USA > Michigan > St Joseph County > History of St. Joseph county, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories > Part 2
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
wrought their beneficent mission, laying broad and deep the foundations of happiness and progress, and doing much, also, to erect the harmonious and symmetrical edifice thereon, which prosperous trade, busy manufacture and toilsome agriculture have made a demonstrable certainty.
In prosecuting our enterprise we shall essay, first, somewhat of the history of the State in its early settlement, with a brief sketch of the title to the fee of the millions of acres of prolific soil within its splendid domain, and which the National Government confers upon the settler who makes his home thereon. Then will follow an account of the county, from its earliest settle- ment, up to and including this present centennial year ; showing its surpris- ing development in agriculture, trade, manufactures, political influence, pop- ulation and wealth-not forgetting to do honor to the brave men, of all po- litical faiths, who rallied to the common defence of the country when armed treason raised its bloody hand against the national life, and who bore the banner of the Peninsular State through the carnage of many hard-fought fields, onward to ultimate triumph. Brief histories of the several townships
and villages composing the county, will follow, wherein will appear the names of the early settlers, public officials, professional men, tradesmen ; with ac- counts of schools, churches and societies ; together with comparative state- ments of the business of those early days and of the present-interspersed with incidents, humorous and sad, which invariably attach to border life, but which, however graphically they may be told, cannot give to us of the present day, who have come into our pleasant places through the toils and privations of the pioneers, any realizing sense of the rugged, thorny paths those heroes and heroines patiently and hopefully trod for many long and weary years.
It cannot, then, be unimportant or uninteresting to trace the progress of St. Joseph's gratifying development, from her crude beginnings to her present proud position among her sister counties ; and therefore we seek to gather the scattered and loosening threads of the past into a compact web of the present, ere they become hopelessly broken and lost, and with a trust that the harmony of our work may speak with no uncertain sound to the future.
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HISTORY
-OF-
ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
CHAPTER I.
CIVILIZATION-ITS PROGRESS-FIRST INTRODUCTION INTO MICHIGAN-FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT-ORDINANCE OF 1787-ORGANIZATION OF TER- RITORY-COUNTIES AND TOWNSHIPS-ADOPTION OF CONSTITUTION-DE- VELOPMENT OF STATE.
In the early ages, amid the hordes of the East, civilization was born, and began its march of progress. Westward, over Assyria, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome, as those nations successively rose and fell, its waves rolled, and lapped the shores of Spain, France and Britain. Checked for a time at this ultima thule of the Greek and barbarian, by the repressive spirit of the middle ages, at length it overleaped the barriers interposed to its progress, and bore upon its topmost crest, over the Atlantic, a Columbus, a Cabot and a Cartier as its avant couriers to the New World, whose shores were bathed by the wa- ters of two oceans. Rolling inland, over mountain, lake and river, across the ancient domain of the mound-builders, then the realm of the Iroquois and Algonquin, the first ripple of the incoming-tide broke upon the shores of Michigan in the year of grace 1641, at which time* Father Chas. Raymbault and his companion, Isaac Jogues, (Jesuit missionaries, and envoys of the king of France,) unfurled the Bourbon lilies at the Sault St. Marie, and pro- claimed to an assemblage of two thousand of the red men of the Northwest, the news of salvation.
These missionaries were followed by Rene Mesnard in 1660, and Claude Allouez in 1665, in the Lake Superior region ; and by Pere Marquette and Claude Dablon in 1668, who founded the mission at Sault St. Marie, which was the first settlement by Europeans in Michigan.
In 1671 Pere Marquette founded the mission of St. Ignace, on the north shore of the straits of Mackinac; and in 1673, after his discovery of the Mississippi-the great event of his life-he discovered and named the river St. Josephs, and explored it for some distance from its mouth.
In 1679 La Salle traversed the great lakes in the "Griffin," the first vessel ever launched thereon, and while awaiting her return, built a trading post at the mouth of the St. Josephs, and carefully sounded the stream and buoyed its channel ; and, finally, went to Illinois with Hennepin and Tonti, making the portage to the Kankakee, near the present site of South Bend, Indiana. The real settlement of Michigan, however, may be said to have commenced at Detroit in 1701, when De la Motte Cadillac, with the insepa- rable Jesuit and one hundred Frenchmen, took possession of that point in the name of the king of France, and which was the first permanent colony settled in Michigan. Thus this Commonwealth, which began to be colonized even before Georgia, is the oldest of all the inland States of the Union, ex- cepting Illinois, which had a colony at Kaskaskia previous to 1700.
The French authority over Michigan, which lasted till 1760, and the En- glish domination which succeeded, and ended nominally in 1783, but really not until 1796, brought but little progress to the country. In 1787 the northwest territory was organized under the ordinance of 1787, Michigan coming under its government and laws at the departure of the British gar- rison in 1796, from Detroit. The first American settler in Michigan located
at Frenchtown, on the river Raisin, in 1793. In January, 1798, the north- west territory assumed the second grade of territorial government as pro- vided by the ordinance of 1787, and the territory of Michigan, as afterwards established, constituted a single county, Wayne, in that territory, and sent one representative to the General Assembly of the northwest territory, held at Chillicothe; and the election at which this representive was chosen was the first election held in Michigan under the American government.
In 1802 the Lower Peninsula was annexed to Indiana territory by the act of Congress creating the State of Ohio. January 11, 1805, Michigan was erected into a separate territory, and General William Hull appointed gov- ernor. From that time to the glorious victory of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, in 1813, the country was subject to the terrors and atrocities of Indian warfare, the western tribes being confederated under Tecumseh, with the British, against the United States.
After the recapture of Detroit in 1813, General Cass began a most success- ful administration as governor of the territory, which lasted until 1831, dur- ing which, as a historian of Michigan says, he did "more for the prosperity of Michigan than any other man, living or dead."
From 1805 to 1824, the legislative powers were vested in the governor and judges who formed the territorial government ; but in the latter year Congress provided for a legislative council, to which those powers were given. The members were appointed by the President from eighteen nominees elected by the people, nine of whom constituted the council for four years. The first legislative council was held in Detroit on June 7, 1824. Emigra- tion now began to flow into the country, and population being scattered, Congress authorized the governor, in 1825, to divide the territory into coun- ties and townships, and to provide for the election of township officers. In 1826, the counties of Mackinaw, Saginaw, Lapeer, Shiawassee, St. Clair, Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, Wayne, Lenawee and Monroe were organ- ized, and the territory west of the principal meridian to Lake Michigan- which had not been surveyed-was attached to Monroe and Oakland counties for judicial purposes. On April 23, 1827, the lands ceded by the treaty of Chicago in 1821, were formed into a township, and named St. Josephs, and attached to Lenawee county for similar purposes. The same year, Congress gave the people the right to elect the representatives to the legislative coun- cil, and the representation was apportioned among the districts and counties according to population.
In 1833 the people of Michigan memoralized Congress for an enabling act to form a State constitution, preparatory to the admission of the State into the Union ; but that body refused their prayer. Thereupon Governor Stevens convened the legislative council, which ordered a census of the ter- ritory to be taken, and called a convention to frame a constitution, that "the State might demand as a right what had previously been asked as a favor." In 1834 the census was taken, showing a population of 87,273 ; an excess of 27,273 over the requisite number provided for in the organic law of the northwest territory. In May, 1835, the convention framed a constitution, and sent it to Congress for acceptance ; but owing to the southern boundary trouble, which had been vexing the people of Ohio and Michigan for thirty years, and the political agitation of the times, the State was not finally ad- mitted until January, 1837; the boundaries being adjusted as at present,
* This date was five years before Elliot preached to the Indians within six miles of Boston Harbor.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
and so accepted by the people finally. From this time Michigan dates her marvelous progress in manufactures, agriculture, commerce and education, which has placed her in the very fore front of the grand galaxy of Ameri- can Commonwealths. Amid her unrivaled natural beauties, and inexhaus- tible resources, her commercial and educational development, this proud State may well and justly say to all comers within her borders, in the lan- guage of her appropriate motto, Si quæris peninsulam amonam, circum- spice, "If you seek a beautiful peninsula, look around you !"
CHAPTER II.
ABSTRACT OF TITLE-FRENCH, ENGLISH, COLONIAL AND INDIAN TITLES TO LANDS IN THE NORTHWEST-FIRST LEGAL CONVEYANCE IN MICHI- GAN-LAND SURVEYS AND SALES-MILITARY REPORT ON AMOUNT OF GOOD LAND.
Notwithstanding the claims made by England and France to American soil, based upon the right of discovery under the law of nations, and which claims were maintained for two hundred years at a most frightful expendi- ture of blood and treasure, and although the thirteen colonies, after a bloody and expensive war of seven years, succeeded to the rights of those nations in the soil of the Northwest, yet there was an adverse and prior claim to be extinguished before a free and unincumbered title in fee simple could be given to lands northwest of the Ohio river. The aboriginal inhabitants- the Indians-were the real lords proprietary of the soil of North America, and most energetic and tenacious were they in defending their title thereto, and so successful were they in that defence, that the American people, not- withstanding their rights acquired so bloodily and expensively, were under the imperative necessity of perfecting their fee in their conquests by purchase from these same proprietors, from first to last. All of the terrible Indian wars which have deluged the territory of the United States with the blood of white men, to say nothing of the extermination of whole nations of the red race, which these same wars have occasioned, have been caused and waged on account of the trespass of the pale-faces upon the Indians' land, as alleged by the latter.
In 1753 the French, by the treaty of peace following the fall of Quebec, ceded their rights in Ca: ada and the Northwest to the English crown, and it in turn, by the treaty of peace at Versailles, after the revolution in 1783, ceded its rights in the Northwest to the United States. Several of the colo- nies had obtained, previous to the Revolution, certain vested rights in the territory northwest of the Ohio by charters from the British crown, and hence these lands were known by the name of "Crown Lands." These vested rights were ceded by the several States of New York, Virginia, Mass- achusetts, Connecticut and South Carolina, to whom they belonged, to the general government of the Union, from the year 1781 to 1787, and yet it was claimed by the Indians-and the claim made valid-that the United States had acquired by these several cessions the right of pre-emption only to the soil whenever the Indians chose to alienate their title thereto.
After the great confederate council of the Eastern and Western Indians, at the Huron village, on the Detroit river, in December, 1786, the Congress of the United States accepted the construction placed by them upon the treaty with England in 1783-that they (the Indians) were no party thereto, nor included in the provisions thereof-and the government at once began measures looking to the quieting and extinguishment of the Indian title to the lands in the Northwest. A treaty was made with the Wyandot, Ottawa, Delaware and Chippewa tribes, at Fort McIntosh, in 1785, by which lands at Detroit and Mackinaw were ceded to the United States. This treaty was subsequently confirmed in 1787 by another one at Fort Harmer, and in 1795 by Wayne's treaty at Greenville. This last treaty also ceded other tracts of land at Miami Rapids, and the islands of Mackinaw and Bois Blanc.
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In 1807 Governor Hull, of Michigan, made a very important treaty with the Ottawa, Chippewa, Pottawatomie and Wyandot tribes, whereby the Indians ceded to the United States all the lands lying east of the present west lines of the counties of Saginaw, Shiawassee, Washtenaw and Lenawee. In 1817 Governor Cass made a treaty with certain of the tribes, whereby the greater part of Ohio and a portion of Indiana and Michigan were ceded ; and in 1819 the governor effected another treaty at Saginaw with the Chippewas, by which the United States quieted the Indian title to six millions of acres in Michigan. In 1821, by the treaty of Chicago with the Ottawas, Chippewas and Pottawatomies, all of the country west of the principle meridian, south of the Grand river to the Indiana State line, and
west to Lake Michigan, with the exception of a few reservations, was ceded and confirmed to the general government. Subsequent treaties in 1823, 1825, 1826 and 1827, at Niles, Prairie du Chien, Green Bay and St. Joseph, extinguished the Indian title throughout the then territory of Michigan, with the exception of such reservations as were made for special bands or tribes-most of the Indians in the southern portion of the territory re- moving west of the Mississippi.
Under the French domination in Michigan, grants of land could be made by the French governors of Canada and Lousiana, which were to be con- firmed by the King of France, to make them legally pass the title. The French commandants of the posts were also allowed to grant permissions of occupancy to settlers, and these latter sometimes occupied lands without per- mission from any one, thus gaining a color of possessory title, under which they subsequently claimed the full right of ownership.
On the accession of the English power, the British king restricted the ex- tinguishment of the Indian title; prohibiting the English governors from issuing grants of lands, except within certain prescribed limits, and the Eng- lish subjects from making purchases of the Indians, or settlements, without those prescribed bounds. Grants, purchases and settlements, however, were made, the king's proclamation to the contrary notwithstanding; and these prohibited possessions formed an important part of the ancient land claims afterwards adjudicated by the land board of Michigan.
In the " American State Papers," Vol. 1, "Public Lands," it is stated by the report of a commission on land claims in Michigan, that there were but eight legal titles passed to lands during the French and English occupancy of the country. However, there was a land-office established at Detroit, in 1804, and the evidence in support of the various land claims arising in Michigan, was gathered and submitted to Congress, which body, by subsequent acts of relief, vested the right to their lands in all actual settlers who could show a reasonable color of title thereto.
The first legal grant of land in Michigan was made in 1707, by " Antoine de la Motte Cadillac, Esq., Lord of Bonaquet Mont Desert, and Command- ant for the King, at Detroit, Pont Chartrain," to "Francois Fafard Delorme;" and it was charged with a great many conditions of the old feudal tenure of Europe ; the rents and quit rents were to be paid in peltries until a currency should be established, when the peltries were to be exchanged for and suc- ceeded by the cash of the country.
The system now in vogue in conducting the surveys of the public lands, by which the territory is surveyed into townships of six miles square, and the townships subdivided into thirty-six sections, one mile square each, is the suggestion and plan of General Harrison, which was adopted by the general government.
In Michigan the principal meridian of the surveys was located on the west line of Lenawee county, where the same intersects the Ohio state line; and was run due north through the State to. the Sault St. Marie. A base line was established, commencing on lake St. Clair, on the line between Macomb and Wayne counties, and running due west to lake Michigan, on the division lines of the counties intervening. Three auxiliary lines for the correction of the surveys were run ; the first beginning at the meridian, on the centre line of Gratiot county, and running due west to lake Michigan ; the second beginning at lake Huron, on the line between Iosco and Bay counties, and running due west to the lake; and the third beginning at Thunder bay, just. south of the centre line of Alpena county, and running due west to the same general termination. There are in the survey eighteen ranges of townships west, and sixteen east of the principal meridian, in the widest part of the State. The townships number eight south, and thirty-seven north of the base line on the meridian in the lower peninsula, and run as high as fifty- eight in the upper peninsula, on Keweenaw Point.
The first survey of public lands in the State was made in 1816, in the eastern part thereof, on Detroit river and vicinity, and a portion only of that surveyed brought into market in 1818, all within the Detroit land dis- trict.
In 1823 the Detroit land district was divided, and a land-office estab- lished at Monroe, at which all entries west of the principal meridian, up to 1831, had to be made. The lands were first offered at public sale, and after all competition seemed to be over, the applications and bids would be opened and examined, pending which action the office was closed, thereby causing much delay and expense to bona-fide settlers, and also affording a fine oppor- tunity for the " land sharks"-speculators-to reap a rich harvest from the real settlers who came to buy their own locations.
The public sales were finally abolished, which act, together with the adoption of the cash system, rendered the swindling tricks of the speculators
11
HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
less easy of performance, and as a consequence, their occupation was soon gone.
After the applications and bids at the public sales were disposed of, the land was subject to private entry at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, cash in hand. Previous to 1820 the price of the public lands was fixed at two dollars per acre, and the terms at one-quarter down, the balance in three equal annual payments. This system proved a delusion and a snare to the people as well as the government, for many would buy larger tracts than they could pay for, not considering sufficiently the drawbacks they were liable to, and did experience, in the settlement of a new country. The result was, that the government could not, and would not, take the improvements of the settlers, but extended their time of payment and gave them liberal discounts and concessions; and finally abolished the credit system altogether, and at the same time reduced the price of the public lands to one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and made it subject to private entry at that price.
In 1831 a land-office was established at White Pigeon, for lands subject to entry west of the principal meridian, but in 1834 it was removed to Bron- son, now Kalamazoo.
A military board of survey, or commission, was sent out by Congress to report on the quality and quantity of lands in Michigan, for the purpose of locating on such lands the bounty land-warrants of the Revolutionary sol" diers and officers, covering, in Michigan, two millions of acres. General Brown stated in the report of this commission, that there were not enough of good lands in the State to locate that amount of warrants, and therefore the Act of Congress, passed May 6, 1812, ordering the survey to be made, was repealed, and a survey of a similar quantity of lands directed to be made in lieu thereof, in Arkansas and Illinois. This report gave a bad rep- utation to Michigan lands, and it was not until after 1830 that the effect was removed by the representations of actual settlers, when emigration, which had mostly "passed by on the other side" to Illinois and Iowa, received a remarkable impetus, literally surging by waves into the territory. But the cloud had its "silver lining," nevertheless, for though the inaccurate and unjust report of the military board kept away the emigrants for a time, it also left them free of the bane of new countries-the land speculator, whose "tricks of trade" were so happily suppressed by the government in after years.
CHAPTER III.
ANCIENT GARDEN BEDS, MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS-THE NORTHERN INDIANS-BLACK HAWK WAR-A SAFE DEPOSITORY-FORT HOGAN- SALE OF NOTTAWA-SEPEE RESERVATION-ATTEMPT TO MURDER-SUM- MARY PROCEEDINGS AGAINST WHISKY-REMOVAL OF INDIANS-MUR- DERS OF CHIEFS-SAU-AU-QUETT'S DEATH-PURCHASE OF PRIVILEGES OF MOGUAGO-DEATH OF WISNER.
The valley of St. Joseph river, throughout its entire length nearly, con- tains abundant and unmistakable evidences of its once being the habitation of that unknown and mysterious people, which modern science, for want of a better appellation, has named mound-builders. That such a people once occupied the territory from the upper lakes to the Gulf, has been de- termined beyond question, and Foster, in his " Pre-historic Races of the United States," says, " with regard to their manners and customs, the past is not altogether speechless. Enough of their monuments survive, to enable us to form an intelligible opinion as to their architecture, system of defence, proficiency in art, habits and pursuits, and religious observances."
But farther than this, all is mystery. Who they were, whence they came, and whither they went, is as much a matter of speculation to-day, after all the researches of Lubbock, Baldwin, Foster, Schoolcraft, and scores of other investigators, as it was when it was first determined that the monu- ments scattered throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys were not the work of the present Indian races. The present Indians have no tradition of them, nor had they when they first came in contact with Europeans, six hundred and more years ago. But the works remain, for the present investi- gators to examine and theorize over, perhaps to give a clue for the future revealment of the now sealed history.
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