History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 10

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761

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A sergeant of the 55th, mortally hurt, raised himself where he lay beside the road and looked after his retreating comrades. The brave Dalzell caught the poor fellow's ex- pression, and instantly ran to him, determined to save him. In the very act of stooping to lift him up a rifle-ball struck the gallant officer, and he fell dead beside the soldier.

The retreat continued as rapidly as possible, for there was no safety now except in flight. At the house of the trader, " Old Campau," the soldiers crowded in, barricaded the doors and windows, and made a desperate fight. Rogers was inside with a portion of his rangers, and the cellar was filled with frightened women and children huddled together for shelter. The fire from this building, under the cool direction of Maj. Rogers, checked the enemy somewhat ; and in the mean time the bateaux had returned from the fort, and now came up and opened a severe fire from their

* This may have been the same officer who suffered such a severe defeat at Pittsburgh, Pa., in advance of Gen. Forbes' army in Septem- ber, 1758, though he is then spoken of as major. If he was the same, he afterwards held the rank of major-general in the British army, and commanded a division at the battle on Long Island, in August, 1776.

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

swivels, which forced the Indians to fall back. Rogers left the house and followed Capt. Grant, who halted at every house and fought until the command was well advanced, when he again pushed on, and after a dreadful conflict of six hours' duration the column reached the fort, with a loss, as stated by Parkman, of fifty-nine men killed and wounded, including among the former Capts. Dalzell and Gray. The loss of the Indians was never known to the whites, but it was considerable. The battle was opened by the Ojibwas and Ottawas, but later in the night the Wyandots and Pottawattomies came up in their canoes and joined in the fray.

Their success highly elated the Indians, and reinforce- ments joined them in considerable numbers. "Fresh war- riors," wrote Gladwyn, " arrive almost every day, and I believe that I shall soon be besieged by upwards of a thou- sand."

Following the terrible fight of " Bloody Bridge" nothing of importance occurred until the night of the 4th of Sep- tember, when the most remarkable encounter of the whole war occurred. The schooner " Gladwyn" had been sent to Niagara with letters and dispatches, and was now on her return loaded with provisions and having a crew of twelve provincials, including one Horst, her master, and Jacobs, her mate. In addition there were six Iroquois Indians, probably Mohawks, who were supposed to be friendly to the English.

On the morning of September 4th, when in the mouth of the Detroit River, these Indians asked to be put on shore, which curious request was very foolishly granted, for it is altogether probable that they immediately went to the hos- tile camps and reported her arrival and condition.

Certain it is that three hundred and fifty Indians passed down the river in their canoes and attacked the schooner, with terrific yells, so suddenly as to have almost captured her before the crew were aware of their presence. But they had a moment to spare, and made the best disposition in their power to meet the enemy. There was just time to discharge a single heavy gun among them when they came swarming over her sides, tomahawk and knife in hand.

The crew made a desperate defense, for they well knew the result if they were captured, and gave the Indians so heavy a fire that twenty or more of them were killed or disabled in a few minutes. But they were more than thirty to one, and in spite of a most gallant defense they at length gained the deck. Horst was killed, and in a few minutes every man would have met a like fate, when Jacobs, with great presence of mind, called out in a loud tone, " Fire the magazine and blow the red devils all up together !" Among the Indians were some Wyandots who understood English, and they instantly gave the alarm to their comrades, and every Indian went overboard instanter and swam for the shore. The vessel was saved, and on the following morn- ing sailed up to the fort. They had two men killed and four wounded,-just half the force,-while the loss of the In- dians was eight killed and twenty wounded. It was a gallant affair on the part of the crew.

When Gen. Amherst heard of the action he ordered a medal to be struck and presented to each of the men. Jacobs was afterwards lost in a storm on Lake Erie.

In the mean time the war was raging along the whole line of the frontiers of New York, Pennsylvania, and Vir- ginia. Forts Niagara and Pitt were attacked, and twenty thousand settlers were said to have been driven from their homes west of the Alleghanies. The Delawares and Shawanese were out in full force, under such chiefs as Teedyuskung, Shingas, and Turtle Heart ; and a portion of the Senecas and Cayugas, under Guyasutha and other chiefs, had joined in the well-nigh universal crusade against the English.

At length a gleam of hope shot through the darkness and somewhat assured the frontiers. The gallant Col. Henry Bouquet, a Swiss by birth, penetrated the wilder- ness of Pennsylvania with two skeleton regiments, mostly made up of Highlanders, and amounting to about five hundred men, fought a most desperate and bloody battle at Brush Run, in Westmoreland County, about thirty miles from Pittsburgh, and relieved the beleaguered garrison of Fort Pitt, though with very heavy loss. The Indians were checked and staggered by this blow, and the war, though not by any means abandoned, was somewhat diminished in its fury.

In the mean time Maj. Wilkins, in command at Niagara, collected a force of six hundred regulars and was proceed- ing in boats to the relief of Detroit. Once he was driven back by the Indians before he had reached the foot of Lake Erie, but starting again he entered the lake, and was rapidly working his way westward when a violent storm overtook him, and after great loss he was again compelled to return to Niagara.

At Detroit the savages had kept up the investment of the fort from May until October, but now they began to waver. They heard of great preparations to send a strong force against them, and they began to despair of capturing the place, notwithstanding their successes. Finally, on the 12th of October, a deputation from the Ojibwas came to the fort with a pipe of peace. Their principal chiefs said that they represented the Ojibwas, Wyandots, and Potta- wattomies, which tribes were all anxious for peace. Gladwyn replied that he had no authority to make peace, but would consent to a truce. To this the Indians agreed, and de- parted.

The truce was a godsend to the garrison, for, in spite of all the supplies received from below, they were now nearly in a destitute condition. Under cover of the armistice Gladwyn made haste to purchase provisions among the Canadians, and succeeded in laying in a reasonable supply for the winter.

The Ottawas, Pontiac's own nation, were now alone in the prosecution of the siege, but they continued to annoy the garrison by petty skirmishing until the 30th of October, when a message from M. Neyon, the French commander at Fort Chartres, in the Illinois country, was received at De- troit, advising the Indians to abandon the war and go home. This was a discouraging blow to Pontiac, for he had cher- ished the forlorn hope that the French would yet recover the country from the detested English. In great rage he now withdrew from the vicinity to the country on the Maumee, where he hoped to stir up all the Indians in that quarter and recommence operations in the spring.

THE COLONY UNDER ENGLISH RULE.

In the spring a great council was held by Sir William Johnson at Niagara with an immense number of Indian warriors, including Iroquois, Caughnawagas, Wyandots, Ot- tawas, Ojibwas, Menominees, and Mississaguas. A treaty was concluded, and thus the war virtually ended, though the Shawanese and Delawares refused to attend the council and still kept up a species of warfare on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The movements of Col. Bou- quet, however, finally reduced them to submission.

Two great expeditions were also fitted out to force a peace or carry on a war of extermination against the com- mon enemy. One of these was under command of Col. John Bradstreet, and was to proceed by way of Niagara, and thence against the Western tribes; while the other, under Col. Bouquet, should operate from Pittsburgh against the Shawanese and Delawares. Both were successful in a great measure, and the terrible frontier war at length closed.

From Niagara Bradstreet proceeded westward via San- dusky, and on the 28th of August came in sight of Detroit. There was great rejoicing in the place, and well there might be, since it had been practically besieged for fifteen months by a horde of savages, commanded by the ablest and most sagacious leader that had yet appeared among the American Indians.

Bradstreet now summoned all the savages to meet him in council, and they very readily obeyed. The council was held in the open air on the 7th of September, in the midst of the greatest military display that had ever been seen in the West. The nations and tribes represented included Ottawas, Ojibwas, Pottawattomies, Miamis, Wyandots, and Sacs ; the council concluded by the entire assembly trans- ferring their allegiance (if such it could be called) from the crown of France to that of Great Britain.

Soon after this occurrence Capt. Howard was sent with a strong detachment to take possession of Michilimackinac, which he accomplished without resistance, and immediately sent forward parties to occupy the posts at Green Bay and Sault St. Marie. And thus, after an interval of upwards of twelve months, the English colors again floated over the entire Northwest.

Capt. Morris, who had been sent by Bradstreet from San- dusky to make peace with the Miamis and Illinois, found Pontiac with a large following on the Maumee. The chief received him very roughly, and told him the English were liars, at the same time showing him a letter purporting to have been written by a French officer, saying that a French fleet of sixty sail and an immense army were on their way up the St. Lawrence to chastise the English and recover the whole country.

Unable to accomplish anything with the Ottawa chief- tain, Morris and his four companions (Canadians and friendly Indians) pushed on to Fort Miami, on the site of the present Maumee City, nine miles above Toledo, and still well pre- served. Here Morris fared worse than before, the Indians, who were a motley crowd of Miamis, Kickapoos, Shawanese, and others, seizing and stripping him and threatening his life, which was finally saved by an Ottawa, Indian, a young chief and nephew of Pontiac. The brave fellow was de- termined to press forward and meet the Illinois, but those of the chiefs who were friendly to him finally persuaded

him that it would be madness, and he reluctantly returned to Detroit, to find that Bradstreet had departed for San- dusky. From thence the doughty colonel soon after re- turned to the east, leaving the Shawanese and Delawares still on the war-path, and many other tribes either lukewarm friends or open enemies. With these last-named tribes the energetic Bouquet, by his rapid and vigorous movements, soon forced a treaty of peace in the very heart of their country. Thus ended the terrible " conspiracy of Pontiac," which had drenched the land in blood from the Sault St. Marie to the head-waters of the Monongahela and Kana- wha, and nearly obliterated the forts and trading-posts of the West.

The great chief Pontiac soon after left the banks of the Maumee and removed to the vicinity of St. Louis, where he tried to persuade not only all the Indian nations from the lakes to the gulf, but also the French commander of Fort Chartres to join him in a powerful crusade against the English. But all his plans proved abortive, and the dis- appointed savage sullenly resolved to accept the inevitable and make peace with the English.

In August, 1765, a preliminary council was held in the council-house, at Detroit, between George Croghan, an agent sent out by Sir William Johnson, and a large num- ber of the Western Indians, including Pontiac and many prominent chiefs.

Here Pontiac agreed to meet Sir William Johnson in the following spring at Oswego and conclude a permanent treaty.

On the 23d of July, 1766, true to his promise, the great Ottawa met Sir William at Oswego, and signed a definitive treaty of peace, along with deputies from most of the western nations then living east of the Mississippi. He returned with his people to the Maumee, where he spent the following winter. In April, 1769, he again appeared upon the scene, when he came among the Illinois, and soon after visited St. Louis. A few days later he crossed the river and visited the Indian camps at Cahokia. He was dressed in the full uniform of a French general officer, which had been presented him by the Marquis Montcalm.

While here, and probably somewhat under the influence of liquor, he was treacherously assassinated by a Kaskaskia Indian, hired by an Englishman named Wilkinson, for a barrel of liquor, to do the dastardly deed. It was a woful day for the Illinois Indians when a member of one of their tribes* committed the terrible act. The dreadful and united vengeance of many tribes fell upon them, and they were nearly annihilated,-the last band perishing miserably, ac- cording to tradition, on the "Starved Rock" of the Illinois River, the spot where eighty years before stood the Fort Saint Louis of La Salle.

THE QUEBEC ACT.

This act, which was passed by the British Parliament in 1774, during the administration of Sir Guy Carleton, Gov- ernor-General of Canada, among other provisions, defined the boundaries of the Canadian Provinces, which were made to include the peninsula of Michigan, and comprised

* Kaskaskias, Peorias, Cahokias, Tamaroas, eto.

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

also all the country lying north of the Ohio and west to the Mississippi River.

" The act granted to the Catholic inhabitants the free exercise of their religion, the undisturbed possession of their church property, and the right, in all matters of litigation, to demand a trial accord- ing to the former laws of the province. But the right was not ex- tended to settlers on land granted by the English Crown.#

"The enterprise of the people was not wholly confined to the fur trade. As early as 1773 the mineral regions of Lake Superior were visited, and a project was formed for working the copper ore discov- ered there, and a company in England had obtained a charter for that purpose. A sloop was purchased and the miners commenced opera- tions, but soon found, however, that the expense of blasting and transportation were too great to 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 erected at many places on the lakes, and agents were located at Detroit, Mackinac, the Sault St. Marie, and the Grand Portage, near Lake Superior, who packed the furs and sent them to Montreal for shipment to England."+

DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

From 1774 to 1779, when he was captured by Col. George Rogers Clark at Vincennes, on the Wabash, Lieu- tenant-Governor Sir Henry Hamilton was in command at Detroit, which was the British headquarters for the North- west during the whole period of the Revolution ; and the cruel forays upon the border settlements of Kentucky, Penn- sylvania, and Virginia were mostly fitted out and directed from this point. It is claimed that the British colonial government of Canada actually paid the Indians a stipu- lated sum for every American scalp which they brought in, though, for the honor of a common humanity, we may hope that the claim is unsupported by facts.

Mackinac was also an important point during the war, and, as we have already seen, the island of Mackinac was occupied and strongly garrisoned by the British in 1780.

There were two important expeditions fitted out at De- troit against the American border settlements during the Revolution. These were : one under command of Lieu- tenant-Governor Hamilton, in 1778, against the post at Vincennes on the Wabash; and the other, under Col. Byrd, against Louisvillet and the Kentucky settlements, in 1780. Vincennes was taken possession of by Hamilton, but he was in turn besieged and captured by the indomitable Col. George Rogers Clark, on the 24th of February, 1779. Ham- ilton was sent a prisoner to Richmond, Va., and his troops, seventy-nine in number, were paroled and allowed to return to Detroit.

Col. Byrd's expedition consisted of a force of six hundred Canadians and Indians and six field-guns. It left Detroit in the summer of 1780, and made an inroad into Kentucky by way of the Big Miami and Licking Rivers, and quite a number of small posts and stockades and many prisoners were taken. Byrd appears to have been a humane officer,

and prevented the Indians from abusing the prisoners so far as laid in his power.

When Lieut .- Gov. Hamilton left Detroit for Vincennes, he placed Maj. Lernoult§ in command at the former post. Lernoult was succeeded in 1779 by Maj. De Peyster. From 1780 until the surrender of the country, in 1796, nothing of special importance transpired at Detroit, or within the territory now constituting the State of Michigan. The ex- pedition of Maj. Caldwell against the Kentucky settlements in the summer of 1782, which terminated in the bloody battle of "Blue Licks," was mostly fitted out at Detroit. With this party went "Simon Girty, the Renegade." The Indians who joined the expedition were mostly Miamis and Wyandots.

The settlements around the various military and trading posts increased very slowly, if at all, and when the penin- sula fell into the hands of the United States, it is probable that the number of inhabitants did not greatly exceed those transferred from the dominion of France in 1763.

Under the apprehension of an attack by the American troops under Clark, Maj. Lernoult constructed a new fort at Detroit about 1779. It was a much larger and stronger work than the old French stockade, and stood on the second terrace. It was named Fort Lernoult, or Le Noult,|| which name it retained until after the war of 1812-15, when it took the name of Fort Shelby, in honor of Hon. Isaac Shelby, formerly Governor of Kentucky.

THE COLONY UNDER THE REPUBLIC.

CHAPTER IX.

TERRITORIAL

Treaty of 1783, between the United States and Great Britain-Or- dinance of 1787, Establishing the Northwest Territory - Gen. Arthur St. Clair appointed Governor - Territorial Subdivisions -Wayne County-Surrender of Detroit-Indiana Territory- Michigan Territory-War of 1812-Early Counties-Surveys- Land-Sales-Indian Treaties-Miscellaneous.

UNDER the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, signed at Paris, Sept. 3, 1783, and ratified by the American Congress on the 14th of January, 1784, Michigan became a part of the United States ; but from various causes the British held possession of Oswe- gatchie (now Ogdensburg), Oswego, Niagara, Presque Isle (now Erie), Sandusky, Detroit, and Mackinac, for longer or shorter periods. In the spring of 1794 they rebuilt and strengthened the old Fort Miami, at the rapids on the Maumee River, which came very near producing a collision between Gen. Wayne and the British authorities in August of that year.

The American Congress acted upon the basis that the boundary as laid down in the treaty would be made the permanent one, and on the 13th of July, 1787, passed the act known as the

* Judge Campbell says of this act: "It was delusive everywhere, and the historian Garneau finds a lack of words to express his indig- nation at the course pursued under it. By our Declaration of Inde- pendence it was denounced as unfavorable to liberty. If the Detroit colonists heard of it, it was but as a distant rumor of something which did not affect them."-Outlines of Political History, p. 152. t Tuttle's History of Michigan.

# Then called the "Beargrass Settlement," from the creek of that name which falls into the Ohio at this place.

¿ This name is written by some authors Le Noult.

|| This name is written in Albach's " Annals of the West" Lenault.

TERRITORIAL.

ORDINANCE OF 1787.

Under this act all the territory lying west and north of the Ohio River to the line of the Mississippi was organ- ized into what was called the North west Territory, including what now constitutes the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In October of the same year, Gen. Arthur St. Clair, a veteran officer of the Revolution, and a native of Scotland, who had come to America with Gen. Abercrombie in 1758, was appointed the first Gov- ernor .*

This extensive territory had been ceded by Virginia to the United States in 1784. Several of the remaining States also claimed proprietary rights in the lands lying to the west of Pennsylvania and New York. Of these New York had ceded her claims in 1781, Massachusetts in 1785, and Connecticut in 1786.

In 1790 occurred the defeat of Gen. Harmar, around the site now occupied by the city of Fort Wayne, Ind., and in November, 1791, the still more disastrous defeat of Gen. St. Clair, in what is now Mercer County, Ohio, on the head streams of the Wabash. These defeats were mostly brought about by the Miami and Wyandot tribes, under the com- mand of Buck-ong-a-he-las and the celebrated Little Turtle, though the Delawares, Shawanese, and Pottawattomies had warriors present ; and it is said, on the authority of William L. Stone, that Brant, the celebrated Mohawk chief, was on the ground, and aided, with one hundred and fifty warriors, in the defeat of St. Clair.

Many attempts were made between the latter date (1791) and the advance of Gen. Anthony Wayne against the con- federated tribes, in 1794, to negotiate treaties with the sav- ages, and there is little doubt but for the machinations of McKee, Elliott, Simon Girty, and others, and, very pos- sibly, higher British officials, they would have been success- ful. But every attempt failed, and on the 20th of August, 1794, at the " Fallen Timbers," or Maumee Rapids, Wayne gave the combined Indian tribes of the Northwest a san- guinary defeat.

This brought the savages to terms, and in December fol- lowing several of the nations sent deputies to Col. Ham- tramck, at Fort Wayne, asking for peace. The British agents used every means to prevent them from treating with the United States, but without avail, and in June, 1795, the chiefs of the various nations began to assemble at Green- ville, Ohio, where, on the 3d of August, following, Gen. Waynet executed a treaty with the following nations : Delawares, Ottawas, Pottawattomies, Miamis, Wyandots, Shawanese, and Ojibwas (or Chippewas) ; and with the following tribes or fractions of other nations : Kickapoos, Weas, Eel River Indians, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias.

By this treaty the dividing line between the United States and the Indian Territory was established as follows :

"The general boundary lines between the lands of the United States and the lands of the said Indian tribes shall begin at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and run thence up the same to the portage be- tween that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum ; thence down that branch to the crossing-place, above Fort Laurens; thence westwardly to a fork of that branch of the Great Miami River run- ning into the Ohio, at or near which fork stood Loramie's store, and where commences the portage between the Miami of the Ohio and St. Mary's River, which is a branch of the Miami which runs into Lake Erie ; thence a westerly course to Fort Recovery, which stands on a branch of the Wabash ; thence southwesterly in a direct line to the Ohio, so as to intersect that river opposite the mouth of Kentucky or Cuttawa River."

Within the Indian territory certain reservations were made by the United States, and among them the following within the limits of Michigan :

" The post of Detroit, and all the lands to the north, the west, and the south of it, of which the Indian title has been extinguished by gifts or grants to the French or English governments ; and so much more land, to be annexed to the district of Detroit, as shall be com- prehended between the river Raisin, on the south, and Lake St. Clair, on the north, and a line, the general course whereof shall be six miles distant from the west end of Lake Erie and Detroit River.

"The post of Michilimackinac, and all the land on the island on which that post stands, and the main land adjacent, of which the In- dian title has been extinguished by gifts or grants to the French or English Governments; and a piece of land on the main, to the north of the island, to measure six miles on Lake Huron, or the strait be- tween Lakes Huron and Michigan, and to extend three miles back from the water on the lake or strait; and also the island De Bois Blanc, being an extra and voluntary gift of the Chippeway ( Ojibwa) nation."

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 10

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott Number of Pages: 761

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761