History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 5

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 5
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 5

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Geology teaches us through the " testimony of the rocks" that the American, and particularly the North American, continent is of much greater age than most portions of the eastern congeries of continents. The vast desert regions of Asia and Africa indicate that their emergence from be- neath the waters of the sea took place at a comparatively recent date. The extensive regions occupied by the Ar- chaan, or granitic, formations of America are considered

the oldest upon the globe. These facts would teach that most probably the Western continent was the home of the first forms of life upon the earth,-vegetable and animal,- and by a consequent process of reasoning, in all probability, the human family, or its earliest branch, was here first de- veloped.

Such a theory is certainly opposed to early teachings and traditions, but this statement has also been true of nearly every new theory in the history of the human race. The logie of the law of gradual development is attracting a vast amount of attention in these days of great dis- coveries, and current theories and beliefs are as liable to radical changes as they have been in the past. There is positive evidence, deducible from the " lake dwellings" of Switzerland, the remains found in the caverns of France and England, and from indications of early human exist- ence in the United States, that the long cherished belief that the human race dates back less than 6000 years is a mistaken one. Recent explorations in the caverns of Kent, England, are considered by the English archaeologists as indicating an existence of 600,000 years; and the dis- covery of human bones in the auriferous gravel of Cali- fornia, buried beneath successive deposits of lava, carries the race still farther back to ante-glacial days.

The history of the ancient inhabitants of Mexico and the Central American States has been carefully studied by eminent scholars, so far as materials could be found, and the conclusion arrived at is that the civilization of that region dates as far back as 2500 years before the Christian era. One proposition seems to be conclusively established,-viz., that the farther we trace the human race baek through the corridors of time, the nearer it approaches a state of bar- barism. In other words, there appears to have been a gradual advance in an intellectual direction, a steady pro- gression in the mental faculties of the race. This is strictly in keeping with the law of nature, which has been con- stantly improving the various forms of life preceding man, and the latter can be no exception to the rule.

We find the history of mankind divided into periods, or ages, which serve as milestones to indicate radical changes in the condition or amount of intelligence at various stages of his existence. These periods have been divided by archæologists and antiquarians into a Stone Age, a Bronze Age, an Iron Age, etc. There may also have been a Wooden Age preceding the Stone Age, wherein men used only clubs and sticks as weapons of offense and defense. These periods have not followed each other in regular suc- cession throughout the globe ; on the contrary, several of them have frequently existed contemporaneously, and the fact is well known that at the present time there are nations and fragmentary peoples on several of the continents who have not advanced beyond the development of the Stone Age. This is eminently true of the continents of Africa, America, and Australia.

So far as known there are abundant evidences that the age of stone has at one time or other existed on all the continents. There is apparently searce an acre of all the vast Mississippi basin over which are not strewn the stone implements of this period.

An age of bronze evidently existed on the American

" This great island was named by the Jesuit Father Dablon, who first visited it about 1671, Inte Minony.

PREHISTORIC.

continent, though its relies are comparatively few ; but this may be accounted for by supposing so long a period to have elapsed that most of the implements and utensils have be- come oxydized and restored to original elements. Copper implements are still quite abundantly found in connection with mounds and earthworks. Both stone and copper im- plements were also in use at the same time.

The name of this lost race which has left such remark- able works in many parts of the continent will probably never be known. There are theories innumerable regard- ing them. Some suppose them to have been an entirely different raee from the brown or copper-colored tribes found inhabiting the Atlantic slope and the great interior basin of the present United States of America, whose an- cestors, like the fabled inhabitants of the Eastern conti- ment, had come from some central point where they first sprang into being. This original home of the race they believe to have been in Central America, from whence came the Toltecs, the Chicimecs, the Colhuas, the Tezcocans, the Aztecs, and the Mexicans. From some one or more of these last-named races it is supposed were derived the carliest inhabitants of the region now constituting the United States.

On the other hand it is claimed by prominent writers that the earliest inhabitants of Mexico and Yucatan had traditions that their ancestors came from a country lying to the north of the Mexican Gulf, from whence they were driven by the terrible Chicimecs thousands of years ago. These Chicimecs are said to have come from the north and west and to have swarmed over every portion of the Missis- sippi Valley.

Again the Iroquois and Delaware nations of Indians- the ancient Mengwe and Lenni Lenape-have traditions that their progenitors came originally from the western parts of the Northern continent, by the gradual process of steady colonization, and in course of time reached the great river Mississippi .* On the eastern banks of this stream they found a powerful people, living in great cities, whom they called Alleghewi. A dreadful war ensued, in which the leagued nations of the Lenape and the Mengwe, after many years of bloody conflict, finally prevailed, drove out the inhabitants, and divided their country between them, the Lenape choosing the valley of the Ohio River and the Mengwe occupying the region of the Great Lakes.

These traditions would indicate the possibility that the ancestors of the Delaware and Iroquois nations and the Chicimecs of Central American tradition were identical ; and also that the Mound-Builders and the Alleghewi were one and the same people. But at present, as was said by the Greek philosophers, " All we know is, nothing can be known," at least nothing satisfactory, as to who the lost races were, or whenee they came.

Regarding the occupation of Michigan by this ancient race there is not as much evidence as is found in the valley of the Ohio; but the scattering mounds found at intervals, the numerous garden-bedst once covering a large area in

the valleys of the St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rivers, and the extensive working of the copper deposits of Lake Superior, are sufficient evidence that both the upper and lower peninsulas were occupied by a race ante- rior to the advent of the Indians. The presence of vast numbers of stone implements is also indicative of such occupation, though some writers, and among them Ilenry R. Schoolcraft, are of the opinion that these last belong mostly to the modern Indian.

The mounds and tumuli are more frequently found along the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers, but are also quite plen- tiful on the Kalamazoo and Grand River valleys, and in some other localities. The Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Pottawat- tomie Indians, according to George Copway, Peter Jones, } and others, have a tradition that a people whom they ealled Mus-co-dians, Mus-co-dain-sug, or Little Prairie Indians, formerly occupied the lower peninsula of Michigan until driven out by the Ojibwa nation; and they believe that these people were the people who cultivated the famous garden-beds of Southwestern Michigan. They were at first driven into the valley of the Wash-ko-tang or Grand River, but subsequently forced entirely beyond the limits of the State.§

There are not many indications of the occupation of the counties of Ingham and Eaton by the prehistoric people.

INDIAN NATIONS.

The Indian nations found occupying the territory of the present State of Michigan at the advent of the earliest French explorers were quite numerous. Throughout the northern peninsula were the great nation of the Ojibwas, and its subdivisions, the Ottawas and Pottawattomies. The former were mostly located in the vicinity of Lake Huron, while the Pottawattomies were centrally located in the vicinity of Green Bay. Branches of the Ojibwas were also living on the south side of the Straits of Mackinac. The Salteurs, so named by the French from their location at the Sault Ste. Marie, were a branch of this nation. About the beginning of the eighteenth century the Pottawattomies had by gradual removal occupied the country from about the north line of Illinois, around the head of Lake Michi- gan as far as the Grand River Valley. When Joliet and Marquette first visited the region of the Fox River of Wis- consin, lying south of Lake Winnebago, they found the Miamis nation in that region, which at a later date, but preceding the migration of the Pottawattomies, removed to Southwestern Michigan, where La Salle found them in 1679. They subsequently occupied Northwestern Ohio and North- crn Indiana.

In the vicinity of the Detroit River and Lake Erie were the Wyandots, the ancient Ilurons, who were expelled from Canada by the Iroquois about 1650.

When the country of the Saginaw Valley was first set-

# This name is variously written Messipi, Nama Sepee, Michi- sepi, etc.

t It has been suggested by Henry Gilman, of Detroit, that these garden-beds were the places where was produced the grain required

to feed the ancient miners on Keweenaw Point and Isle Royale, Lake Superior.

į Two native Ojibways, who became Christian missionaries to their people.

¿ Schooleraft thinks the date of the abandonment of the garden- beds was about 1500 or 1502. He refers their origin to the Mound- Builders.

HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICIIIGAN.

tled by the whites there were bands of the Chippewa or Ojibwa nation dwelling on its numerous rivers, and known as Saginaw Chippewas, Shiawassees, etc. The tribes or bands had a tradition that at an early date there dwelt in the valleys of the Saginaw and its converging branches two kindred tribes, which they called Sauks,* or Saukies, and Onottowas.

These tribes, the Ojibwas claimed, were finally extermi- nated by the combined forces of the Ottawas and Ojibwas, who came upon them from different directions, and, after several fieree battles, completely destroyed them, or foreed the feeble remnant out of the country, which sought a new home in the wilderness of Wisconsin.

This tradition corresponds closely with that of the more northern Ojibwas concerning the Mus-co-dain-sugs, and both traditions may refer to the same people.t

FRENCH OCCUPATION.

CHAPTER III.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS.

Verrazzano-Cartier-Roberval-Champlain-The Franeiseans and Jesuits.

WHO first among Europeans discovered the continent of America is not certainly known. Scandinavian writers put forth plausible claims to the honor for their countrymen as early as the tenth century, showing that they effected settle- ments in New England, and perhaps in Labrador; and it is well established that they had visited Greenland at a still earlier date.

French writers claim that as early as 1488 one Cousin, of Dieppe, was driven from the African to the American coast, and it is suspected that even Columbus derived a share of his enthusiasm for discoveries in the Western oecan from reports brought back by adventurers who had caught glimpses of the main land or its outlying islands. IIis subsequent voyages, and those of Vespueius, the Cabots, and others, aroused a wonderful interest in " the lands beyond the sea," and many expeditions were fitted out in the ports of Spain, Portugal, France, and England for voyages of discovery. It is very probable that the hardy seamen of Normandy and Brittany, in France, and of the Basque provinces of France and Spain, knew of and were frequent visitors to the shores and banks of Newfoundland and the adjacent coasts, where they came to fish for the cod, as early as 1500; and these fisheries were certainly in a prosperous condition in 1504.

The whole American continent, from Labrador to the river La Plata, was looked upon as an El Dorado which only needed exploration to develop untold riches, and in the latter part of the sixteenth and beginning of the seven-

teenth century the maritime nations of Europe vied with each other in exploring and settling the newly-discovered regions.

Spain took the lead and overran the rich kingdoms of Mexico and Peru, destroying their cities and monuments of art, robbing their people, and killing their rulers in the name of religion. She also occupied the southern portions of the United States, and the famous expeditions of Ponce de Leont and De Soto were organized and made attempts to explore the interior before the middle of the sixteenth cen- tury. St. Augustine, in Florida, was founded by the Span- iards in 1565.

The French were early in the field, and in 1506 one Denis, of Honfleur, § a private individual, explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and was followed in 1508 by Aubert, of Dieppe. In 1518 the Baron de Léry founded a settlement on Sable Island.

The English also, under John and Sebastian Cabot, ex- plored a large portion of the North American coast in the closing years of the fifteenth and the opening ones of the sixteenth century, though they made no permanent settle- ment until 1607.

In 1524, John Verazzano, a Florentine navigator and ad- venturer, under the patronage of Francis I., of France, made the first well-authenticated voyage along the American coast north of the Carolinas. He first saw land on the coast of North Carolina, which he described as "a newe land, never before seen of any man, either ancient or mod- erne," though the country was swarming with natives who thronged the beach to meet the strangers.

From thence he sailed northward along the coast, visiting and exploring and remaining in each of the harbors of New York and Newport, R. I., for a number of days. He examined the coast of New England, which remained unsettled by Europeans for nearly a hundred years after- wards. Ile left the continent in latitude 50° north, and returned to France. This is the last that we positively know of him, though some writers affirm that he entered the service of IIenry VIII., of England, and was killed by. savages on a subsequent voyage.

As matters shaped themselves the Spaniards took pos- session of the southern portion of the North American continent, the English of the central portions, lying be- tween Nova Scotia (or New Scotland) and Florida, and the French of the region lying between the southern point of Nova Scotia and Labrador, including Newfoundland, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the valley of the great river stretching 2000 miles to the westward.

At the first glance it would seem that this was the only choice left for the latter, but a careful examination will show that there was " method in their madness" of trying to explore and colonize a region so inhospitable, which was locked in the icy embrace of an almost arctic winter during one-half the year.

The French had planted a colony in Florida and battled

* The word Saginaw is a corruption of the name Saukigon, or place of the Sauks.

t Sce histories of Genessee and Livingston Counties.

į Ponce de Leon was killed in Florida by the Indians in 1537, and De Soto died on the Mississippi in 1541.

¿ The names Honfleur and Harfleur are frequently confounded. They are two seaports lying opposito to each other near the mouth of the river Seine, in France.

EARLY DISCOVERIES AND SETTLEMENTS.

successfully with the Spaniards for supremacy in that region, and there is little doubt that had they persisted they would have maintained their footing. But unfortunately the re- ligious bigotry and intolerance, with the consequent wars of those ages, were transferred from Europe to the shores of America, and these were the principal factors in determin- ing the occupation and final settlement of the continent.

The French settlers in Florida were Huguenots and Protestants, and as a consequence, though they were the most enterprising of the French people, they received little sympathy and less aid from the Catholic home government, and finally abandoned the attempt to colonize that favored region.

The rich trade with Asia, commonly called India, or the Indies, had long been the great desideratum of the mer- chants of Europe, and the Venetians and Genoese had managed to monopolize it for many years. It was carried on along two great lines,-a northern one by the Genoese, via the Black and Caspian Seas, and a southern through Syria, Egypt, and the Red Sea, by the Venetians.

In the closing years of the fifteenth century the doctrines of Pythagoras and Ptolemy, concerning the planetary sys- tems and the spherical form of the earth, began to take root among the maritime nations of Europe, though the " infidel doctrines" were bitterly opposed by the Church of Rome. Coming, as they did, through the medium of the Saracen schools and philosophers, it is not wonderful that the mother church should look upon them as false and he- retical.

But, notwithstanding this bitter warfare, men kept think- ing, aud among others was Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, who was a philosopher as well as navigator. He believed that the Indies could be reached by voyaging westward, and in 1492, with his little squadron of three small ships, the largest of 120 tons, he breasted the stormy billows of the Atlantic, and half solved the problem by the discovery of what proved to be a new world to Europeans.

Vasco De Gama, in the employ of the Portuguese govern- ment, doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, and Ferdi- nand Magellan, under the patronage of the now awakened Spanish monarchy, in 1519-22 settled the vexing question forever by sailing around South America and circumnavigat- ing the globe, though he did not live to fully accomplish it in person, the voyage being successfully prosecuted after his death by his worthy lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano.

The fact that Columbus and others believed he had dis- covered the eastern region of the Indies is apparent from the name he gave the islands of the American Archipelago, and the naming of the natives Indians by many subsequent voyagers.

When the voyages of Vespucius, Cabot, and Verrazzano had finally demonstrated the existence of a heretofore un- known continent in the western ocean, the next idea was that there must be navigable channels connecting the two great oceans through the newly-discovered land, and for many years constant attempts were made to find these im- aginary passages. It is no wonder, then, that when Cartier, in 1534, entered the grand estuary of the St. Lawrence, he took it for granted that he had found one of them, and Hen- drick Hudson fell into the same error when sailing up the

broad and tide-swept river which bears his name. Even so late as 1679, La Salle was so enthusiastic over the idea of discovering this long-looked-for water-way through the great inland seas of the west that he named his settlement on the island of Montreal " La Chine."

To-day, if a stranger to the geography of the American continent should stand beside the St. Lawrence, the Niagara, the Detroit, the St. Clair, or even the St. Mary's, he well might deem he was looking upon the connecting waters of two mighty oceans. The great outlet of the North western lakes, in volume, purity, and majestic sweep, has not its peer upon the earth. It pours a volume estimated at 1,000,000 cubic feet per second into the Atlantic, and drains not less than 600,000 square miles of the earth's surface, including nearly 100,000 covered by the five great lakes. This im- mense inland channel, then, was the determining cause which concentrated the attention of the French nation upon this vast region. After it had been demonstrated that it was only the outlet of inland fresh-water seas, the early voyagers still believed they should find a line of com- munication by way of the lakes and great rivers beyond that would be easily improved, and furnish a vast commer- cial highway for emigration and traffic, and hence the re- markable and persistent attempts made by Joliet, Marquette, Du Lhut, Perrot, and La Salle to explore the unknown re- gion lying around the watershed of the upper lakes and the head-waters of the Mississippi River. Even Champlain believed there was a natural water communication, at least with short portages, between the waters of the St. Lawrence and the northern or western oceans.

CARTIER.

The first navigator who is known to have explored the river St. Lawrence was the famous Breton sailor, Jacques Cartier, a native of the old sea-port town of St. Malo, born in 1494.

In the spring of 1534 he was placed in command of a fleet of three little vessels by one Phillippe de Brison-Cha- bot, who was one of the favorites of Francis I. of France.

Cartier left his native town on the 20th of April, 1534, and crossing the Atlantic entered the Straits of Belle Isle, examined the Bay des Chaleurs, and sailed up the St. Law- rence estuary as far as the great island of Anticosti. The storms of autumn, however, compelled his return without fully accomplishing the objects of the voyage.

But the experiment awakened a deeper interest, and in the spring of 1535, Cartier was fitted out with another squadron and sent on a second voyage. His largest vessel was of only 120 tons burden, a craft that would ent a sorry figure even on the western lakes to-day. When we look upon the great steamships of the present day, we little ap- preciate or comprehend the wonderful daring of the early navigators who explored the dangerous American coasts. There are larger vessels now plying upon Lake Winnebago than the flag-ship of the bold French mariner of 1535,

High-born gentlemen accompanied him on this second voyage, which began on the 19th of May. On the way the little vessels were separated by a furious storm, but the seamanship of the Breton navigators proved equal to the emergency, and they were united in the Straits of Belle Isle,

HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

Sailing over the waters of the gulf he entered a small bay opposite the island of Anticosti, which Cartier named the Bay of St. Lawrence, a name afterwards extended to the gulf and river. He called the great river the " River of Hochelaga,"* a name borrowed from the natives found inhabiting its shores.

Cartier explored the river as far as the island of Montreal, which derives its modern name and the name of the fine city located upon it from that of the mountain whose top Cartier visited, and which he named " Mount Royale" from the view which he there obtained. At the date of his visit to this locality, it was occupied by the Hurons or Huron- Iroquois, who had a large palisaded town, surrounded by corn-fields, on the island. This town they also called Hochelaga, and whether we apply the name to the river, the country, or the town, the appellation is correct accord- ing to Indian usage.

On the site of the modern city of Quebec was an Indian town or village called Stadacona, or Stadaconé, where a famous chief, Don-na-cona, resided. Hochelaga, on the island of_Montreal, was the principal Indian town.

Nearly the whole of the St. Lawrence Valley from Que- bec to the lakes was then occupied by the Huron-Iroquois, a branch of the great Algonquin family, closely allied to the celebrated Five Nations of New York, the Iroquois of the French, by whom the Hurons were more than a cen- tury later, about 1649-50, driven from the valley of the Ottawa River towards the west, and a remnant of whom under the modern name of Wyandot still survives in the Indian Territory.t

Thus we see that, under the inspiration of a spirit of dis- covery, the French approached towards the peninsula of the great lakes as far as Montreal before the middle of the six- teenth century.

Returning down the river, Cartier wintered in the mouth of the little river St. Charles (called also St. Croix), and in the spring of 1536 returned to France, taking with him Donnacona and a number of his companions, the most of whom, including the chief, died in France.

As yet no attempt had been made to establish a settle- ment or even trading-post in Canada ; the object thus far had been to explore and examine the country and find out about the great region whence came these oceans of water flowing down so majestically to the sea.

In 1541, six years subsequent to his second voyage, a squadron of five ships was fitted out, and a third time Cartier was placed in command. At the head of this enter- prise was Jean François la Roque, Sienr de Roberval, a Picard nobleman, upon whom the king, in authorizing him to undertake the expedition, had conferred the high-sound- ing but empty titles of " Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 5

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