared in the woods, and very likely went straight to the camp of Pontiac and reported the arrival of the vessel and the small number of her crew.

At nightfall the schooner was obliged to anchor, and her crew watched with sleepless anxiety for the approach of dawn.

In the mean time 350 Indians in canoes glided quietly down the stream and were close upon her before the crew were aware of their presence. There was only time to fire a single volley among them, when they came swarming over her sides, tomahawk in hand, and holding their sealping- knives in their teeth. They were a hellish-looking set. The seanty crew fought with a desperation born of despair, and inade terrible havoe among them ; but they were thirty to one, and the contest was hopeless. The master, Horst, was killed, and nearly half the crew disabled, when Jacobs, the mate, called in a stentorian voice, " Fire the magazine and blow the red devils all up together !" Among the Wyandots were some who understood English, and hearing the desperate order of Jacobs, they called to their comrades, and in an instant the entire band leaped overboard and dis-

appeared in the darkness. The crew escaped with a loss of six killed and wounded. Of the Indians, seven were killed and above twenty wounded. It was a remarkable and most heroic action, and the survivors were rewarded for their gallantry, each man being presented with a medal by order of' Gen. Amherst.

Soon after this affair Maj. Wilkins, the commander at Niagara, collected a force of- 600 regular troops, and started with a large number of boats, loaded with supplies, to the relief of Detroit. The Indians drove him back once before he reached the foot of Lake Erie, but re-embarking he proceeded on his way, and was rapidly approaching his destination when a violent storm compelled him to return to Niagara.

The savages had now kept up the siege of Detroit from the 10th of May until October, and some of them were beginning to grow weary of the work. They had heard of great preparations to send a large foree against them, and even Pontiae began to despair of overcoming the difficulties in his way.

At length, on the 12th of October, a deputation of the Ojibwas approached the fort bearing the pipe of peace. Their chiefs claimed to represent the Ojibwas, Wyandots, and Pottawattomies, which tribes were all anxious for peace .* Gladwyn pleaded lack of authority for making peace, but said he would consent to a truce, to which the chiefs agreed, and departed for their camps.

The armistice was a godsend to the belcaguered garrison, for they were almost destitute of provisions, and Gladwyn hastened to take advantage of it to procure supplies from the Canadians, and succeeded so well that the fort was toler- ably well prepared for winter. The Ottawas alone con- tinued their hostile demonstrations, and occasionally fired on the English foraging-parties.

About the last of October, French messengers arrived at Detroit with a letter from M. Neyon, the commander at Fort Chartres, in Illinois. It was one of a number which the French offieer, at the request of Gen. Amherst, had sent to various Indian tribes informing them that they could not expect any help from the French, and that they had best abandon further hostilities. This was a deadly blow to the hopes of Pontiae, and he left Detroit, enraged beyond de- seription, and retired to the Maumee River with the design of stirring up the Indians to a renewal of hostilities in the spring.

On the 1st of November, Gladwyn received intelligence, by a friendly Wyandot Indian, of the disaster to Maj. Wil- kins' expedition, which deprived him of any hope for suc- cor before the coming spring. The prospect before the garrison was anything but encouraging, but there was no alternative except to hold out manfully until assistance ar- rived.

The war as it was waged during the year 1763 had been one of almost uninterrupted misfortune to the English. With the single exception of Col. Bouquet's march to the relief of Fort Pitt, which was almost a disaster, no offen-

* The principal chief at the head of this deputation was Wap-o- com-o-queth, great chief of the Mississaugas, a branch of the Ojibwa nation living in Canada.

SURRENDER OF DETROIT TO CAPTAIN ROGERS.

sive movements had been made, but now the government determined to inflict a heavy chastisement on the savages in their own country. To this end two armies were organ- ized, one under Col. Bouquet to operate from Fort Pitt, the other under Col. Bradstreet, which was concentrated at Albany, and moved thence up the Mohawk across Oneida Lake, down the Oswego River to Lake Ontario, and over its waters in boats to Niagara. This force, consisting of about 1200 men, reached Niagara in midsummer and encamped around the fort. Here they found hundreds of Western Indians. They had gathered at the urgent request of Sir William Johnson, who proposed to hold a great feast and council with them with a view to estab- lishing a permanent peace. Johnson's messengers had pen- etrated as far as Mackinac, where the Ojibwas had as- sembled to debate the question whether they should go to the assistance of Pontiac, who had invited them to join him in again besieging Detroit.

The embassy changed the determination of the Ojibwas, and after consulting their magicians they resolved to meet Sir William at Niagara.

The gathering of Indians at the treaty-ground was a re- markahle one, including 2000 warriors and many women and children. Among the nations represented were Menomi- nees, Ottawas from Lake Michigan, Ojibwas, Mississaugas, Caughnawagas, Wyandots, Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, and even a band of Osages from beyond the Mississippi.

Separate councils were held with each nation, and the conference lasted until the 6th of August, when Sir Wil- liam Johnson set out on his return to Oswego.

On the 8th of August the army, considerably reinforced hy Highlanders, Canadian militia, and various bands of Indians, began its movement towards Detroit. It pulled ashore at Presqu' Isle (now Erie), where a delegation of Delaware and Shawanoe Indians met Col. Bradstreet to ask fer peace. But while these cunning savages were negoti- ating with him, their congeners were pushing the war to the utmost on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Bradstreet was duped by them into a preliminary treaty, the Indians agreeing to meet him at Sandusky, where they would bring all their prisoners and conclude a definite treaty. From Presqu' Isle Bradstreet sent a dispatch to Col. Bouquet, informing him that he had made peace with the Shawanoes and Delawares, and that he need not prose- cute the war any further. But Bouquet was too old a soldier to be deceived by Indian cunning, and he paid no attention to Bradstreet's information or commands, but kept straight on into the Indian country in Ohio.

Bradstreet, having, as he supposed, settled all difficulties with the Delawares and Shawanoes, continned his voyage to Sandusky, where he was met hy deputies from the Wyandots, Ottawas, and Miamis, living near, who protested they were anxious for peace, and promising, if he would not attack them in their villages, that they would meet him at Detroit and conclude a treaty.

Again Bradstreet was deceived, and although he had been ordered by Gen. Gage to attack these very Indians, he graciously acceded to their request, and pursued his way leisurely to Detroit, where he arrived on the 28th of August, to the great joy of the garrison, who had been

closely pent within the walls of their little fortress for up- wards of fifteen months. Upon the arrival of the army they were at once relieved by fresh troops.

Pontiac was gone, and most of the Indians were seat- tered. The chief had retired to the banks of the Maumee, from whence he sent a defiant letter to the English com- mander. A few of the Indians who were peaceably in- clined still remained in their villages in the vicinity, poor and broken in spirit, for the fur trade was wholly de- stroyed, and they were badly in want of the necessaries of life.

A council was held on the 7th of September in the pres- ence of the army, which was by far the largest ever seen in that region up to that time. The Indians present were fragments of the Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawattomies, Mi- amis, Sacs, and Wyandots. The principal speaker was Wasson, the Ojibwa chief, who professed great regret for the war waged against the whites, and made a very humble and conciliatory speech.

This movement of Bradstreet and the council at Detroit virtually ended the war in the West, and Bouquet soon brought the Eastern Indians to terms ; but the troops, and particularly the Iroquois who accompanied the army, were much dissatisfied with the manner in which Bradstreet had conducted the diplomatic portion of the campaign, and his doings were not fully sanctioned by the British military authorities, who reprimanded him for being duped by the savages, and for trying to cheek Col. Bonquet's operations.

From Detroit, Captain Howard was sent to take posses- sion of the upper posts, and soon after the English colors were again flying from the ramparts of Mackinac, Green Bay, and Sault Ste. Marie. An embassy, at the head of which was Captain Morris, which Bradstreet dispatched from San- dusky to visit the Illinois Indians, met with such rough treatment on the Maumee, at the hands of the Miamis and Kickapoos, that it was forced to turn back without accom- plishing anything, and with the loss of nearly everything except life. Late in the season Bradstreet returned with his army to Oswego, from whence the troops dispersed to their homes.

In 1765, George Croghan, the deputy of Sir William Johnson, proceeded West with a deputation, visited most of the Indian and French posts and villages, and concluded treaties with nearly all the Western nations. Near Fort Chartres, on the Mississippi, he met Pontiac, who proceeded with him to Detroit, passing Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and Fort Miami, on the Maumee. In August he held a great council with the various nations at Detroit, and towards the end of September left for Niagara. While at Detroit he exacted a promise from Pontiac that he would come to Oswego in the following spring and conclude a treaty of peace with Sir William Johnson.

True to his promise, the great chieftain met Sir William Johnson at Oswego in July, 1766, and on the last day of that month, speaking for all the Western nations, he signed a treaty of peace, and promised to keep it as long as he lived ; which promise he strictly kept. The council closed with a bountiful distribution of presents to Pontiae and his fol- lowers, and he returned to his home in the West, satisfied that his best conrse was to keep peace with the English.

IIISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

Ilis dream of the restoration of the French rule, so long cherished, had been dissipated forever.

The chief appears no more upon the scene after he re- turned home from this treaty until April, 1769, when he visited St. Louis, where he met his old friend St. Ange in command of that post. Pierre Chouteau also saw him at that time and remembered that he wore the full uniform of a French officer which had been presented him by the Marquis of Monteahn, near the end of the French war, as a mark of esteem. He was in St. Louis a number of days, when, hearing that there was a large gathering of various tribes of Indians at Cohokia, on the Illinois side of the river, he went over to visit them and sce what was going on. While there he partook freely of whisky, and during his debauch, while retired by himself in the woods, he was killed by a Kaskaskia or some other Illinois Indian, who had been hired by an Englishman named Williamson, a trader, to do the deed for a barrel of liquor.

There is no doubt that the English were still jealous of him, and some of them feared he would yet stir up the tribes to another war; and the trader was probably one of this class.

The dastardly deed was fearfully avenged upon the Illinois Indians by the nations who had been under the leadership of the great Ottawa; and it is said that they nearly exterminated the offending tribes. With him per- ished the hopes of the confederated natives, and it was not until the great Shawanoe chief, Tecumseh, arose among them that any similar attempt at confederation was made. Tecumseh took Pontiac for his model, but though he had behind him the red-coated legious of England, his great scheme of a powerful Indian confederation, banded together to resist and turn back the tide of white settlers, was a failure. Ile had one advantage of his great prototype : he fell honorably in battle at the head of his people, while Pontiac met his death by the despicable hand of the treacherons assassin.

The paragraphs given to the Pontiae war illustrate the hardships, difficulties, and dangers which met the carly settlers of Michigan at every turn. They also show to some extent the wrongs which unprincipled men perpetrated upon the red owners of the soil. We may not be able to fully sympathize with the children of the forest, but when we look over the history of the years from 1615 to 1763, we cannot but be struck with the stubborn tenacity of both parties in their determination,-the one to drive out and dispossess the original owners, the other to retain and de- fend the country to the last. The settlement of the whole Union has been one continual struggle between what men are pleased to term barbarism and civilization for the posses- sion of a continent which has been occupied in turn by many races of men,-how many we may probably never know.

THE QUEBEC ACT.

This somewhat noted act, which was passed by the British Parliament in 1774, during the administration of Sir Guy Carleton, governor-general of Canada, among its provisions defined the boundaries of the Canadian provinces, which were made to include the two peninsulas of Michigan, and all the country lying north of the Ohio River and cast of

the Mississippi. The following paragraphs with reference to the act are copied from Tuttle's " History of Michigan :"

"The aet granted to the Catholie inhabitants the free exercise of their religion, the undisturbed possession of their church property, and tho right, in all matters of litigation, to demand a trial according to the former laws of the province. But the right was not extended to settlers on land granted by the English Crown.#

"The enterprise of the people was not wholly confined to the far trade. As early as 1773 the mineral regions of Lake Superior were visited, and a projeet was formed for werking the copper ere dis- covered there, and a company in England had obtained a charter for that purpose. A sloop was purchased and the miners commenced operations, but soon found, however, that the expense of blasting and transportation was tee great te warrant the prosecution of the enter- prise, and it was abandoned. The fur trade was successfully prose- cuted. In 1783 a company called the Northwest Fur Company was organized, and store- and trading-houses were creeted ut many places on the lakes, and agents were located at Detroit, Mackinac, the Sault Ste. Marie, and the Grand Pertage, near Lake Superior, whe packed the furs and sent them to Mentreal for shipment to England."

There were no permanent trading-posts or white settle- ments established in the interior portions of either the upper or lower peninsula previous to about the year 1817, when a settlement was made at Rochester, Oakland Co., about twenty miles from Lake St. Clair.

DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

From 1774 to 1779, when he was captured by Col. George Rogers Clark, at Vincennes on the Wabash, Lieut .- Gov. Sir Henry Hamilton was in command at Detroit, which was the British headquarters for the West during the period of the Revolution, and, in fact, until 1796, when permanent possession was taken by the United States. The numerous expeditions and forays against the border American settlements in the West were nearly all fitted out from this point. There is strong evidence that the British authorities at Detroit and other places paid their Indian allies a stipulated sum for every American scalp which they brought in, though for the honor of a common humanity we may hope the charge is unsupported by facts.

The post at Mackinac was also a very important oue. At the beginning of the war the garrison was located on the mainland, but in 1780 the island of Mackinac was strongly fortified, and has since been the principal military post at the straits.

Two quite important expeditions, from a British stand- point, were fitted out at Detroit against the American set- tlements during the Revolution. These were: one under command of Lieut .- Gov. Hamilton, in 1778, against the post at Vincennes on the Wabash ; and another, under Col. Byrd, against what was then called the " Beargrass Settle- ment," at the mouth of the Beargrass Creek in Kentucky, now Louisville, in 1780. Vincennes, which had no garri- son, was taken possession of by Hamilton, but he was in turn besieged and captured by the gallant Col. Clark, in February, 1779. Hamilton was sent a prisoner of war

* Judge Campbell says of this aet : " It was delusive everywhere, and the historian Garneau finds n Inek of words to express his indig- nation at the course pursued under it. By our Declaration of Inde- pendenee it was deneuneed as unfavorable to liberty. If the Detroit colonists heard of it, it was but as a distant rumor of seurething which did not affect them."-Outlines of Political History, p. 152.

TERRITORIAL.

to Richmond, Va., and his troops, seventy-nine in number, were paroled and allowed to return to Detroit.

Col. Byrd's expedition was made up of 600 Canadian militia and Indians, and was accompanied by a battery of six small field-pieces. It left Detroit in the summer of 1780, and made an inroad into Kentucky by way of the Maumee and the Big Miami and Licking Rivers. Quite a number of small stockades and many prisoners were captured, but to the honor of the commander the prisoners were humanely treated. Finding he could not long control the propensity of his Indians for bloodshed, Byrd made some excuse and returned with his forces to Detroit. It had been better in after-years if Proctor had followed his example.

When Lieut .- Gov. Hamilton left Detroit with his Wabash expedition, he placed Maj. Lernoult* in command. This officer was succeeded in the following year by Maj. De Peyster. The expedition of Maj. Caldwell, in the summer of 1782, which ended in the bloody battle of the " Blue Licks," was fitted out at Detroit by order of the commander of that post. It comprised a total force of about 400 men, a large proportion of which was made up of Indians. " Simon Girty, the renegade," accompanied this expedition.

In 1779 the British authorities in Canada began to fear an invasion of their territory by Col. Clark, and Maj. Ler- noult constructed a new fort at Detroit. It was much larger and better situated than the old French stockade. It was named, for the commander, Fort Lernoult, which name it retained until after the war of 1812, when it took the name of Fort Shelby, in honor of Hon. Isaac Shelby, the veteran Governor of Kentucky, who at the age of more than sixty years served under Harrison as a volunteer aid in the campaign of 1813.1

ENGLISH GOVERNORS.

1760 .- Sir Jeffrey Amherst, Commander-in-Chief. 1765 .- Sir James Murray, Governor of Quebec.

1766 .- Paulus Emilius Irving, President.

1766 .- Sir Guy Carleton, Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in- Chief.

1770 .- Hector Theophilus Cramahe, Commander-in-Chief. 1774 .- Sir Guy Carleton, Governor-General.

1778 .- Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor-General. 1784 .- Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor. 1785 .- Henry Hope, Lieutenant-Governor. 1786 .- Lord Dorchester, Governor-General.

1792 .- Col. John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.

# This name is variously written Lennault, Le Noult, Lenault, etc.

t This name, according to some authorities, was bestowed upon the work at an earlier period than here mentioned.

UNDER THE REPUBLIC.

CHAPTER VIL.

TERRITORIAL.

Treaty of 1783, between Great Britain and the United States-The Ordinance of 1787-The Northwest Territory-Gen. St. Clair-Terri- torial Subdivisions-Surrender of Detroit to the Americans, 1796- Wayne County-Indiana Territory-Michigan Territory-War of 1812-15-First Counties Organized-Land Surveys-Bounty Lands -Miscellaneous-Territorial Governors.

UNDER the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, signed at Paris Sept. 3, 1783, and rati- fied by Congress Jan. 14, 1784, Michigan became a part of the American Union ; but for various reasons the British government kept possession of Oswegatchie (now Ogdens- burg), Oswego, Niagara, Presqu' Isle (now Erie), Sandusky, Detroit, and Michilimackinac, for longer or shorter periods after the treaty was signed. In the spring of 1794 they advanced to the rapids of the Manmee River, and rebuilt and strengthened Fort Miami, originally established by the French, probably soon after the settlement of Detroit. This last act was very near producing a collision between Gen. Wayne's army and the British garrison after the defeat of the Indians by Wayne in August of the same year.

ORDINANCE OF 1787.

Under the belief that the treaty of 1783 established the boundary between the two nations as it at present exists in the Northwest, the American Congress, on the 13th of July, 1787, passed what has since been known as the " Ordi- nance of 1787." Under this act all the territory lying west and north of the Ohio River, and east of the Missis- sippi, was organized into what was designated the Northwest Territory, including what now constitutes the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and probably that portion of Minnesota lying east of the Mississippi and the Red River of the North.

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 12

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 772

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772