USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests Volume I > Part 7
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ORCHARD LAKE AND THE GREAT CHIEF, PONTIAC
Orchard lake, southwest of Pontiac, was one of the homes of the chief after whom the city was named, and from that region he is said to have drawn not a small portion of his supplies, such as fish and water fowl, which enabled him to make such an alarming display of his strength and resourcefulness before the English stronghold.
Pontiac had not been slow in transferring his allegiance from his old- time friends, the French, and the new British rulers of the country. In September, 1760, four days after the surrender of Montreal, Major Robert Rogers received orders from his superiors to take possession of Detroit, Michilimackinac and other western posts which fell to the Brit- ish as the result of the war. On his way to Detroit he reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, the present site of Cleveland, and there encamped with his command of two hundred rangers who had come hither from Montreal in fifteen whale-boats.
Soon after the arrival of the rangers a party of Indian chiefs and warriors entered the camp. They proclaimed themselves an embassy from Pontiac, ruler of all that country, and directed, in his name, that the English should advance no further until they could have an interview with the great chief who was already close at hand. In truth, before the day closed, Pontiac himself appeared; and it is here for the first time that this remarkable character becomes a part of American history. He
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY
is said to have greeted Major Rogers with the haughty demand "What is your business in this country ; and how dare you. enter it without my permission ?"
Rogers informed him that the French were defeated, that Canada had surrendered, and that he was on his way to take possession of Detroit and 'restore general peace to white men and Indians alike. Pontiac listened with attention, but only replied that he "should stand in the path until morning." Having inquired if the strangers were in need of any- thing which his country afforded, he withdrew with his chiefs at night- fall to his own encampment, while the English stood well on their guard until morning.
Pontiac then returned to the camp with his attendant chiefs and made his reply to Rogers' speech of the previous day. He was willing, he said, to live at peace with the English, and suffer them to remain in his country as long as they treated him with deference. The Indian chief and provincial officers then smoked the calumet together.
Up to this time, Pontiac had been the fast ally of the French, but, ignorant as he was of what was passing in the great world of the whites, his remarkable instinct told him that the English were in the decided as- cendant ; that it was the best policy to cultivate their friendship; and he hoped to secure them as allies in furthering his ambitions against tribes of his own race. In the latter expectation he was so bitterly disappointed that he became a fierce and stern foe long to be remembered.
When Pontiac found that he could not use the English, he set about to exterminate them. In 1863 culminated his plans and conspiracies of several years' standing. Under his leadership, the Delawares, a portion of the Six Nations, the Wyandots, the Shawnees, the Ottawas (his own people ), and the other western Indian nations, had agreed to fall simul- taneously upon all the frontiers from Lake Superior to the Susquehanna. Pontiac's eastern coworker in the famous conspiracy was the celebrated Seneca chief, Kyasuta or Guyasuta, whose home was on the Allegheny river, but history has given the palm of greatness to the western leader.
The details and outcome of the conspiracy are known of all; how Pontiac and his Warriors attempted to enter the Detroit fort and mas- sacre all therein ; how this plan not only failed, but expected relief from the French as well, and how, in chagrin, he raised the siege, upon the approach of Braddock's army in August, 1764, and withdrew to the head- waters of the Maumee, where he still endeavored to stir up the red race against the whites. In 1766, at the great Indian council near Otsego, New York, he signed a perpetual treaty of peace with the English, and remained at Maumee until 1769, when he removed to Illinois. Soon afterward he visited St. Louis to call upon his former friend, St. Ange, the commandant of that post. He was dressed in the full uniform of a French officer, which the Marquis Montcalm had presented to him as a special mark of respect toward the close of the French war. Every- where he was received and entertained as a great man.
Pontiac remained at St. Louis for several days, when, hearing that a great number of Indians were assembled at Cahokia on the opposite side of the river, said he would cross over and see what was going on. St. Ange tried to dissuade him, but he replied that he was a match for
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY 21
the English, and, with a few of his followers, crossed to the Illinois shore. Entering the village, he was soon known and invited to a grand feast where liquor was freely circulated. The chief, with all his dignity and natural strength of character, could not resist the native passion for strong drink. After the feast was over and he was well under the in- fluence of liquor, he strolled down the street into the adjacent woods, where he was heard to sing the weird medicine songs of his race, which proved for him to be his requiem. A Kaskaskia Indian followed close behind, and his dead body was soon after found in a thicket. It is be- lieved that the savage had been hired to tomahawk the great chief by an English trader named Williamson, the wage for the dastardly act having been the promise of a barrel of rum.
A terrible vengeance followed this great crime. The Indians of the northwest united and almost exterminated the Illinois tribes, the rem- nants of whom never afterward cut any figure in history.
Whether Pontiac ever made the Orchard lake region his actual place of abode is questionable, but he undoubtedly often passed through the charming region, and that his name is attached to the metropolis of the county is an added reason why his career and personality should be pre- sented at some length.
THE LEGEND OF ME-NAH-SA-GOR-NING
One of the most noted of the Indian legends attaching to this region has to do with Orchard lake, or more strictly speaking with the beautiful Me-nah-sa-gor-ning (Apple island), which lies in its center. Many years ago, Samuel M. Leggett, one of the county's old settlers, told the story of this legend in verse, but at such length that it cannot be here repro- duced. His introduction, however, furnishes matter which is both in- teresting and available. "In the state of Michigan," it says, "in one county alone-that of Oakland-is a chain of beautiful lakes, some hun- dreds in number, many of them miles in length and width. Around these wind the roadways, over beaches of white pebbles and shaded by the 'forests primeval.' Two rivers, the Huron and the Clinton, run through these lakes, and, in their tortuous forms, wind, and turn, and twist, till after a course of hundreds of miles, they at last rest in Lakes Erie and St. Clair. These rivers are in the summer dotted with the water-lily, as they flow on through the 'openings,' and on their banks are huge old oaks under which, in the days that are gone, stood many a wigwam.
"The legend which I have attempted to verify is founded upon an incident occurring at Orchard lake long before the coming of the white man and while the grand farms now lying around it were merely a vast oak opening, its sole occupant the Indian and the wild beast. Very near the center of this Orchard lake is a large island, wooded to its very shore. On it are a few apple trees, old and gnarled, remnants of an orchard planted so long ago that the Indians even have no data concerning it. Its name, Me-nah-sa-gor-ning, meaning "apple place," still lives in tradi- tion.
"On this island the Algonquin chief, Pontiac, had his lodge after his repulse at the siege of Detroit. On the high bank of this lake, oppo-
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site the island, is still to be seen the ancient burial ground of the Sacs, Hurons and Wyandots.
"Tradition says that back beyond the memory of the tribe a young chief sickened and suddenly died. The maiden to whom he was be- trothed became insane, and whenever she could escape from her guard- ians they would take the body of the chief from its resting place in the old ground across the lake and carry it back to the place where his lodge formerly stood.
"At last, weary of guarding her, with the advice of their medicine man the tribe killed her, upon her refusal to marry. This crime, so di- rectly opposed to all former Indian custom, so offended the Great Spirit that he avowed his intention of totally destroying the tribe, and to give the maiden, 'as long as water flowed,' complete control over it. She alone
APPLE ISLAND ORCHARD LAKE
has power to assume her form at any time. She can compel the attend- ance of the tribe at any time by the beating of the Indian drum. At this sound they must gather and wait where an old canoe has been gradually covered by the drifting sands. Upon the signal of her coming with her dead the warriors must meet her on the shore, bear the chief on his bier and lay him down by the ashes of his council fire and, waiting beside him until she can caress him, bear him back to his resting place. All, how- ever, must be done between sunset and sunrise-a foggy night being always chosen to elude observation."
PRIMITIVE TILLAGE AND INDUSTRIES
One of the most complete sketches of aboriginal history as it relates to Oakland county has been written by O. Poppleton, formerly president of the Oakland County Pioneer Society. It is mainly contained in his address delivered before that body in June, 1884. The portions applic- able to the subject now being considered are as follows :
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"Oakland county is not barren of traditional or legendary events of deep interest to the historian, and to her people. When the Jesuit fathers and French fur traders first visited this region of the country, and fol- lowing them the very early pioneers, they found many evidences of a prior occupation by a semi-civilization, in the tillage of the soil by un- known and extinct agriculturists of a very remote period. Many rude agricultural implements have been found in the clearing and tillage of the land and by excavations; thus demonstrating theoretically that the country had been previously occupied by a people who were well versed in the knowledge of practical agriculture, and who subsisted by cultivat- ing the soil, by mining, in pursuit of game of the forests, and the fish of the lakes and rivers.
"The very early surveyors in pursuit of their calling, and the pioneer in exploring this region for a favorable location for his homestead, found large areas which, evidently, had been tilled in hoed crops, judging from the regular and well defined rows of hills for corn and vegetables, upon which were then growing the largest oaks and other trees of the forests. By an actual computation of the yearly growth of these trees, the occupa- tion of this region by those people must have been centuries before the discovery of this continent.
"The traditions were that corn, beans and other grains and vegetables were raised upon these aboriginal fields; that they had sustained a numerous population, who were proficient in the arts of rude manufact- uring of cloths, pottery and copper utensils, silver and copper ornaments, stone axes, hammers, mortars and pestles, flint arrow heads, graining and skinning knives, many of which have been found during the early ex- plorations of the missionaries and traders and since by the first settle- ments of the pioneers of the county.
"At what period those people occupied the county is difficult even to approximate a date. Yet from the modified barbarism which is indi- cated by works left by a pre-historic race, there can be no other conclu- sion than that this county has been occupied by a race long since extinct, who were undoubtedly connected with the early civilization of Europe.
CONTACT WITH KNOWN TRIBES
"In the early explorations of the Great Lakes by the French, com- mencing in 1534-5, they found the descendants of the Algonquin tribes of Indians occupying the country to the north and west of Detroit, with whom they held social and commercial intercourse, yet but little of the French and early Indian history has been preserved. It is known that the fur traders made their annual visits to this region, through the rivers Huron, Rouge, Raisin and Clinton, for the purpose of bartering with the Indians for furs and skins.
"But little has been preserved of the Indian history, or of the French nomadic occupation. One Micheau, a French and Indian trader, who died about the time of the first settlement of Wayne, Oakland and Mac- omb counties, at the advanced age of one hundred and fifteen or one hun- dred and sixteen years, relates that one of the traditions of the tribes was that a sanguinary conflict occurred between the Foxes and Chippewas,
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upon the plains north and west, adjoining what is now the village of Bir- mingham, and known as the Willits, Doctor Swan and Captain Blake farms, on sections 24 and 25.
SCARS OF BATTLE
"The village of the Chippewas was situated near the present site of the cemetery and formed a nucleus from which they sallied forth upon their hunting, fishing and warlike expeditions and forays, returning with varied success and bringing game, furs and the scalps of their hated foe, the Foxes. Between these powerful tribes there had existed a deadly feud for many years, until it culminated in an attack by the Foxes upon the Chippewas, at their village. How many braves were engaged in the con- flict, tradition has failed to hand down to us. That there were many on each side is evident from the number of dead redskins said to have been found in the trail of the retreating tribes and on the battlefield. The Chip- pewas were defeated after a desperate struggle in defending their chil- dren, squaws and camp fires, and their village burned. They retreated along the trails towards what is now Detroit, closely pursued by their foes, leaving about seven hundred dead bodies along the course of their retreat ; and on the field of battle the dead were too numerous to be counted. The pride and prowess of this once powerful tribe was crushed and humili- ated, and thereafter they declined in influence and numbers.
"There is one other notable Indian tradition, of an event which occurred in the county-that of a hostile meeting between the great chief Pontiac and another tribe, in the vicinity of a large, while oak tree, in the township of Royal Oak, on section 16, from which the township derives its name ; located near the junction of the Crook's, Niles and Paint Creek roads. At the time I first saw it, in 1825, it still bore the scars made by the tomahawks, arrows and bullets. But at what date this happened, or what tribe was opposed to Pontiac and his followers, I have never been able to learn, not even through traditional history."
C. Z. HORTON'S CONTRIBUTIONS
C. Z. Horton has also made valuable contributions to the Indian pic- tures of Oakland county, some of which are given. They were originally published in the Rochester Era. As to evidences of former tillage, either by Indians or a more primitive race, he says: "In this connection I would state that the appearance of the woodlands when I first came here (to Rochester), especially south of the Clinton river, looked like an old corn field, or like hills where corn had grown, the rows running a little west of north and east of south, about four feet apart each way ; besides all the stones had been piled up, as but few scattering ones could be seen and many of them were deeply imbedded in the earth."
INDIAN CAMPING GROUND AND CEMETERY
"Near the dwelling of Mr. Edwin T. Wilcox, on the Paint Creek road, some two miles south of Rochester," he continues, "there were deep in-
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dentations in the ground, and from ten to twelve feet across, some of them two or more feet deep. They followed the line of the ridge, were from four to six feet apart-perhaps 100 of them-and were parallel, showing the appearance of a winter camping-ground where the earth had been thrown up around their wigwams, as it was afterwards dis- covered, in digging in them, they contained the debris of ashes and char- coal. On the lot owned by Mr. Simeon P. Hartwell, the same broken surface appeared, also the corn hills. On the Chipman farm, now occupied by Mr. Weaver, some eighty or one hundred rods east and north, the same indications were observable, also an old burial ground. These signs I never observed north of the river.
QUEER CUSTOMS
"It was a custom with the Indians that when their young arrived at a proper age they were enclosed in a wigwam and had to remain thus in se- clusion by themselves a number of days, or until they would dream of some animal, bird, or reptile, and be able to number and tell of it in the morning. Whatever the dream might be that would be an object of wor- ship through life-such as a bear, a deer, a fox, an eagle, hawk, or smaller animals and birds, and even snakes and lizards. I have often seen trees in the woods, in this vicinity, with rude representations of this kind worked on them, which was their habit of doing. I saw two boys in their wigwams undergoing this ordeal-singing during the day and silent at night. This happened in front of Mr. William Burbank's residence in the summer of 1825, where Mr. Conrad Taylor now resides. I asked Mrs. Burbank what was the object of the Indians to be thus engaged on a sultry day ? She said it was one of their religious ceremonies. I have since learned that such was the case.
"Here is another circumstance, or rather a ceremony of the Indians I have heard narrated by the old settlers, which will be of interest to all those living in this vicinity, which took place in 1824. It is this: south of the Barnes Brothers' paper mill, near the hill, on the land occupied by Mr. Ezekiel Dewey, the Indians cleared off all the flat, built a large log- heap, and set it on fire; in building the heap they left an opening in the centre. They then brought forth two white dogs which they had fantas- tically decorated with red flannel around their necks, tied in their ears and around their legs and tails; and when the pile had fairly become ignited all through, they threw their canine victims into the aperture left in the middle of the blazing pile. They then commenced their songs and dances, which they kept up all night-as the old saying is, 'they made the welken ring.'
THE PASSING OF WE-SE-GAH
We-se-gah was probably one of the most turbulent of the Indians in this section. He was large and muscular, and when in liquor was ready for fight. Most of the settlers were afraid of him. Of his quarrelsome and pugilistic propensity none perhaps were better acquainted than Alex- ander and Benjamin Graham. They both had, several times, quarreled
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with him. We-se-gah at one time drew a tomahawk on Benjamin while he was at work on his shoe-bench, for which Benjamin gave him a very sound thrashing, and at another time he attacked Alexander. After a long tussle, of nearly an hour's duration, Alexander finally overpowered him. We-se-gah, drawing his blanket over his face, then sat down and waited for Graham to dispatch him according to Indian law-by burying a toma- hawk in his head. Graham raised the blanket and said to him: "Go! Never come back. If you do, I will kill you !" We-se-gah went, and was never seen in this section afterward."
CHAPTER IV FIRST SETTLERS AND LAND OWNERS
GREAT SET-BACK TO SETTLEMENT-OAKLAND COUNTY'S FIRST SETTLERS -THE MACK COLONY OF PONTIAC-"UNCLE BEN" WOODWORTH- -FIRST SURVEYS-LOCATIONS UNDER THE "TWO DOLLAR" ACT- THE "TEN SHILLING" ACT-GREAT EVENT FOR THE PIONEER LAND OWNER-TOWN OF PONTIAC SETTLED-ORION AND OXFORD-ROYAL OAK AND TROY-AVON AND WHITE LAKE-SPRINGFIELD AND GROVE- LAND-FARMINGTON AND WEST BLOOMFIELD-WATERFORD AND IN- DEPENDENCE-BRANDON, SOUTHFIELD AND BLOOMFIELD.
Any general history will inform the reader as to the nature of the civil or judicial jurisdiction which was theoretically exercised over the territory now recognized as Oakland county, but humanly speaking we have no vital interest in the subject until men, women and children com- menced to appear and form households in the new country. This hap- pened about two years after the state surveys commenced in southern Michigan, the pioneers in the Oakland county movement being James Graham, his son Alexander, Christopher Hartsough and John Hersey. They located in the township now known as Avon on the 17th day of March, 1817, and brought their families with them.
GREAT SET-BACK TO SETTLEMENT
It took so many years to counteract the report made by the surveyor general in relation to the military, or southern Michigan lands, that a somewhat extended review of the attending circumstances seems germane to the subject. On the 6th of May, 1812, congress passed an act requir- ing that two million acres of land should be surveyed in the then territory of Louisiana ; a like quantity in the territory of Illinois, as well as in the territory of Michigan-in all, six million acres, to be set apart for the soldiers of America in the war of 1812. The lands were surveyed and appropriated, under this law, in Louisiana and Illinois, but the surveyors reported that there were no lands fit for cultivation. The prin- cipal meridian and the base line for the Michigan surveys were estab- lished in 1815.
The surveyor general's report which so long retarded immigration to southern Michigan and Oakland county was as follows: "The country on the Indian boundary line from the mouth of the Great Auglaize river
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and running thence for about fifty miles is (with some few exceptions) low, wet land, with a very thick growth of underbrush, intermixed with very bad marshes, but generally very heavily timbered with beech, cotton- wood, oak, etc .; thence continuing north and extending from the Indian boundary eastward, the number and extent of the swamps increase, with the addition of numbers of lakes, from twenty chains to two and three miles across.
"Many of the lakes have extensive marshes adjoining their marshes, sometimes thickly covered with a species of pine called tamarack, and other places covered with a coarse, high grass, and uniformly covered from six inches to three feet (and more at times) with water. The mar- gins of these lakes are not the only places where swamps are found, for they are interspersed throughout the whole country, and filled with water, as above stated, and varying in extent.
"The intermediate space between these swamps and lakes-which is probably near one-half the country-is, with very few exceptions, a poor, barren, sandy land, on which scarcely any vegetation grows, except very small, scrubby oaks. In many places that part which may be called dry land is composed of little, short sand-hills, forming a kind of deep basins, the bottom of many of which are composed of marsh similar to the above described. The streams are generally narrow and very deep compared with their width, the shores and bottoms of which are (with very few exceptions) swampy beyond description; and it is with the utmost difficulty that a place can be found over which horses can be con- veyed in safety.
"A circumstance peculiar to that country is exhibited in many of the marshes, by their being thinly covered with a sward of grass, by walk- ing on which evinces the existence of water, or a very thin mud immedi- ately under the covering which sinks from six to eighteen inches under the pressure of the foot at every step, and at the same time rises before and behind the person passing over it. The margins of many of the lakes and streams are in a similar situation, and in many places are liter- ally afloat. On approaching the eastern part of the Military lands towards the private claims on the straits and lake, the country does not contain so many swamps and lakes, but the extreme sterility and barrenness of the soil continues the same.
"Taking the country altogether so far as it has been explored, and to all appearances, together with information received concerning the bal- ance, is so bad there would not be more than one acre out of a hundred, if there would be one out of a thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation."
The effect of this report upon congress was that so much of the act of 1812 as related to Michigan was repealed by an act of April 29, 1816, which also located 1,500,000 acres of additional land in Illinois and 500,- 000 acres in Missouri, in lieu of the original 2,000,000 allotted to Michi- gan. It was not until 1817 and 1818 that a few venturesome pioneers braved the dangers of the terrible morasses depicted in the report of the surveyor general, and demonstrated how flimsy was the basis for its mis- leading statements. The visits of Major Oliver Williams and his com- panions, in the fall of 1818, marked the great turning point of public
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