USA > Michigan > Saginaw County > History of Saginaw County, Michigan; historical, commercial, biographical, Volume II > Part 11
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As De Tocqueville and his companion resumed their journey, the pioneer called to them: "When you pass here again, knock at my door. It is a pleasure to meet white faces in this place."
Some miles further on one horse lost a shoe, but not far off, happily, they met another settler who put it on again. fle advised them to make haste, as the daylight in the forest was beginning to fade, and they were at least five miles from Flint River. Soon, indeed, they were enveloped in dark- ness, but were forced to push on. The night was fine, but cold: the silence of the forest was so deep, the calm so complete, that the forces of nature seemed paralyzed. Now and then they saw the distant gleam of a fire. against which they they could trace, through the smoke, the stern and motionless profile of an Indian.
Lost at Night in the Forest
At the end of an hour they came upon a place where the path separated. two trails opening in different directions. One led to a stream they could not tell how deep. the other to a clearing. Which to take was a difficult thing to decide. The moon just rising, however, showed them a valley of fallen trees, and farther on the dim outline of two huts. In order not to lose their way at such an hour they decided that Beaumont should remain to take care of the horses, while De Tocqueville with gun over his shoulder, should descend into the valley.
He soon perceived that he was entering a little settlement. Immense trunks of trees and branches yet unlopped covered the ground, which neces- sitated his jumping from one to another to reach the stream. Happily, its course was impeded at this place by some huge oaks that the pioneers had doubtless thrown down to form a sort of rustic bridge. By crawling along these fallen trees he at last reached the other side. lle warily approached the huts, which he could see but indistinctly, fearing they might prove Indian wigwams. They proved to be unfinished dwellings with doors open ; and no voice answered his calls.
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
Returning to the edge of the stream, he admired for a few minutes the awful grandeur of the scene. The valley seemed a vast amphitheater sur- rounded on all sides by dark woods as if by a black curtain. In its center the moonlight played among the shattered remnants of the forest, creating a thousand fantastic shapes. No sound of any kind, no murmur of life, was audible.
"At last I remembered my companion," writes De Tocqueville, "and called loudly to him to cross the rivulet and join me. The echo repeated my voice over and over again in the solitary woods, but I got no answer. The same death-like stillness reigned. I became uneasy and ran by the side of the stream till I reached the place where it was fordable.
"When I got there I heard in the distance the sound of horses' feet, and soon after Beaumont appeared. Surprised by my long absence, he had pro- ceeded toward the rivulet, and was already in the shallow when I called him. He told me that he, too, had tried by every means to make himself heard, and as well as I, had been alarmed at getting no answer. If it had not been for this ford. which had served as a meeting place, we should probably have been looking for each other half the night."
They Reach Flint River
They resumed their journey and in three-quarters of an hour came upon a settlement, consisting of two or three huts, and, what was still more agree- able, a light. A line of water in the valley proved that they had arrived at Flint River. Soon, a loud barking echoed in the woods, and they soon found themselves close to a log hut, with a fence between them and shelter. As they prepared to climb over it, they saw in the dim moonlight a great black figure rise before them, almost within reach of their arms, having wild, fiery eyes, its hot breath fanning their faces, showing as clearly as anything could its intention to give them a fraternal embrace.
"What an infernal country is this," exclaimed De Tocqueville, "where they keep bears for watch dogs. If we attempt to get over the fence it will be difficult to make the porter listen to reason."
They halloed at the top of their voices, and at length a man appeared at the window, who, after scrutinizing them by the light of the moon, opened the door and welcomed them.
"Enter, gentlemen," he said, "Trink, go to bed. To the kennel, I say. They are not robbers."
The bear waddled off, and the travellers got in almost dead with fatigue. They asked the settler if they could have some oats for their horses.
"Certainly," he replied, and at once went out and began to mow the nearest field as if it were noon day. Meanwhile, they settled themselves as comfortably as they could and slept soundly.
A wilderness of forty miles separated Flint River from the settlement on the Saginaw, and the trail was a narrow and hardly perceptible pathway. It was therefore necessary to procure guides, and two Indian boys who could be trusted were employed to show them the way. One was only twelve or fourteen years of age. and the other about eighteen. The latter, though he had attained the vigor of manhood, gave the idea of agility united with strength. He was of middle height and slender, his limbs were flexible and well proportioned, and long tresses fell upon his shoulders. He had daubed his face with black and red paint in symmetrical lines; a ring was passed through his nose; and a necklace and ear rings completed his attire. His weapons consisted of a tomahawk, which hung at his side, and a long, sharp knife used by the savages to scalp their victims. Round his neck hung a
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THE COMING OF DE TOCQUEVILLE
cow horn containing powder, and in his right hand he carried a rifle. llis eye was wild, but his smile was friendly and benevolent. At his side trotted a dog, more like a fox than any other animal, with a look so savage as to be in perfect harmony with his master.
They asked him his price for the service that he was about to render. and the Indian replied in his native tongue, the trader informing them that what he asked was about equivalent to two dollars. They thereupon gave him the money and the Indian picked out from the stores a pair of mocassins and a pocket handkerchief, worth perhaps half the amount, but he appeared perfectly satisfied with the bargain. The trader, however, was ready to do justice to the savages, who were only beginning to understand the value of
DEN sur3 ch-11
THE TRAIL TO SAGINAW
things. "Trade with them becomes every day less profitable," he said. The Indian in his ignorant simplicity would have said that he (the trader ) found it every day more difficult to cheat his neighbor; but the white man finds in the refinement of language, a shade which expresses the fact, and vet saves his conscience.
They Penetrate the Virgin Forest
All being ready, they mounted their horses, wadded the river which formed the boundary of civilization, and entered the real forest wilderness. The guides ran, or leaped like wild cats, over the impediments of the path. a fallen tree, creek or bog, while the travellers groped blindly on, incapable not only of treading the labyrinth unaided, but even of finding in it the means of sustenance. At the top of the loftiest tree under the densest foliage, the children of the forest detected the game, close to which an European would have passed one hundred times in vain.
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
As they proceeded they gradually lost sight of the traces of man, and soon even proofs of savage life disappeared. Before them was a scene that they had long sought - a virgin forest. "Growing in the middle of the thin underbrush, through which objects are perceived at a considerable distance, was a single clump of full grown trees, almost all pines and oaks. Confined to so narrow a space, and deprived of sunshine, each of these trees had run up rapidly in search of light and air. As straight as the mast of a ship, the most rapid grower had overtopped every surrounding object; only when it had attained a higher region did it venture to spread out its branches, and clothe itself with leaves. Others followed quickly in this elevated sphere, and the whole group, interlacing their boughs, formed a sort of immense canopy.
"Underneath this damp, motionless vault, the scene is different. Majesty and order are overhead - near the ground, all is chaos and confusion. Aged trunks, incapable of supporting any longer their branches, are shattered in the middle, and present nothing but a sharp, jagged point. Others, loosened by the wind, have been thrown unbroken to the ground. Torn up from the earth, their roots from a natural barricade, behind which several men might find shelter. Hugh trees sustained by the surrounding branches hang in mid air, and fall into dust without reaching the ground. In this solitude of America, all powerful nature is the only instrument of ruin, as well as of production. Here, as well as in the forests over which man rules, death strikes continually, but there is none to clear away the remains."
Hardships of the Journey
They had been riding for six hours, and the sun was already high, when the Indians stopped short, and the elder, named Sag-an-cu-isco, traced a line in the sand. Showing them one end he exclaimed, "Michi-conte-minque," meaning Flint River, and pointed to the other as the end of their journey ; then, marking a point in the middle, he signed to them that they had travelled half the distance, and that they must rest awhile. They asked by signs if water was near, whereupon their guides showed them a spot, thirty paces off in the forest, where in the hollow formed by an uprooted tree, there was a little reservoir of rain water.
At this place they ate a scanty lunch and drank of the brackish water ; but they minded more other discomforts of the dense woods. "Add to this a cloud of mosquitoes," wrote De Tocqueville, "attracted by the vicinity of water, which we were forced to fight with one hand while we carried our bread to our mouths with the other, and an idea may be formed of a rustic dinner in the virgin forest."
When they began to think of continuing their journey, they were dis- maved to find that their horses had strayed from the path, and it was with some difficulty that they traced them, blessing the mosquitoes that had forced them to quickly resume the trail. The path soon became more difficult to follow, and frequently their horses had to force their way through thick brushwood, or to leap over large fallen trees that barred the way.
At the end of two hours of extremely toilsome riding they at length came to a stream which, though shallow, was deeply embanked. At this spot ( which was probably on the Cass River about a mile south of the present village of Bridgeport ), they waded across and saw a field of maize and what looked like two log huts. As they approached, the huts proved to be Indian wigwams; but the silence in the deserted camp was no less perfect than in the surrounding forest.
Sag-an-cu-isco stopped and examined attentively the ground and every- thing around him. He laid down his rifle and indicated in the sand that
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THE COMING OF DE TOCQUEVILLE
they had travelled about three-fourths of their journey. Then he arose and pointed to the sun which was quickly sinking into the woods; next he looked at the wigwams and shut his eyes. This sign language was easy to understand, but the proposal astonished and annoyed De Tocqueville and his companion. The solemn grandeur of the scenes, their utter loneliness, the wild faces of their guides, and the difficulty of communicating with them, all conspired to take away their confidence.
"There was a strangeness, too," relates De Tocqueville, "in the conduct of the Indians. The trail for the last two hours had been even more 111- trodden than at the beginning, and everyone had assured us that we could go in one day from the Flint River to Saginaw. We could not, therefore, imagine why our guides wanted to keep us all night in the desert.
"We insisted on going on, but the Indian signed that we should be sur- prised by darkness in the forest. To force our guides to go on would have been dangerous, so I had recourse to their cupidity. The Indians have few wants and consequently few desires."
Sag-an-cu-isco had paid particular attention to a little wicker-covered bottle that hung from De Tocqueville's belt, a thing he had a sense to appreciate and admire. They at once signed to their guide that they would give him the bottle if they would take them on to the Saginaw. At this he seemed to undergo a violent struggle, looking at the sun and then on the ground : but at length he came to a decision, seized his rifle, exclaimed twice with his hand to his mouth, "Ouh! ouh !" and darted off through the bushes. They followed at a quick pace for two hours even faster than before.
Still night was coming on and the last rays of the sun had disappeared behind the trees, and the travellers began to fear lest their guides would quit from fatigue and want of food, and insist on sleeping under a tree. At last darkness overtook them. The air under the trees became damp and icy cold, and the dense forest assumed a new and terrible aspect. The only sign of life in the sleeping world was the bumming of mosquitoes, and now and then a fire fly traced a luminous line upon the darkness. The gloom became still deeper, but they pushed resolutely on and in the course of an hour came to the edge of a prairie.
Arrival at Saginaw River
Their guides then uttered a savage cry that vibrated like the discordant notes of a tam-tam. It was answered in the distance, and five minutes later they reached a river; but it was too dark to see the opposite bank. They dismounted and waited patiently for what was to follow. In a few minutes a faint noise was heard and a dark object approached the bank. It was an Indian canoe, about ten feet long, formed of a single tree. A man crouched in the bottom who wore the dress and had the appearance of an Indian. He spoke to the guides who took the saddles off the horses, and placed them in the canoe.
As De Tocqueville was about to step in, the supposed Indian touched him on the arm, and said with a Norman accent, which made him start : "Ah, you come from Old France. Stop, don't be in a hurry."
"If my horse had addressed me," wrote De Tocqueville, "I should not have been more astonished."
Looking intently at the speaker, whose face shone in the dim moon- light like a copper ball, he said: "Who are you then? You speak French, but you look like an Indian."
He replied that he was a "bois-brule," which means a son of a Canadian and an Indian woman.
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HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
De Tocqueville seated himself in the bottom of the canoe and kept as steady as possible. His horse, whose bridle he held, plunged into the water, and swam by his side. By this means they at length reached the west side of the stream, and the canbe returned for Beaumont. They then proceeded to a log hut, about a hundred yards from the river, that had just become visible in the moonlight, and which the Canadian assured them would afford shelter. They contrived, indeed, to make themselves fairly comfortable with the meager and rough furnishings of the place. The myriads of mosquitoes, however, that filled the house, annoyed them greatly, but fatigue at last pro- cured for them an uneasy and broken sleep.
"These insects called mosquitoes." wrote De Tocqueville, "are the curse of the American wilderness. They render a long stay unendurable. I never felt torments such as those which I suffered during the whole of the expedi- tion, and especially at Saginaw. In the day they prevented us from sitting still an instant: in the night thousands of them buzzed around us, settling on every spot on our bodies that was uncovered."
Picture of Early Saginaw
The travellers went out at sunrise for their first daylight view of the village of Saginaw, which they had come so far to see. A small cultivated plain, bounded on the south by a beautiful and gently flowing river, on the east, west, and north by the forest, constituted at the time the territory of the embryo city. The house in which they had passed the night was at one end of the little clearing, and a similar dwelling was visible at the other end. Between them on the outskirts of the woods, were two or three log huts, half hidden in the foliage. On the opposite side of the river stretched the prairie, from which curled a column of smoke. Looking whence it came they discovered the pointed forms of several wigwams, which scarcely stood out from the tall grass of the plain. A plow that had upset, its oxen gallop- ing off by themsleves, and a few half-wild horses, completed the picture.
"The village of Saginaw," continued De Tocqueville, "is the farthest point inhabited by Europeans to the Northwest of a vast peninsula of Michi- gan. It may be considered as an advanced post, a sort of watch-tower, placed by the whites in the midst of the Indian nations.
"Sometimes an Indian stops on his journey to relate some sad realities of social life : sometimes a newspaper dropped from a hunter's knapsack, or only the sort of indistinct rumor, which spreads one knows not how, and which seldom fails to tell that something strange is passing in the world.
"Once a year a vessel sails up the Saginaw to join this stray link in the great European chain which now binds the world. She carries to the new settlement the products of human industry, and in return takes away the fruits of the soil.
"Thirty persons, men, women, old people and children, comprised this little society, as yet scarcely formed -an opening seed thrown upon the desert, there to germinate. Chance, interest, or inclination had called them to this narrow space, no common link existed between them and they dif- fered widely. Among them were Canadians, Americans, Indians and half- castes."
After breakfast they went to see the principal fur trader in the village, named Garder D. Williams, to whom they had a letter of introduction. They found him in his trading post selling to the Indians small articles, such as knives, glass necklaces, ear-rings and the like. His cordial welcome and open countenance showed immediately a taste for social pleasures, and careless indifference to life. In many respects he had the appearance of an Indian Forced to submit to savage life, he had willingly adopted its dress
THE COMING OF DE TOCQUEVILLE
and its customs. He wore mocassins, an otter-skin cap, and carried a blanket. To fly to the wilderness he had broken every social tie, though he loved his own fireside: but his imagination was fired by novel scenes and he was seized with an insatiable desire for violent emotions, vicissitudes and perils. He had become almost a worshipper of savage life, preferring the savannah to the street. the fur trade to the plow.
Encamped on the other side of the river. the Indians from time to time cast stoical glances on the habitations of their brothers from Europe. They admire neither their industry nor envy their lot. Though for nearly three hundred years civilization has invaded and surrounded the American savages, they have not yet learned to know or to appreciate their enemy. In vain, in both races, is one generation followed by another. Like two parallel rivers they have flowed for three centuries side by side towards the same ocean, only a narrow space divides them, but their waters do not mingle.
"From the interior of his smoky hut, wrapped in his blanket, the Indian contemplates with scorn the convenient dwelling of the European. He has a proud satisfaction in his poverty; his heart swells and triumphs in his barbarous independence. He smiles bitterly when he sees us wear out our lives in heaping up useless riches. What we term industry he calls shame- ful subjection. He compares the workman to the ox toiling on in the furrow. What we call necessaries of life, he terms childish play things or womanish baubles. He envies us only our arms. If a man has a leafy hut to shelter his head by night, a good fire to warm him in winter, and to banish the mosquitoes in summer, if he has good dogs and plenty of game, what more can he ask of the Great Spirit?"
They Shoot Wild Ducks
After their visit to the trading post the travellers went a short distance up the Saginaw to shoot wild ducks. A canoe left the reeds and its Indian occupants came to them to examine their double-barreled gun. A fire arm that could kill two men in a second, could be fired in the wet and damp, was to them a marvel, a masterpiece beyond price. They asked whence it came, and the guide replied that it was made on the other side of the great water, an answer that did not make it less precious in their eyes.
When evening approached they returned to their canoe and, trusting to the experience acquired in the morning. they rowed alone upon an arm of the Saginaw, of which they had had a glimpse.
"The sky was without a cloud." relates De Tocqueville, "the atmosphere was pure and still. The river watered an immense forest, and flowed so gently that we could scarcely tell the direction of its current. The wilder- ness was before us just as six thousand years ago, it showed itself to the father of mankind. It was a delicious, blooming, perfumed, gorgeous dwell- ing, a living palace made for man, though, as yet, the owner had not taken possession. The canoe glided noiselessly and without effort: all was quiet and serene. Under the softening influence of the scene our words became fewer, our voices sank to a whisper, until at length we lapsed into a peace- ful and delicious reverie.
"The report of a gun in the woods aroused us from our dream. At first it sounded like an explosion on both sides of the river, the roar then grew fainter till it was lost in the depth of the surrounding forest. It sounded like the prolonged and peaceful war cry of advancing civilization."
The next day De Tocqueville and his companion shot over the prairie which extended below the clearing. The prairie was not marshy, as they had expected, and the grass was dry, rising to a height of three or four
HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY
feet. They found but little game and, as the heat was stiffling and the mosquitoes annoying, they soon started on their return. On the way they noticed that their guide followed a narrow path, and looked very carefully where he placed his feet.
"Why are you so cautious," asked Beaumont, "are you afraid of the damp?"
"No," he replied, "but when I walk in the prairie I always look down lest ] tread on a rattlesnake."
"Diable." exclaimed De Tocqueville with a start. "are there rattlesnakes here?"
"Oh yes, indeed," answered their guide, "the place is full of them."
At five o'clock the next morning the travellers resolved to start on the return to civilization. Every Indian had disappeared and, as the settlers were busily engaged in the harvest, they were obliged to retread the wilder- ness without a guide. So they bid their friends good bye, recrossed the Saginaw, received the farewell and last advice from their boatman, and, turning their horses' heads toward the southeast, were soon in the depth of the forest. It was not without a solemn sensation that they began to pene- trate its damp recesses. The unbroken forest stretched behind them to the Pole and to the Pacific.
"We asked ourselves." observed De Tocqueville, in a prophetic mood, "by what singular fate it happened that we, to whom it had been granted to look on the ruins of extinct empires of the East, and tread the deserts made by human hands, we children of an ancient people, should be called upon to witness this scene of the primitive world, and to contemplate the as yet unoccupied cradle of a great nation.
"These are not the more or less probable speculations of Philosophy. The facts are as certain as if they had already taken place. In a few years these impenetrable forests will have fallen: the sons of civilization and industry will break the silence on the Saginaw; its echoes will cease: the banks will be imprisoned with quays; its current which now flows on unnoticed and tranquil through a nameless waste. will be stemmed by the prows of vessels. More than a hundred miles sever this solitude from the great European settlements, and we were, perhaps, the last travellers allowed to see its primitive grandeur. So strong is the impulse that urges the white man to the entire conquest of the New World."
VIEW ON SAGINAW RIVER
CHAPTER VI
PIONEER DAYS
Retarded Settlement and Its Causes - The Fur Trade - Treaty Reservations to the Rileys - Indian Payment Days - Customs and Habits of the Indians - Character of Au-saw-wa-mic - William McDonald, the "factor"- Doctor Charles Little - Eleazer Jewett - "Uncle Harvey Williams" - The Williams Brothers - Encounter with Wah-be-man-ito - Story of the fearless Neh-way-go - Other early Pioneers.
A LTHOUGH the treaty of Saginaw, which was negotiated with the Chip- pewas in September, 1819, granted to the United States a large por- tion of the territory lying between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and the land was opened for settlement on very favorable terms. immigration to the Saginaw Valley was slow in starting. The people of the East had still in mind the horrors of warfare and the barbarities and out- rages suffered by the early settlers in Ohio and on the Detroit, and were reluctant to leave their homes and seek fortune in the western wilderness Only the most daring and adventurous spirits thought it worth while to risk life on the distant frontier, and nearly all settled along the Detroit and St. Clair rivers.
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