USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories > Part 5
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" The light departed, and the colors faded away. Only a dusky redness lingered in the west, and the darkening earth seemed her dull self again. Then night
descended, heavy and black, on the fierce Indians and the sleepless English. From sunset until dawn an anxious watch was kept from the slender palisades of Detroit. The soldiers were still ignorant of the danger, and the sentinels did not know why their numbers were doubled, or why, with such unwonted vigilance, their officers visited their posts.
"Again and again Gladwyn mounted his wooden ramparts and looked forth into the gloom. There seemed nothing but repose in the soft, moist air of the warm spring evening, with the piping of frogs along the river-bank, just roused from their torpor by the genial influence of May. But, at intervals, as the night wind swept across the bastion, it bore sounds of fearful portent to the ear,-the sullen booming of the Indian drum and the wild chorus of quavering yells, as the war- riors around their distant camp-fires danced the war-dance in preparation for the morrow's work."
At an early hour the next morning the common was thronged with a motley crowd of Indians, and about ten o'clock Pontiac arrived, accompanied by about sixty chiefs and warriors, and was admitted within the fort. Then followed the council, and the speeches of Gladwyn and the chief, and the discovery by Pontiac that all his plans were known to the English commander. After satisfying the savages that their treachery was understood and their power despised, Gladwyn permitted them to withdraw unharmed from the fort.
Pontiac, chagrined and enraged beyond measure, still controlled his feelings, and attempted to regain the confidence of Gladwyn, but finding all his efforts fruit- less, he at length threw off the mask and commenced a fierce attack upon the fort. Foiled in his attempts to take the place by surprise, and unable to carry it by assault, he finally settled down to a regular siege, which was maintained more or less vigorously for fifteen months.
To supply his men with provisions, Pontiac levied contributions upon the Cana- dians, and issued certificates drawn upon birch-bark, which were afterwards scrupu- lously redeemed. He intrenched his camps, and when a bold attack was made upon it by Captain Dalzell with a powerful reinforcement of troops, he defended it gal- lantly, and repulsed the English with heavy loss. His fierce warriors attacked a reinforcement for the fort, on Point Pelee, capturing three out of five large boats with their crews, and dispersing the rest with severe loss. Convoys of prisoners and stores were attacked on the Detroit river, and captured or driven back into Lake Erie, and the garrison was at times reduced almost to starvation. Repeated attempts were made to destroy the works and dwellings by firing burning arrows upon them, and every artifice which Indian cunning and ferocity could invent was put in practice for the destruction of the fort and its gallant defenders.
The Ottawa chief still clung tenaciously to the hope that France would once more send her white-coated legions against the English, and that together the French and Indian arms would triumph, and the "long-knives" be driven beyond the Alleghenies. But at length the unwelcome truth forced itself upon his mind that the power of the French in America was gone never to be restored, and de- spairing of success against the English unaided, he sullenly raised the siege, upon the approach of Bradstreet'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. But the power of the Indians was broken by Bouquet's defeat of Kyasuta in the forests of Westmoreland, and the repulse of Pontiac under the walls of Detroit, and the great chieftain could not induce them to continue the war.
In July, 1766, Pontiac attended a great council held at Oswego, New York, between Sir William Johnson and the Indian nations, where he made a speech, and signed a treaty of perpetual peace with the English. Returning with pres- ents to his new home on the Maumee, he remained there until the spring of 1769, when he removed to Illinois, for what purpose is not certainly known, though many of the English traders believed he was stirring up the Indians to another onslaught upon the settlements. Soon after his arrival in Illinois he visited St. Louis, and called upon his former friend, St. Ange, who was then in command of that post. After leaving the fort he proceeded to the house of which young Pierre Choteau was an inmate, where the prominent citizens paid him their respects, and enter- tained him in the most sumptuous manner.
Choteau, to the last days of his long and eventful life, never forgot the appear- ance of the great chieftain. 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 towards the close of the French war.
He remained at St. Louis for several days, when, hearing that a large number of Indians were assembled at Cohokia, on the opposite side of the river, he said he would cross over and see what was going on. St. Ange tried to dissuade him, but he said he was a match for the English, and with a few of his followers crossed over, and the party never saw him again. Entering the village, he was soon known, and invited to a grand feast where liquor was freely circulated. The chief, with all his dignity, could not resist the native passion for strong drink, and imbibed deeply.
# This name is spelled by some writers Gladwin, but it is undoubtedly of Welsh origin, and spelled with a y.
t " Conspiracy of Pontiac."
HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
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An English trader, named Williamson, lived in the village, and he looked upon the presence of Pontiac with a jealous eye, and resolved to put him out of the way if possible. The chief, after the feast was over, strolled down the village street into the adjacent woods, where he was heard to sing his medicine songs, in whose magic power, like all the savages, he implicitly trusted. It is said that William- son bribed a Kaskaskia Indian, with a promise of a barrel of rum, to assassinate the chief. The savage followed him into the timber, and, watching his opportu- nity, stole behind him and dispatched him with his tomahawk.
The dastardly deed was soon known to his followers, who gathered with terrible cries of vengeance, but being few in numbers were soon driven out of the village by their enemies. The murdered chief lay where he fell until St. Ange, hearing of the catastrophe, sent over and had the body taken to St. Louis, where it was interred with the honors of war near the fort.
A terrible vengeance followed this great crime. The natives of the northwest united, and almost totally exterminated the Illinois Indians, the remnant of whom never afterwards cut any figure in history.
This renowned chief and warrior, it is said, made the region of beautiful lakes lying to the southwest of Pontiac his favorite summer abode. Pitching his tent on the charming island in Orchard Lake, called by the natives " Me-nah-sa-gor- ning," signifying " the place of the orchard," he passed the warm season amid the sylvan beauty of a locality nowhere surpassed in the west. When the whites first settled this region there were apple-trees growing upon the island, the seeds of which were probably obtained from the French at Detroit. It is within the bounds of conjecture that possibly some Jesuit missionary may have penetrated to this delightful spot and chosen it for a hermitage, where, undisturbed by the bustling world, he could live in peace.
Whether the great chieftain made this his place of abode is perhaps question- able, but he no doubt often passed through the charming region, and his name is therefore probably perpetuated by the beautiful capital of Oakland County. And not alone in Michigan is his name remembered, for on the broad-spreading prairies of Illinois another flourishing city does honor to the most princely Indian that ever trod the soil of the mighty west.
Soon after Bradstreet's arrival at Detroit the posts of Michilimackinac, Green Bay, and others upon the lakes were reoccupied by English troops, after having been for more than twelve months in possession of the Indians.
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From the time of the " great siege" until 1774 Michigan was without the pale of civil government. The commandant was both civil and military ruler, com- bining within himself the legislative, judicial, and civil powers.
" THE QUEBEC ACT."
In 1774, while Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton was in command at De- troit, an act was passed called the " Quebec Act," establishing the boundaries of Canada, which included Michigan, and extended thence to the Ohio and Missis- sippi rivers on the south and west, and to the lands of the Hudson Bay Company on the north.
" This 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 according to the former laws of the province. But the right was not extended to settlers on lands 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 discovered 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 expenses of blasting and transportation were too great to warrant the prosecution of the enterprise, and it was abandoned. The fur trade was successfully prosecuted. 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, Mackinaw, 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 American revolution Detroit was the British headquarters for the northwest, and the relentless and cruel Indian warfare which was prosecuted against the frontier settlements of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia received its inspiration, direction, and remuneration largely from this point. At Montreal and Detroit the savage allies were met by agents of the British government and paid a stipulated price for the scalps of men, women, and children who had perished beneath the murderous tomahawk on the borders. Mackinaw was also an impor- tant point during the war, and was strongly fortified and occupied by a British garrison.
Two remarkable expeditions were fitted out from Detroit to act against the
American settlements and interior posts. One, under the command of Captain Byrd, was destined to attack Louisville, at the falls of the Ohio, but it only resulted in the destruction of a few small stockades and the massacre of the inhabi- tants. The other was under the immediate command of Governor Hamilton, and was directed against the old French post of Vincennes, on the Wabash, which had been captured by the renowned Indian fighter, Colonel George Rogers Clark. This expedition started out in 1778, and arriving at Vincennes succeeded in cap- turing the post, which was held by Captain Helm and a private soldier named Henry. Governor Hamilton remained through the winter, until February, 1779, when he was surrounded and compelled to surrender by a small force under Clark, which had made a winter march from Kaskaskia, on the Mississippi, through snow and mud and water, and caught the doughty Briton unawares. Hamilton was sent a prisoner of war to Virginia, where he was confined, and the garrison were disarmed and suffered to return to Detroit.
Major Lernoult was left in command of Detroit by Hamilton when he started upon his expedition to the Wabash. This officer was succeeded, in October, 1779, by Major De Peyster, under whose direction Byrd's expedition was sent into Kentucky in 1780.
From this time forward until the occupation of the country by the United States nothing of special importance transpired at Detroit or in its neighborhood. It was occupied by the English in force, and continued to be one of the principal places of rendezvous for the surrounding Indian tribes. The settlements increased very slowly, if at all, and no special attention was paid to agricultural pursuits. The principal business continued to be the fur trade, and it was not until after 1796 that emigration began to penetrate the borders of the peninsula, and not till the close of the war with Great Britain and the humbling of the Indian tribes that any considerable progress was made in developing the great natural resources of the country. The population, on the whole, at the close of the English rule, had not advanced materially from what it was in 1760, when it was estimated at two thousand five hundred people.
CHAPTER V.
UNDER THE UNITED STATES RULE.
R
AS A PART OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY-CAPTAIN POATER TAKES POS- SESSION OF DETROIT-COUNTY OF WAYNE-GOVERNOR ST. CLAIR-GOV- ERNMENT OF THE TERRITORY-DELEGATE IN CONGRESS-INDIANA TERRI- TORY-MADE A SEPARATE TERRITORY-DETROIT DESTROYED BY FIRE- GOVERNOR HULL-INDIAN TREATIES AND COUNCILS-POPULATION-INDIAN DIFFICULTIES-WAR OF 1812-SURRENDER OF DETROIT-PROCTOR'S DE- FEAT-GOVERNOR CASS-FIRST COUNTIES ORGANIZED-SALE OF PUBLIC LANDS-FIRST STEAMER ON THE LAKES-SUMMARY OF TERRITORIAL HIS- TORY.
BY the treaty of peace of 1783 between the United States and Great Britain, Michigan became a part of the United States, but was not actually evacuated by the British troops until July 12, 1796, at which time Captain Moses Porter, with a company of sixty-five men, marched in and took possession of Detroit, under the provisions of Jay's treaty. It then became a part of the Northwest Terri- tory, of which General Arthur St. Clair, a veteran officer of the revolution, was appointed governor.
The county of Wayne, named in honor of General Anthony Wayne, was formed from a portion of the Northwest Territory August 11, 1796. It in- cluded all of the lower peninsula, portions of northern Ohio and Indiana, and also parts of Illinois and Wisconsin. It elected delegates to the first Territorial legislature. This large county was organized by Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the Northwest Territory, in September, 1796. In 1797, according to Weld, Detroit, the capital of the county, contained three hundred houses.
In Congress, on the 7th of April, 1798, the act organizing the Territory of Mississippi was passed, and Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the Northwest Terri- tory, was appointed governor. His place was filled by William Henry Harrison, who was very popular with the people of the northwest. Harrison held the position until he was appointed a delegate to represent the Northwest Territory in Congress.
On the 29th of October, 1798, Governor St. Clair, by proclamation, directed an election for representatives to be held on the third Monday of the following December. These representatives, when assembled, were required to nominate ten persons, whose names were to be sent to the President of the United States,
# Tuttle's " History of Michigan."
3
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
who selected five, and, with the advice and consent of the senate, appointed them as a legislative council of the Territory. In this way the northwest passed into the second mode of territorial government. The representatives elected under the governor's proclamation met at Cincinnati, January 22, 1799, and under the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, nominated ten persons. From among these, on the 2d of March, the president selected Jacob Bennet, James Findlay, Henry Vanderburgh, Robert Oliver, and David Vance, and they were confirmed by the Senate as the legislative council of the Northwest Territory.
The Territorial legislature met and were organized at Cincinnati on the 24th of September, 1799. The house of representatives consisted of nineteen members, of whom seven were from Hamilton county, four from Ross county, three from Wayne county, two from Adams county, and one each from Jefferson, Washing- ton, and Knox counties.
On the 3d of October, 1799, the Territorial legislature elected William Henry Harrison as delegate to Congress. Although he represented the Territory but one year, he succeeded in obtaining some important advantages for his constitu- cuts ; among them the passage of an act authorizing the subdivision of the public lands, though it was bitterly opposed by the speculators, who wished to be the retailers of the lands to the settlers.
INDIANA TERRITORY.
On the 7th of May, 1800, the Territory of Indiana was formed, which included that part of the Northwest Territory lying west of a line drawn from opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river, thence to Fort Recovery, and thence due north to the line dividing the United States from the British possessions.
This meridian would cross near the straits of Mackinaw, and intersect the inter- national line above the Sault St. Marie.
At the same session, the permanent seat of government for the Northwest Territory was fixed at Chillicothe, and for Indiana Territory at Vincennes, on the Wabash. These enactments to take effect from and after July 4, 1800.
William Henry Harrison was appointed governor of Indiana Territory, and was commissioned the following year, 1801. General St. Clair was reappointed governor of the Northwest Territory in 1801. Upon the erection of Ohio into a State in 1802, the whole of Michigan became a part of Indiana Territory.
TERRITORY OF MICHIGAN.
On the 11th of January, 1805, Congress passed an act for the organization of the Territory of Michigan. The governor and judges were appointed by the president and endowed with legislative power. On the 26th of February, of the same year, the president nominated the Territorial officers.
General William Hull, a veteran officer of the revolution, was appointed gov- ernor and Hon. A. B. Woodward presiding judge. On the 29th of June, Judge Woodward arrived at Detroit, and the governor on the 1st of July. On the 11th day of June preceding their arrival, Detroit had been totally destroyed by fire.
The new functionaries, in their report to Congress in October following, in speaking of Detroit, say, " The place which bore the appellation of the town of Detroit was a spot of about two acres of ground, completely covered with build- ings and combustible materials, the narrow intervals of fourteen or fifteen feet, used as streets or lanes, excepted, and the whole was environed with a very strong and secure defense of tall and solid pickets."
Congress, being petitioned for the relief of the suffering inhabitants, passed an act granting them the old town and ten thousand additional acres lying immediately around it.
The town was subsequently laid out upon an enlarged and greatly improved plan, covering the original plat and the adjacent " commons."
The government of the Territory of Michigan commenced its existence on the 2d of July, 1805. It included within its boundaries all of the lower peninsula. When Illinois was admitted as a State, in 1818, all of what is now Wisconsin was added to Michigan Territory, and in 1834 Iowa and Minnesota were included for temporary purposes.
INDIAN TREATY.
On the 17th of November, 1807, Governor Hull made a treaty with the Otta- wrus. Chippewas, Wyandots or Hurons, and the Pottawatomies, by which a large tract of country lying between the Maumee river and Saginaw bay was transferred to the United States. The boundaries of this tract were described as follows: " Beginning at the mouth of the Miami of the Lakes (now known as the Mau- mee); thence up the middle thereof to the mouth of the great Auglaize river; thence due north until it intersects a parallel of latitude to be drawn from the out- let of Lake Huron, which forms the St. Clair river ; thence running northeast the course that may be found shall lead in a direct line to White Rock in Lake Huron; thence due east until it intersects the line between the United States and Upper Canada ; thence southerly, following said line down said lake through the river
St. Clair, Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit river, to a point due east of the mouth of the aforesaid Miami river; thence west to the place of beginning." The present territory of Oakland County was included within these limits.
In September, 1809, a special council was held by the governor with the Hu- rons, at which their principal chief, Walk-in-the- Water, detailed the grievances of the Indians, who were greatly dissatisfied with the results of the treaty of Green- ville. In the mean time, Tecumseh, the great Shawanese chief, and his brother, the Prophet, were busy stirring up the Indians throughout the west and southwest to a general war against the whites. The Territory of Michigan was at that period in a very defenseless condition. There were but nine settlements of any impor- tance within its limits. These were situated on the rivers Miami and Raisin, on the Huron of Lake Erie, on the Ecorce, Rouge, and Detroit rivers, on the Huron (now Clinton) of Lake St. Clair, the St. Clair river, and on the island of Mack- inaw. The total population of these settlements and posts amounted to about four thousand eight hundred, three-fourths of whom were French and Canadians, the balance Americans. The long-premeditated Indian war opened prematurely near the Prophet's town, on the Tippecanoe river, in Indiana Territory, on the morning of the 7th of November, 1811, when the Prophet, at the head of a mixed band of from six hundred to one thousand warriors, attacked Governor Harrison, who was marching northward for the purpose of either making a treaty with the Indians or, in the event of a failure, of destroying their towns and laying waste their country. The governor was at the head of about seven hundred men, partly United States troops and partly volunteers. After a desperate night-battle of two hours' dura- tion, the saavges were beaten at all points and several of their towns destroyed.
Chagrined and exceedingly angry at the Prophet's defeat, Tecumseh could no longer screen his plans, and was compelled to inaugurate open war.
WAR OF 1812.
A large body of troops was at this time or soon after collected in Ohio, amount- ing to about twelve hundred men, raised by order of the president, which was soon largely reinforced by volunteers. They were divided into three regiments, and placed under the command of Colonels McArthur, Findlay, and Cass. A fourth regiment, under Colonel Miller, afterwards joined them, and the whole was placed under the command of General Hull, governor of Michigan Territory.
The general began his march from Dayton towards Detroit, and when near the river Raisin, on the 3d of July, learned of the declaration of war by the United States against Great Britain on the 18th of June preceding.
With this force General Hull crossed into Canada about the 7th of July, and established himself at Sandwich, opposite Detroit. He soon after issued a procla- mation to the Canadians. Here the army remained for about a month, while foraging-parties scoured the adjacent country and brought in large quantities of provisions and forage. A reconnaissance was also made towards Fort Malden.
Hearing of the capture of Mackinaw, and the defeat of a small command under Major Van Horn, who had been sent as guard to the mail-carrier between Ohio and Michigan, the general seemed to lose all his former soldierly qualities, and hastily, on the 7th of August, retreated across the river to Detroit, where, on the 16th, he surrendered his whole force and the Territory of Michigan into the hands of the British general, Brock. This most cowardly and contemptible act ever performed by an American officer was bitterly cursed by his officers and men, and indignantly condemned in unmeasured terms by the American people.
The British held possession of Detroit and the adjacent region until after Perry's great victory over the veteran Commodore Barclay, on Lake Erie, Septem- ber 10, 1813, when Proctor, who had succeeded Brock, immediately destroyed his works at Malden, and commenced a rapid retreat up the river Thames into the interior of Canada. He was quickly followed by Harrison, and finally brought to a battle at the Moravian towns, where, on the 5th of October, he was totally routed, his Indian allies beaten with great slaughter, and the celebrated Tecumseh slain.
General Hull was tried by a court-martial and sentenced to be shot, but, in consideration of his distinguished services during the Revolution, and his advanced age, he was pardoned by the president, but his name was stricken from the rolls of the army.
COLONEL LEWIS CASS APPOINTED GOVERNOR.
On the 13th of October, 1813, Colonel Lewis Cass was appointed governor of Michigan Territory, which office he held until he was called to a seat in the cabi- net of President Jackson, in 1831. Under his able administration Michigan commenced that career of prosperity which has made it what it now is.
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