History of St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources, its war record, biographical sketches, the whole preceded by a history of Michigan, Part 19

Author:
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A.T. Andreas & Co.
Number of Pages: 818

USA > Michigan > St Clair County > History of St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources, its war record, biographical sketches, the whole preceded by a history of Michigan > Part 19

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MAGNETIC WELLS.

The discovery of several wells of magnetic or magnetized water, has given rise to a novel theory. The fact that wells whose waters have magnetic properties do exist, is now generally conceded. That the discovery of these peculiar wells is confined to the central portion of the State is also well known, and the probability that they will always be limited to Michigan is, to the mind of every scientific man, a fixed fact. Let a person to whom this idea has occurred Lake the pains to glance at a map of this State, and he will be astonished at the resemblance which the outlines of the Lower Peninsula have to an ordinary magnet. The great lakes which surround it do, in fact, form an enormous horse-shoe magnet, with a proportionate current of electricity constantly circulating through those vast bodies of waters, and form the different poles of the magnet across the southern and central portions of the State, completely saturat- ing, as it were, the earth, air and water with this powerful agent. Science teaches us that when- ever two bodies of matter assume certain positions to each other, a current of electricity is im- mediately formed, and the intensity of that current (other things being equal) will be in pro- portion to the size of the bodies brought in contact. Now, with Lake Michigan on the west, Lakes Huron and St. Clair and the Straits on the east, united at the apex by a narrow strait, we have all the necessary qualifications to form a huge galvanic battery, and the conclusion is inevitable. Again, electricity always seeks the best conductors, and in its passage across the State the water, being a better conductor than either earth or air, is more highly charged. But the surface water, having its electricity constantly drawn off by surrounding objects, is en- feebled, while the lower strata are powerfully impregnated. On exposure to external influences this, however, gradually passes off, which accounts for persons not finding this quality in water which has been transported a distance from the wells.

MINERAL WATERS.

The salt springs of this district result from an overflow of the great saliferous basin of the Peninsula. The wells at St. Clair were bored upon the thinning-out edge of this basin, almost. one degree of longitude southeast of the highest saturation point, and at a place where the brine would necessarily be diluted with surface water, or with that of subterranean rivers. Conse- quently the brine of Mount Clemens must be considered separately from that so prized by salt manufacturers, for the reason that it is a medicinal mineral water, rather than a common salt brine. The difficulties presented by this water in the manufacture of common salt therefrom, are due to the large quantity of deliquescent parts of calcium and magnesium existing in con- nection with the chloride of sodium; but what it loses in this respect is more than compensated for by the large quantity of salts present, possessing in connection with the sulphureted hydro- gen, a decided medicinal effect. Chief among the active ingredients, in addition to those men- tioned, is iodine, an agent whose value has long been recognized by the medical profession.

The carbonated waters contain a quantity of soluble salts; the sulphur waters are of the most pronounced character, each impregnated with mineral substances, which must always render them of inestimable value to the people. It is said that the magnetic waters of the State are not themselves magnetic, but that marked magnetic phenomena are manifested in the vicin- ity of the wells-arising through induction from the earth, without regard to the waters; yet experiments indicate a power of excitation of magnetism possessed by these waters.

THE SALT SPRING OF 1797.

The Salt Spring, near the bank of Salt River, in the vicinity of which the squatters of 1797 located, was considered by them a most valuable property. This spring appeared in the

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

glen, close by the Plank Road bridge of later days-four miles from the mouth of the river. In a report tendered to Thomas Jefferson by Charles S. Jonett in 1804, this agent of the Govern- ment makes the following statement: "From experiments which have been made, I am justi- fied in saying that this spring deserves the public attention. It was wrought some time by a couple of men, who, owing to their want of capital, were incapable of conducting the business on an advantageous plan. By these men I am assured that a quart of water did with then turn out a gill of salt, and in all their trials with greater quantities, it never failed to produce a like proportion. There is a sufficient quantity of water to supply works to any extent."

From a report made by Douglass Houghton in 1838 to the Legislature, the analysis of the brine, said to be so rich in its saline properties in the report of Jonett to Secretary Jefferson in 1804, was as follows :

ANALYSIS OF BRINE, SECTIONS 2 AND 11, CHESTERFIELD.

Specific gravity

.1.0057

Chloride sodium. .0.549

Chloride calcium. .0.013

Chloride magnesium. .0.037

Sulphate of lime. .0.015

Sulphate of magnesia.

Carbonate of lime.

.0.014

Compounds of iron. .0.001

Other constituents.

Total solid matter. .0.629

In 1863, D. C. Walker, of Capac, manufactured a small quantity of salt from water pro- duced by the well on his farm. The product was analyzed by Chemist S. P. Duffield, of De- troit, who pronounced the solid to be sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, chloride of cal- cium, and chloride of iodine.

In May, 1882, the Marine City Stave Company made a deep boring. Geologists are satisfied that the Michigan salt-rock has been struck at that point. The development of the well rests with the enterprising firm of which Crocket McElroy is the head. The success of the industry is only a matter of a short time.

SOIL.

On the plains or comparatively level portions of the county, the soil is of a sandy charac- ter, with more vegetable mold in its composition than appears from a hasty examination. It is formed, for the most part, of decomposed or disintegrated sandstone. The granitic or azoic formation occurs upon the rivers and creeks, but terminates as a surface indication, near the confluence of the Black with the St. Clair. The soil on some of the knolls which skirt the rivers has a clayey character, which, when it comes to be cultivated, will be found to have stay- ing qualities that do not appertain to that of the country in the immediate neighborhood of Lake Huron. The particular drawback of the light and easily worked sandy soil, which usu- ally produces a good yield in return for the labor and dressing bestowed upon it, is its lack of power to resist the effects of a dry time. As the seasons in which there is a severe drought are not frequent, this does not seriously depreciate the value of this soil for agricultural purposes. The soil and climate of St. Clair generally is eminently adapted to the raising of small fruit- and berries, and as the railroads bring the markets so near our doors, this industry must con- tinue to increase until the crop becomes a very large one. There are several indigenous fruit- bearing shrubs which may one day be cultivated and produce a berry as superior to the present product as the pippin excels the crab apple. There is also found in great profusion the hazel nut, awaiting man's fostering care. There is produced on this soil one or more varieties of wild hemp, and the milk weed (the inspissated juice of which becomes India rubber), grows in rank profusion wherever its seeds take root. Indeed, most of the soil in the county whatever geological parentage it owns, or whatever metamorphoses it may have gone through, is well adapted to the easy cultivation of its indigenous productions, and most others from a like lati- tude. The general surface appearance is attractive, being generally undulating enough to af- ford good draining, without being hilly, presenting a pleasing variety of groves of valuable timber and light openings, interspersed with stretches of marsh and meadow lands, beautifully undulated with gentle ascents and declivities, which swell away in the distance, forming many truly charming landscapes. But little if any is so uneven or hilly as to render it undesirable for agricultural purposes, and a large portion of the flat, marshy land which was originally considered worthless, has, at a trifling expense, been transformed into valuable meadows; while there are some 3,000 acres of peat marsh, having an inexhaustible supply of peat of a good

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

quality, ranging from six to twenty feet in depth, which may, in the not distant future, become a source of wealth to its owner. As to the character of the soil, it is unquestionably rich in the mineral constituents necessary to the production of good crops, but it requires to have a part of its production, or its equivalent, returned to its bosom every year. The amount of vegetable mold is not so abundant that one can go on cropping, generation after generation, without exhausting its fertility.

Some idea of the salubrity of the atmosphere and purity of the water may be formed from the healthfulness of the inhabitants. The pale face, sunken cheek, cadaverous countenance and hectic cough are seldom met with in this county. Butchers are patronized far more liber- ally than physicians. The unusual absence of disease in this county was noticed more particu- larly by the early settlers, from the fact that they anticipated the visitation of those bilious diseases so common in new countries, and yet failed to suffer much from malarial attacks.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL.

This county is rich in evidences of the presence here, at some remote period, of the race, long extinct, which is the delight of antiquarian research, and the object of curious consideration by all. The Mound-Builders have left innumerable tumuli near the river and lakes. The mounds possess the varied forms peculiar to this class of pre-historic works. Most of them are conical or oblong, but some are cruciform, while others resemble birds and animals. The age of the mounds is attested by the growth of huge trees on the summits, and by remains of immense trees thereon which have lived, died and decayed since the germ was first implanted in the up- turned soil by the ordering of that economy of Nature which is at once the source of admira- tion and marvel to the thoughtful minds. These mounds, like all others constructed by this mysterious people, are of surface soil, yet the immediate vicinity shows no disturbance of the surrounding alluvium. When, and how, and why were they built? Exceptional ones on the heights at bends in the river, or at the foot of the lake, were perhaps for defense, some possi- bly for tombs, as bones exhumed would indicate. Excavations usually yield little results, though sometimes are found pieces of coarse pottery and rude implements. The county abounds in these antiquarian puzzles. The Indian found a home on both river and lake. At an early day, this district was a favorite resort for ducks, and also abounded in fish, something like the the St. Clair Flats of a few years ago. The facility with which food could be obtained induced the indolent savage to pitch his wigwam here. As late as a half a century ago, hundreds of Otchipwes and even visiting Menominees fared sumptuously on the wild rice and game of the region. Many Indian graves are still distinguishable by their decaying palings. The pio- neers of fifty years ago remember the burial scenes and dance orgies of the tribes which were the final aboriginal occupants.

Records of the olden time are very interesting, and are not without their lessons of instruc. tion. By the light of the past, we follow in the footprints of the enterprising pioneer. We see him amid the labors and struggles necessary to convert the wilderness into a fruitful field. We sit by his cabin fire, partaking of his homely, but cheerfully granted fare, and listen to the accounts he gives of frontier life; of the dangers, trials, hardships, of himself and others, in their struggles to make for themselves homes in regions still unexplored, save by wandering Indians and wild beasts. Through these old records, we make our way along to the present, showing the mighty achievements of industry, the daring enterprise, the creative energy and untiring perseverance of the early pioneer. Following on in the path of progress and improve- ment, we see once waste places rejoicing under the kindly care of the husbandman; beautiful farms are spread out before us; villages and cities have arisen, as if by magic; common schools, academies and colleges have sprung up, wherein young and ardent minds may press forward in the acquisition of science; churches are built, and a Christian ministry sustained; the press is established; railroads are constructed, to bring the products of every clime, and the people from afar, to our doors. All this has been accomplished over ten thousand graves.

St. Clair County was one of the Pagigendamowinaki, or great cemeteries of the aborigines. Along the rivers and their tributary creeks, many mounds were found by the early settlers-some few still exist-all offer interesting subject to the antiquarian of the present time. From time

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

to time, the searcher among the bones of the dead was rewarded by the discovery of one or other of the many articles placed in the earth with the dead. The number of mounds and character of human remains found in them, point out the district as the necropolis of an extinct race. Stone hatchets and flint arrow-heads, unnumbered skeletons-all remain to tell of their coming and their stay, of their rise and fall.

The free copper found within the tumuli, from the open veins of the Superior and Iron Mountain Copper Mines, with all the modus operandi of ancient mining, such as ladders, levers, chisels and hammer-heads, discovered by the French explorers of the Northwest and the Mississippi, are conclusive proofs that a pre-historic people were civilized, and that many flour- ishing colonies were spread throughout the newly formed land. While yet the mammoth, the mastodon, and a hundred other animals, now only known by their gigantic fossil remains, guarded the eastern shore of the continent, as it were, against supposed invasions of the Tower- Builders, who went west from Babel; while yet the beautiful isles of the Antilles formed an integral portion of this continent, long years before the European Northman dreamed of setting forth on his voyage of discovery to Greenland, and certainly at a time when only a small portion of the American continent, north of latitude 45°, was reclaimed, in the midst of the great ice- encumbered waste, a pre-historic people lived and died upon the land which the American and French pioneers of St. Clair rescued from its wilderness state.

Within the last twenty years, great advances have been made toward the discovery of antiquities, whether pertaining to remains of organic or inorganic nature. Together with many telling relics of the aboriginal inhabitants, the fossils of pre-historic animals have been unearthed from end to end of the county, and in districts, too, long pronounced by geologists of some repute to be without even a vestige of vertebrate fossils. Among the collected souve- nirs of an age, about which so very little is known, are single and ossified vertebra. supposed to belong to the cretaceous period. when the dinosaur roamed over the country from East to West, desolating the villages of the people. This animal is said to have been sixty feet long, and when feeding in the pine forests was capable of extending himself eighty-five feet, so that he might devour the budding tops of those great trees.

Other efforts of our antiquarians may lead to great results, and culminate probably in the discovery of a tablet, engraven by some learned Tower or Mound Builder, describing, in char- acters hieroglyphical, all those men and beasts whose history excites so much interest, and trans- forms the speculative into certainty. The identity of the Mound Builders with the Mongolians, and the closer tie which bound the latter to the Egyptians, might lead us to hope for such a consummation-might possibly result in proving that the Egyptian originally migrated from Central America, branched out toward China, and became the Mongolian, and in turn continued the travel eastward until the descendants of the first Americans returned to the cradle of their race, as set forth in an extract given in this work from the writer's special paper on the Mound Builders.

Regarding the mounds and garden beds of St. Clair County, little has been written-com- paratively nothing done toward their exploration. From a paper prepared by Henry Gillman, and read before the Detroit Scientific Association, May 6, 1874, the following extract is made. In it occurs a direct reference to the mounds in the neighborhood of Fort Gratiot and Port Huron. He states : "Throughout the region of the great lakes, abundant evidence, often of the most interesting character, of the presence in by-gone ages of that peculiar race known as the Mound Builders, is constantly being brought to light. And our own State of Michigan, from the low, monotonous shores of Lake Erie, to the rocky cliffs of Lake Superior, has con- tributed, in many directions, some of the most remarkable relics and monuments of a people whose cranial affinities and evidently advanced civilization totally separate them from the North American Indian, and ally them to the ancient race of men who inhabited Brazil and the re- mote past. Along the Detroit and Rouge Rivers, those monuments, in the shape of the well- known mounds, were at one time not infrequent; but in numerous instances, and even within our present city limits, they have been destroyed, often without their true character being recog- nized; and thus large amounts of valuable relics have fallen into ignorant hands, and have finally been forever lost. Even those works which remain are fast disappearing before the march

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

of modern improvement. Indian tradition says that these mounds along our river were built in ancient times by a people of whom they (the Indians) know nothing, and for whom they have no name; that the mounds were occupied by the Tuetle Indians, and subsequently by the Wyan- dots, but were constructed long before their time. These facts were ascertained by me in the course of some investigations which I made several years ago, and at that time I further learned that the Tuetle Indians had been absorbed by the Six Nations, and if any survive, it is there they must be looked for. In this connection, it is proper to state that I have lately been in- formed, through the instrumentality of Prof. Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, of the re- sult of some inquiries made at my suggestion in regard to the name Tuetle. The corclusion arrived at is that the word Tuetle is probably a corruption of Tutelo, a tribe 'admitted as a younger member of a confederacy of the Six Nations, about the middle of the last century;' and that the Tuteloes 'are believed to have migrated from Virginia northward, to lands assigned them on the Susquehanna by the Six Nations; but very little is known of their early history and migrations.' An interesting paper on the Tuteloes was read by the Rev. J. Anderson, be- fore the American Philological Association, in July, 1871. Reporting Mr. H. Hale's discover- ies, he assigns the Tuteloes to the Dakotan and not the Iroquois stock, and gives an account of Mr. Hale's visit to Nikungha, the last survivor of the tribe of the Tuteloes, and who has since died at the age of one hundred and six years. The establishment of the identity of the Tuetles with the Tuteloes, and their residence on these mounds and along the Detroit River, is not only an interesting addition to local history, but is of special value in view of its tending to sustain Mr. Hale's opinion (opposed to the conclusions of others regarding the Da- kotan migration) that 'in former times the whole of what is now the central portion of the United States, from the Mississippi nearly to the Atlantic, was occupied by Dakotan tribes, who have been cut up and gradually exterminated by the intrusive and more energetic Algonquins and Iroquois.'

" The relics exhumed from the mounds consist of stone implements, such as axes, chisels, scrapers, arrow-heads, spear points and knives, fragments of pottery of a great variety of pattern, including the favorite cord pattern so frequently seen in such connection, from the northern lakes to the Gulf of Mexico; and the bones of man, generally much decayed, and exhibiting other indications of antiquity. From the fragments of burned bones and charcoal found, it would appear that in the earlier interments cremation was practiced. The tibiæe present, in an extreme degree, the peculiar flattening or compression pertaining to platycuemic men. In the fourth annual report of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, attention is called to this, some of the relics which I collected here having been donated to the museum by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, to whom I had presented them. The curator, Prof. Wyman, says : ' Of the tibiæe of forty individuals from the mounds of Kentucky, one-third presented this flattening to the extent that the transverse did not exceed 0.60 of the fore and aft diameter. The most extreme case was from the mound on the River Rouge, in Michigan, in which the trans- verse was only 0.48. In the most marked case mentioned by Broca, viz. : In the old man from the Cro-Magnon (France), it was, as deduced from his figures, 0.60.' Prof. Wyman draws at- tention to certain resemblances in this bone to the same bone in the ape, adding : 'In some of the tibia the amount of flattening surpasses that of the gorilla and chimpanzee, in each of which we found the short 0.67 of the long diameter, while in the tibiæe from Michigan, it was only 0.48.' " Subsequent to this (in 1870), I discovered in adjacent mounds several instances in which'the compression of the tibiæe was developed to even a greater extreme. Two remarkable cases of this peculiarity were afforded by tibiæe taken by me from a mound on the Detroit Kiver. In one of those unique specimens the transverse diameter of the shaft is 0.42, and in the other 0.40 of the antero-posterior diameter, exceeding, I believe, any platycuemism which has been observed before or since in any part of the world. In communicating these facts to the American Nat- uralist, not long afterward, I claimed that the last mentioned case 'may be considered as the flattest tibiæe on record.' (See American Naturalist, October, 1871.) Both of these bones are strongly marked with the saber-like curvature, also a characteristic of the chimpanzee, as are likewise many others of the tibia from the vicinity. The majority of the tibiæe present the flat- tening, which is an exception to the facts as noted in other sections of the United States where

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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY.

it is supposed to pertain to 'only about one-third of all the individuals observed.' In fact, it is an exception to find a tibia from our mounds along the Detroit destitute of this peculiarity; and where one is found it is generally of later burial, and consequently of less ancient origin. " A few years ago the greater part of this large circular mound in the vicinity of Fort Wayne was removed, and most important results were obtained. Eleven human skeletons were exhumed; a large number of burial vases, stone implements in great variety and of superior workmanship, consisting chiefly of axes, fleshers, spear-points, arrowheads, chisels, drillers and sinkers; pipes, a peculiar implement of unknown use, formed of an antler, with duplicate perforations at its thickest end; and two articles manufactured from copper, one the remains of a necklace, formed of a number of beads strung on a two-stranded cord, a few fragments of which remained suffi- ciently preserved to satisfy me that it was made from vegetable fiber, probably from the bass- wood (Tilia Americana, L.). The other article of copper consisted of a needle, or borer, sev- eral inches in length, quadrangular at the base, and well wrought. One of the skulls is re- markable for its diminutive size, though adult, its capacity being only 56 cubic inches. or less than 76 per cent of that of the average Indian cranium, which is given as 84 cubic inches by Morton and Megis, the minimum observed by them being 69 cubic inches. The measurement by Morton of 155 Peruvian crania gives 75 cubic inches, for the average bulk of the brain (no greater than that of the Hottentot or New Hollander), the maximum being 101 cubic inches, while the maximum sinks to 58, the smallest in a series of 641 measured crania; and yet you will perceive this is exceeded in diminutiveness by this cranium from the Detroit River. The average volume of the brain in the Mexicans is 79 cubic inches, while in a series of measure- ments of 24 crania from the Kentucky mounds it is found to be 84. The Teutonic crania gives the average of 92 cubic inches. Thus it is seen that while the great volume of the brain is in- dicative of power of some sort, the opposite is not always to be regarded as proof of a degrad- ed condition. In short, quality may here, as in other instances, compensate for deficiency in quantity. So we find the cranium of the Peruvian, who possesses a high degree of civilization and refinement, equaled in capacity by that of the New Hollander or Hottentot, while it is ex ceeded by that of the degraded, brutal North American Indian to the extent of nine cubic inch-

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History of St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources, its war record, biographical sketches, the whole preceded by a history of Michigan, Part 19

Author: Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, A.T. Andreas & Co. Number of Pages: 818

Author:
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A.T. Andreas & Co.
Number of Pages: 818