History of Saginaw County, Michigan; historical, commercial, biographical, Volume II, Part 6

Author: Mills, James Cooke
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Saginaw, Mich., Seemann & Peters
Number of Pages: 838

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He died in his wigwam near Lansing, and was buried December 5, 1858. at Shimnicon, an Indian village in Ionia County. Though his coffin was roughly fashioned, in it were placed his pipe and tobacco, hunting knife, and bird's wings, in accordance with the Indian traditions.

Nau-qua-chic-a-ming

Nau-qua-chic-a-ming, who was well and favorably known to all the early white settlers of the Saginaw Valley, was made one of the chiefs of his tribe upon the death of his father, and was then constituted head chief of the Chippewas. Ilis honesty and friendship to his white neighbors was proven in numerous instances; yet he often declared that the vices of the Indian were all acquired by contact with the white race. The native Indian, he said, did not lie or steal and would not do a dishonorable act. In war he might be cruel and vindictive, but in peace he was kind and just. Before the pale faces came and robbed the red men of their wits with "strong water," and their lands, and taught them the vices of civilization, the Indian was brave and honest. No Indian ever locked his cabin lest some other Indian might break in and steal. When the owner of the wigwam or cabin went forth to war or on the hunt, he simply placed a stick against the door or entrance, as a sign that he was absent, and no one ever disturbed his belongings. The untutored savage believed in the Great Spirit, and was superstitous to a degree, but his native honesty was a firmly fixed trait of character, and in marked contrast to the Christian pale face.

HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY

In company with other chiefs and prominent white men of Saginaw. Nau-qua-chic-a-ming went to Washington in 1830, for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the treaty negotiated in that year. He passed to the happy hunting grounds, October 26, 1874, at the advanced age, it was be- lieved, of more than ninety years. His son, "Jim," who was also a good and respected Indian, died about 1892.

O-saw-wah-bon

O-saw-wah-bon, the famous chief of the Chippewas, was born in an Indian camp on the site of Saginaw City, in 1798. His mother's name was Ke-no-wah-nah-ah-no-quay, and the name she bestowed upon the infant savage was Kay-pay-yon-quod. While bearing this peculiar title he was generally ill, and as he grew older he came to believe that its change would lead to improvement of his health. He therefore cast it aside in regular Indian form and adopted that of his father, O-saw-wah-pon. He was always very friendly to his white neighbors - the honest traders, and was particu- larly attached to General Cass, and on this account used his oratorical powers in behalf of the government's plans for the settlement of his country. It was even said that he urged Tecumseh to desist from his purpose of opposing the Americans. He died in Isabella County early in 1859, and was buried with all the ceremony attending the funeral of an Indian chieftain.

Shaw-we-nos-se-ga

Shaw-we-nos-se-ga, a noted Chippewa, was also well known to the early settlers of Saginaw. At a very early age he took rank among the warriors of his tribe as a mighty hunter, and in after years, when the new settlers offered a bounty for wolf scalps, he was among the principal holders of bounty certificates. As late as 1857 he produced twelve wolf scalps before the board of supervisors, and in addition to the bounty paid him, his prowess was handed down to historic fame in a poetic tribute.

Ma-say-nos

One of the Chippewa braves, by the name of Ma-say-nos, by reason of an affair at heart, in which he became enamored of a beautiful maiden of his tribe, but who bestowed her affections upon another hunter, became a verit- able Indian hermit. He lived alone and avoided the association of the tribe. being seldom seen by any of them, or by the trappers, and rarely spoke to anyone. He died in his desolate cabin, alone and unattended, a circumstance which shows that in some respects the red man was not unlike his white brother.

Oge-maw-ke-ke-to

Oge-maw-ke-ke-to was not a chief by hereditary title; but because of the high order of his accomplishments, his brother Indians conferred on him the title and privileges which belonged to Miz-co-be-na-sa. who was content to lead as chieftain of a band. It was said that both the hereditary and de-facto rulers were Indians of the most noble traits, requiting justice with lasting friendship for its dispenser, and punishing treachery with instant death.

Miz-co-be-na-sa

Miz-ce-be-na-sa, signifying the Red Bird, was a quiet, unassuming chief of the Chippewas, and possessed no desire whatever for fame - no aspirations after greatness. It was said of him that having his pipe and tobacco pouch well filled, and his bottle of whiskey at his side, he was perfectly contented and cared little about the affairs of the Indian state. He had, however, been

THE INDIANS OF SAGINAW VALLEY

a mighty hunter in his day, but the fire of youth had passed away, and with it all the energies of a youthful spirit.

It is a melancholy and lamentable fact, that as the country became settled by the whites, the native energy and spirit of the red man grew less and drooped, for he beheld the broad domains possessed by his fathers in the hands of the pale faces, and the cherished hunting grounds which he called his own melting away before the march of progress. As society advanced the red man receded and degenerated, despite the efforts made to civilize and enlighten him. While a feeble remnant of the bold and warlike Chippewas remain, their fate is not unlike that of the Sauks, in that they have been swept from the face of the earth before the advancing tide of civilization. The zealous cupidity of the encroaching white man has driven out the once proud possessors of the soil, has hewn away their forests, destroyed their lodges, and with ruthless sacrilege has desecrated the resting places of their dead.

SHOP FEN -A- GONS"

14.00

Chief of the Chippewas, a native of Saginaw, at the age of eighty-four was strong, active and keen-sighted. His father fought under Tecumseh, against the Americans, and received from the British the medals which "Shop" wears. The silver hat band was inherited from his wife's father, Chief Nan-qua-chic-a-ming, who had it from his forefathers.

CHAPTER III THE ADVENT OF WHITE MEN

Early French Explorations -- Discovery of the Great Lakes - Coming of the Jesuits -- First Christian Mission Established in Michigan - Pere Marquette Founds First Settlement - Did the Jesuits Visit the Saginaw River? - Primitive Maps - Earliest References to Saginaw - AAdvent of the Fur Traders - Jacob Smith (Wah- be-Sins) Pioneer Trapper - Louis Campau, the First White Settler - Other Early Pioneers.

A LITTLE less than three hundred years ago, preceding any permanent English settlement north of the Potomac, the footsteps of the white man penetrated the forests of our commonwealth. Years before the Pilgrims anchored within Cape Cod. Joseph le Caron, an unambitious Franciscan, the companion of Champlain, had entered into the land of the Mohawks, had passed to the north into the hunting-grounds of the Wyandots in Ontario, and, bound by his vows to the life of a beggar, had, on foot, or paddling a bark cange, gone onward and still onward, taking alms of the savages, until he reached the rivers of Lake Huron. Wintering with the friendly Indians in their wandering hunter life, enduring all its hardships. and learning their language and ideas, he came at length to their palisaded towns near the shores of Georgian Bay. Thus was Le Caron the first of a civilized race to behold the waters of the Great Lakes, and to plant the cross on their shores.

In the summer of 1015 he set up his altar in a new bark lodge he had built in the Huron town of Caragouha, which was situated within the present boundaries of Medonte Township in the extreme northern part of Simcoe County. There he began to learn a new and strange tongue, to study the nature of the savages, so as to teach the flock around him. Soon after he was joined by Champlain, on his return from the expedition against the Iroquois near the outlet of Lake Ontario. During the following winter they extended their observations to Lake Huron and visited the neighboring tribes, of whose habits and character Champlain made diligent study and wrote out the results with great minuteness and detail. In the spring of 1616 he returned to Quebec by the way of French River. Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa River. relinquishing further exploration to his subordinates. Le Caron continued his labors among the Hurons until the fall when he, too, proceeded to Quebec.

Among the pioneers of the wanderers in the American forests, a class of men hardy, agile, fearless, and in habits approximating to the savage, was Etienne Brulé, of Champigny, who had accompanied Champlain to the Huron villages near Georgian Bay. Ile spent three years in roaming through the vast forests of the North ; and Sagard, in his Historie du Canada, published in 1634, mentions this bold voyageur, with a Frenchman named Grenoble, as having made a long journey and returned with a "lingat" of red copper, and with a description of a great inland ocean which was so large as to require nine days to reach its upper extremity. This body of fresh water was named Lac Superior, and defined as discharging its waters into Lake Huron by a fall, first called Saut de Gaston, and afterward Sault Ste. Marie. To him belongs the undisputed honor of being the first white man to give the world a knowledge of the region beyond Lake Huron.

THE ADVENT OF WHITE MEN

In 1618 Jean Nicollet came from France and entered the service of the "Hundred Associates," a French fur company, under the direction of Cham- plain. For several years he traded with the friendly Hurons, and on July 4, 1634, was at Three Rivers, a trading post but recently established. Thread- ing his way in a frail canoe among the thousands of isles which extend from Georgian Bay to the extremity of Lake Huron, he skirted the northern shore and through a narrow strait discovered a large body of water, which after- ward received the name of Lac Ilinois ( Lake Michigan). Turning south- ward he continued his explorations and soon came to the Grand Bay, an inlet of the western shore, which he described as impressive by its length and vastness, and the dense forests that lined its shores.

More than fifty years after the discovery of Lake Huron, or in 1669, the existence of a fifth large lake was made known, probably by Joliet, and named Lac des Erie, but the existence of the straits connecting these bodies of water was then a mere conjecture. That this most southerly lake of the group, extending to the east beyond the western end of Lake Ontario, should have been the last to be discovered by a civilized race was due to its lying in the recesses of a country guarded by the hostile Iroquois. On account of the treacherous and unyielding character of these savages, which were veri- table tigers of the American Indian, the route of the French missionaries and the pioneer fur traders from Montreal to the western country was by the way of the Ottawa River to Georgian Bay, and was followed by the Hurons, with whom the French were on the most friendly terms.

On the tenth of August, 1679, La Salle and his intrepid followers sailing on Lake Erie in the Griffin, the first vessel to unfurl sails to the winds of the inland seas, came to the mouth of a broad river. The following day the explorers entered the strait, which they named Detroit; and Hennepin was so much impressed with the beautiful scenery that he wrote:

"The straits are thirty leagues long bordered by low and level banks, and navigable for their entire length ; that on either hand are vast prairies extending back to hills covered with vines, fruit trees. thickets, and tall forest trees, so distributed as to seem rather the work of art than of nature. The inhabitants who will have the good fortune to some day settle on this pleasant and fertile strait will bless the memory of those who pioneered the way, and crossed Lake Erie by more than a hundred leagues of an unknown navigation."

But their progress was slow, due to unfavorable winds, and four or five days elapsed before they cleared the river and entered a small lake. The calendar day was the festival of Saint Claire, and as they sailed serenely over the clear blue waters, La Salle named the lake after the patron saint, as also the broad river which flows into it.

The Coming of the Jesuits

About 1625, finding that the mission field in New France required an order bound to less scrupulous poverty than the Recollects, the office of con- verting the Indians to christianity, and thus enlarging the borders of French dominion, was entrusted solely to the Jesuits. In that year Father Enemond Masse, with Charles Lallemand and John de Brebeuf, and others filled with apostolic zeal, came to America. The old opposition to their order was soon renewed, and the Jesuits found themselves homeless, but the Recollects opened the doors of their convent to them. A prouder sympathy was awakened among the devotees of the court of France, and under the patron- age of the Duke de Ventadour, a nobleman of great piety, they soon began to build, and brought over men to swell the settlement and cultivate the ground. while they revived the missions which had been founded by the earlier order.

HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY

The Hurons were the first nation that cordially opened their hearts to the reception of the christian faith ; and to their villages near Georgian Bay went the Jesuits Brebeuf and Daniel, soon followed by the gentler Lalle- mand and others of their order, bowing meekly in obedience to their vows. Joining a party of barefoot Hurons, who were returning from Quebec to their country, they journeyed by way of the Ottawa and the rivers that interlock with it, for three hundred leagues through dense forests. All day long they handled the paddle or oar, or carried the canoe on their shoulders for leagues through the thickest woods, three score times dragging it by hand through shallows and rapids, over sharpest stones. At night there was no food but a scanty measure of Indian corn mixed with water, while their couch was the earth or rocks. Thus swimming, wading, paddling, or bearing the canoe across portages, with garments torn, with feet mangled, and weak and weary, yet with the breviary safely hung around the neck, the consecrated envoys made their way to the heart of the Huron wilderness, and settled in the rough bark cabin which had been erected by Le Caron eleven years before. Here, in the Indian village of Toanche, they founded the first Jesuit mission in Upper Canada.

But the conversion of the Indians was a very slow process, and little progress was made before the restoration of Canada to France, by the treaty of St. Germain, in 1632, when the history of the great Jesuit missions begins. For sixteen years thereafter they continued their labors in the Huron villages, with calm impassive courage and unwearied patience, in the midst of priva- tions, perils, sufferings and contumely, the details of which would fill a volume of thrilling interest.

The First Christian Mission in Michigan

It was from the Huron mission that the first missionary explorers were sent forth to instruct the Indians of our own territory. Early in the summer of 1641, at a feast held in the Huron villages there was present a company of Chippewas from the North, who, being deeply impressed with the sacred character of the black-robed missionaries, cordially invited them to visit their homes on the confines of a great lake, the charms of which they depicted in glowing colors. The missionaries, ever anxious to extend the dominion of the cross, joyfully accepted the invitation. For the leader of this first inva- sion of our soil, Charles Raymbault, who was thoroughly versed in the Algon- quin language and customs, was chosen ; and, as Hurons were his attendants, Isaac Jogues was given him as a companion.

On the seventeenth of September, 1641, a birch-bark canoe, freighted with the holy envoys to the Chippewas, left the Bay of Penetanguishene for the straits that form the outlet of Lake Superior. Passing to the north over a wonted track to the French River, they floated onward between thickly clus- tering islands, beyond the Manitoulins, and, after a navigation of seventeen days, came to the Rapids of St. Mary. Here, in the forest wilderness, they found an assembly of about two thousand souls, who had never known Euro- peans, and had never heard of the one God. The missionaries made inquiries respecting other nations to the West, as yet unnamed - warlike tribes, with fixed abodes, cultivators of maize and tobacco, of an unknown race and lan- guage. The chieftains of the Chippewas cordially invited the Jesuits to dwell with them, which inspired hopes of a permanent mission. A council was held. "We will embrace yon," they said, "as brothers; we will derive profit from your words." Thus did the religious zeal of the French bear the cross to the banks of the St. Mary and to the confines of Lake Superior, and clear the way for the first permanent European settlement within the borders of our State, five years before Eliot had addressed the tribe of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston harbor.

A. C. McClurg & Co.

LE GRIFFON

First Sailing Vessel on Great Lakes, Built by La Salle, 1679

[from an old cut in Detroit Public Library]

HISTORY OF SAGINAW COUNTY

Having fulfilled their chief object, Raymbault, late in the season, returned to the Huron mission, wasting away with consumption. In midsummer of the following year he proceeded to Quebec, and in October the self-denying man, who was the first apostle of Christianity to the tribes of Michigan, ceased to live ; and was buried in the "particular sepulchre which the justice of that age had erected to honor the memory of the illustrious Champlain." Father Jogues, the companion of Raymbault, after suffering many tortures from the hostile Iroquois, while bearing a proposal to establish a permanent mission among the Five Nations, received his death blow at the hands of the Mohawks, on the eighteenth of October, 1640, his head being hung upon the palisades of the village, and his body thrown into the Mohawk River. Fathers Daniel, Brebeuf, Lallemand and other faithful apostles, who had braved the enmity of the terrible Iroquois, also suffered a martyr's death amid scenes of the most frightful and revolting atrocity. The Huron nation was vanquished, the tribes scattered, their villages destroyed, the Christian converts mas- sacred, and by 1650 little remained in evidence of the labors and sacrifices of the Jesuits in Upper Canada.

The Iroquois then reigned in proud and haughty triumph the whole region from Lake Erie to Lake Superior. Upper Canada was a desolate wilderness, and even the route by the Ottawa River was not safe from the war parties of these bold marauders. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1600. a large company of Ottawas, in sixty canoes laden with peltry, appeared at Quebec to trade with the French. They asked for a missionary, and the lot fell to Rene Mesnard. He was charged to visit Lake Superior and Green Bay, and on a convenient inlet to establish a resident mission - a place of assembly for the surrounding nations. Powerful instincts impelled him to the enterprise, and his departure was immediate with few preparations, for he trusted - such are his words -"in the Providence which feeds the little birds of the desert, and clothes the wild flowers of the forests."

Behold, then, this aged priest, obedient to his vows, entering on the path that was red with the blood of his predecessors, making haste to scatter the seeds of truth through the wilderness. At every step subjected to the coarse brutality of his savage companions, he is compelled, in a cramped position. to ply the wearisome paddle, to drag the canoe up the foaming rapids, and at portages to carry heavy burdens. Want, absolute and terrible, comes in to enhance his sufferings. When berries and edible moss are exhausted, the moose skin of his garments are made to yield its scanty nutriment. Finally, with his breviary lost in deep waters, bare-foot, wounded with sharp stones, exhausted with toil, hunger and brutal treatment, supporting life on pounded bones, he reaches, on October 15. Ste. Theresa's Bay, probably what is now Keweenaw Bay. Here, amidst every discouragement and privation, and with no white brethren nearer than Montreal, he begins a mission and says Mass, which, he notes, "repaid me with usury for all my past hardships."

Thus, was the first Christian mission established in the Northwest, on the soil of our commonwealth. During the long, bitterly cold winter on that inhospitable shore did this saintly man minister to the native Chippewas, baptizing the young and those who embraced the faith. A little cabin of fir branches piled one upon another, through which the wind whistled freely. was his only protection from the storms and cold, but it served the purpose, "not so much," he wrote, "to shield me from the rigor of the season as to correct my imagination, and persuade me that I was sheltered." Want, famine, came with its horrors to make more memorable this first effort to plant the cross within the borders of our State, but with the spring came relief from suffering, and hopefully did he labor on.

THE ADVENT OF WHITE MEN

The band of partially christianized Hurons who, on the destruction of their nation, had sought refuge in these northern fastnesses, were at the Bay of Chegoimegon and sent to Father Mesnard to come and administer to them the rites of religion. It was a call he could not resist, although warned of the dangers that beset his path ; and replied: "God calls me thither. I must go if it cost me my life." So he departed from his neophytes, and with one companion proceeded westward by the way of Portage Lake. On the twen- tieth of August, 1661, at a portage, while his attendant was employed in transporting the canoe, he wandered into the forest, became lost, and was never again seen. Whether he took a wrong path, or was struck down by some straggling Indian, was never known.

Undismayed by the sad fate of Mesnard, and indifferent to hunger and cold, to the wreck of frail canoes, and to fatigues and weariness, in August. 1665. Father Claude Allouez embarked on a fresh mission, by the way of the Ottawa, to the Far West. Early in September he passed the rapids of the St. Mary's River and entered the lake which the savages reverenced as a divinity. Pressing onward beyond the Bay of Ste. Theresa, seeking in vain for a mass of pure copper, of which he had heard, on the first day of October he arrived at the great Indian village, in the Bay of Chegoimegon. On the shore of the bay, to which the abundant fisheries attracted crowds, a chapel soon rose, and the mission of the Holy Spirit was founded. AAdmiring throngs, who had never seen a European, came to gaze on the white man ; and during his sojourn of nearly two years, he lighted the torch of faith for more than twenty different nations. The Chippewas from the Sault pitched their tents near his cabin for a month; the scattered Hurons and Ottawas from the North appealed to his compassion ; from the unexplored recesses of Lake Michigan came the Potawatomies, and the Saes and Foxes travelled on foot from the country which abounded in deer, beaver, and buffalo. The Illinois, too, unaccustomed to canoes, having no weapon but the bow and arrow, came to rehearse their sorrows. Then, at the very extremity of the lake, the missionary met the wild, impassive warriors of the Sioux, who dwelt in the land of prairies to the west of Lake Superior.

With his name imperishable connected with the progress of discovery in the west, Allouez returned to Quebec to urge the establishment of per- manent missions, to be accompanied by little colonies of French emigrants. So glowing were his accounts and so fervent his plea, that in two days, with another priest. Louis Nicholas, for his companion, he was on his way back to the mission at Chegoimegon. Peace favored the progress of French dominion ; the fur trade gave an impulse to Canadian enterprise: a recruit of missionaries arrived from France, - all of which aided fresh exploration and the extension of christian missions.

Pere Marquette Founds First Settlement

At this point in our narrative of human events a heroic figure, the illustrious Marquette, comes upon the scene. At an early age, imbued with an earnest desire to devote himself to a religious life, he renounced the allure- ments of the workl, and entered the Society of Jesus. For twelve years he remained under the remarkable training and instruction of the order, and acquired that wonderful control, that quiet repose, that power of calm endur- ance, that unquestioning obedience to his superiors, that thirst for trial. suffering and death, that marked the Jesuits in this golden age of their power. Taking for his model in life the great Xavier, he longed, like him. to devote his days to the conversion of the heathen, and to die in the midst of his labors, alone. in a foreign land. Accordingly, at the age of twenty- nine, he sailed for New France, and arrived at Quebec September 20, 1666.

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History of Saginaw County, Michigan; historical, commercial, biographical, Volume II, Part 6

Author: Mills, James Cooke Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Saginaw, Mich., Seemann & Peters Number of Pages: 838

Author: Mills, James Cooke
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Saginaw, Mich., Seemann & Peters
Number of Pages: 838