History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.., Part 4

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Michigan > St Clair County > History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.. > Part 4

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

grand council was held near Detroit, when Pontiac stood forth in war paint and delivered " the great speech of the campaign." The English were slow to perceive any dangerous conspiracy in progress, and when the blow was struck, nine out of twelve of the British posts were surprised and destroyed. Three of these were within the bounds of this State. The first prominent event of the war was the massacre at Fort Michilimackinac, on the northernmost point of the southern peninsula, the site of the present city of Mackinaw. This Indian outrage was one of the most ingeniously devised and resolutely executed schemes in American his- tory. The Chippewas (or Ojibways) appointed one of their big ball plays in the vicinity of the post and invited and inveigled as many of the occupants as they conld to the scene of play, then fell upon the unsuspecting and unguarded English in the most brutal manner. For the details of this horrible seene we are indebted to Alexander Henry, a trader at that point, who experienced several most blood- curdling escapes from death and scalping at the hands of the savages. The result of the massacre was the death of about seventy out of ninety persons. The Ottawa Indians, who occupied mainly the eastern portion of the lower peninsula, were not consulted by the Chippewas, with reference to attacking Michilimackinac, and were consequently so enraged that they espoused the cause of the English, through spite ; and it was through their instrumentality that Mr. Henry and some of his comrades were saved from death and conveyed east to the regions of civilization. Of Mr. Henry's narrow escapes we give the following succinct account: Instead of attending the ball play of the Indians he spent the day writing letters to his friends, as a canoe was to leave for the East the following day. While thus engaged, he heard an Indian war cry and a noise of general confusion. Looking out of the window, he saw a crowd of Indians within the fort, that is, within the village palisade, who were cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found. He seized a fowling piece which he had at hand, and waited a moment for the signal, the drum beat to arms. In that dreadful interval he saw several of his countrymen fall under the tomahawk and struggle between the knees of an Indian, who held him in this manner to scalp him, while still alive. Mr. Henry heard no signal to arms; and seeing it was useless to undertake to resist 400 Indians, he thought only of shelter for himself. He saw many of the Canadian inhabitants of the fort calmly looking on, neither opposing the Indians nor suffering injury, and he therefore concluded he might find safety in some of their houses. He stealthily ran to one occupied by Mr. Langlade and family, who were at their windows beholding the bloody scene. Mr. Langlade scarcely dared to harbor him. but a Pawnee slave of the former concealed him in the garret, locked the stairway door and took away the key. In this situation Mr. Henry obtained, through an aperture, a view of what was going on without. He saw the dead scalped and mangled, the

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

dying in writhing agony, under the insatiate knife and tomahawk, and the savages drinking human blood from the hollow of their joined hands! Mr. Henry almost felt as if he were a victim himself so intense were his sufferings. Soon the Indian fiends began to halloo, " All is finished." AAt this instant Henry heard some of the Indians enter the house he had taken shelter. The garret was separated from the room below by only a layer of single boards, and Mr. Henry heard all that was said. As soon as the Indians entered they inquired whether there were any En- glishmen in the house. Mr. Langlade replied that he could not say ; they might examine for themselves. He then conducted them to the garret door. As the door was locked, a moment of time was snatched by Mr. Henry to crawl into a heap of birch-bark vessels in a dark corner; and although several Indians searched around the garret, one of them coming within arm's length of the sweating prisoner, they went out satisfied that no Englishman was there.

As Mr. Heury was passing the succeeding night in this room, he could think of no possible chance of escape from the country. He was out of provisions, the nearest post was Detroit, 100 miles away, and the route thither lay through the enemy's country. The next morning he heard Indian voices below informing Mr. Langlade that they had not found an Englishman named Henry among the dead, and they believed him to be somewhere concealed. Mrs. L., believing that the safety of the household depended on giving up the refugee to his pursuers, prevailed on her husband to lead the Indians upstairs to the room of Mr. HI. The latter was saved from instant death by one of the savages adopting him as a brother in the place of one lost. The Indians were all mad with liquor, however, and Mr. H. again very narrowly escaped death. An hour afterwards he was taken out of the fort by an Indian indebted to him for goods, and was under the uplifted knife of the savage when he suddenly broke away from him and made back to Mr. Lang- lade's house, barely escaping the knife of the Indian the whole distance. The next day he, with three other prisoners, were taken in a canoe toward Lake Michigan, and at Fox Point, eighteen miles distant, the Ottawas reseued the whites through spite at the Chippewas, saying that the latter contemplated killing and eating them ; but the next day they were returned to the Chippewas, as the result of some kind of agreement about the conduct of the war. He was rescued again by an old friendly Indian claiming him as a brother. The next morning he saw the dead bodies of seven whites dragged forth from the prison lodge he had just occupied. The fattest of these dead bodies was actually served up and feasted on directly before the eyes of Mr. Henry. Through the partiality of the Ottawas and the com- plications of military affairs among the Indians, Mr. Henry, after severe exposures and many more thrilling escapes, was Bnally landed within territory occupied by whites.

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

For more than a year after the massacre, Michilimackinac was occupied only by wood rangers and Indians ; then, after the treaty, Capt. Howard was sent with troops to take possession.

CHAPTER IV.

NATIONAL POLICIES.

The Great French Scheme .- Soon after the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi by La Salle, in 1682, the government of France began to encourage the policy of establishing a line of trading posts and missionary stations extending through the West from Canada to Louisiana, and this policy was maintained, with partial success, for about seventy-five years.

The river St. Joseph, of Lake Michigan, was called " the river Miamis" in 1679, in which year La Salle built a small fort on its bank, near the lake shore. The principal station of the mission for the instruction of the Miamis was estab- lished on the borders of this river. The first French post within the territory of the Miamis was at the mouth of the river Miamis, on an eminence naturally forti- fied on two sides by the river, and on one side by a deep ditch made by a fall of water. It was of triangular form. The missionary, Hennepin, gives a good description of it, as he was one of the company who built it in 1679. Says he : " We felled the trees that were on the top of the hill, and having cleared the same from bushes for about two musket shot, we began to build a redoubt of eighty feet long and forty feet broad, with great square pieces of timber laid one upon anotlier, and prepared a great number of stakes of about twenty-five feet long to drive into the ground, to make our fort more inaccessible on the river side. We employed the whole month of November about that work, which was very hard, though we had no other food but the bears' flesh our savage killed. These beasts are very common in that place, because of the great quantity of grapes they find there ; but their flesh being too fat and luscious, our men began to be weary of it, and desired leave to go a-hunting to kill some wild goats. M. La Salle denied them that liberty, which caused some murmurs among them, and it was but unwillingly that they continued their work. This, together with the approach of Winter and the apprehension that M. La Salle had that his vessel (the Griffin) was lost, made him very melancholy, though he con- cealed it as much as he could. We made a cabin wherein we performed divine service every Sunday, and Father Gabriel and I, who preached alternately, took care to take such texts as were suitable to our present circumstances and fit to

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

inspire ns with courage, concord and brotherly love. The fort was at last perfected and called Fort Miamis."

In 1765, the Miamis nation, or confederaey, was composed of four tribes, whose total number of warriors was estimated at only 1,050 men. Of these, about 250 were Twight-wess or Miamis proper, 300 Weas or Ouiate-nons, 300 Pianke- shaws and 200 Schoekeys, and at this time the principal villages of the Twiglit- wess were situated about the head of the Maumee River, at and near the place where Fort Wayne now is. The larger Wea villages were near the banks of the Wabash River, in the vicinity of the Oniatenon ; and the Shockeys and Piankeshaws dwelt on the banks of the Vermillion and on the borders of the Wabash, between Vin- cennes and Oniatenon. Branches of the Pottawatomie, Shawnee, Delaware and Kickapoo tribes were permitted at different times to enter within the boundaries of the Miamis and reside for a while.

The wars in which France and England were engaged from 1688 to 1697, retarded the growth of the colonies of those nations in North America, and the efforts made by France to connect Canada and the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of trading-posts and colonies naturally excited the jealousy of England and gradually laid the foundation for a struggle at arms. After several stations were established elsewhere in the West, trading-posts were started at the Miami villages, which stood at the head of the Maumee, at the Wea villages about Oniatenon, on the Wabash, and at the Piankeshaw villages about the present site of Vincennes. It is probable that before the close of the year 1719, temporary trading-posts were erected at the sites of Fort Wayne, Quiatenon and Vincennes. The points were probably often visited by French fur traders prior to 1700. In the meanwhile, the English people in this country commenced also to establish military posts west of the Alleghanies, and thus matters went on until they naturally culminated in a general war, which, being waged by the French and Indians combined on one side, was called " the French and Indian war." This war was terminated in 1763 by a treaty at Paris. by which France ceded to Great Britain all of North America east of the Mississippi except New Orleans and the island on which it is situated ; and, indeed, France had the preceding Autumn, by a secret convention, ceded to Spain all the country west of that river.

In 1762, after Canada and its dependencies had been surrendered to the English, Pontiac and his partisans secretly organized a powerful confederacy in order to erush at one blow all English power in the West. This great scheme was skillfully projected and cautiously matured. The principal act in the programme was to gain admittance into the fort at Detroit, on pretense of a friendly visit, with shortened muskets concealed under their blankets, and, on a given signal, suddenly break forth upon the garrison ; but an inadvertent remark of an Indian woman led to a

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

discovery of the plot, which was consequently averted. Pontiac and his warriors afterward made many attaeks upon the English, some of which were successful, but the Indians were finally defeated in the general war.

BRITISH POLICY.

In 1765 the total number of French families within the limits of the North- western Territory did not probably exeeed 600. These were in settlements about Detroit, along the river Wabash and the neighborhood of Fort Chartres on the Mis- sissippi. Of these families, about eighty or ninety resided at Post Vincennes, fourteen at Fort Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and nine or ten at the confluence of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers, together with a few on St. Clair lake and river.

The colonial policy of the British Government opposed any measures which might strengthen settlements in the interior of this country, lest they become self- supporting and independent of the mother country ; hence the early and rapid settle- ment of the Northwestern Territory was still further retarded by short-sighted self- ishness of England. That fatal poliey consisted mainly in holding the lands in the hands of the government and not allowing it to be subdivided and sold to settlers. But in spite of all her efforts in this direction, she constantly made just such efforts as provoked the American people to rebel, and to rebel successfully, which was within fifteen years after the perfect elcse of the French and Indian war.

AMERICAN POLICY.

Thomas Jefferson, the shrewd statesman and wise Governor of Virginia, saw from the first that actual oeeupation of Western lands was the only way to keep them out of the hands of foreigners and Indians. Therefore, directly after the con- quest of Vincennes by Clark he engaged a scientific corps to proceed under an escort to the Mississippi, and ascertain by celestial observations the point on that river intersected by latitude 36 deg. 31 min., the southern limit of the State, and to measure its distance to the Ohio. To Gen. Clark was entrusted the conduet of the military operations in that quarter. He was instructed to select a strong position near that point and establish there a fort and garrison ; thenee to extend his conquest northward to the lakes, erecting forts at different points, which might serve as monuments of actual possession, besides affording protection to that por- tion of the country. Fort " Jefferson " was erected and garrisoned on the Missis- sippi a few miles above the southern limit.

The result of these operations was the addition to the chartered limits of Vir- ginia, of that immense region known as the " Northwestern Territory." The sim- ple fact that such and such forts were established by the Americans in this vast region convineed the British Commissioners that we had entitled ourselves to the land. But where are those " monuments " of our power now ?

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

ORDINANCE OF 1787.

This ordinance has a marvelous and interesting history. Considerable contro- versy has been indulged in as to who is entitled to the credit for framing it. This belongs undoubtedly, to Nathan Dane ; and to Rufus King and Timothy Pickering belong the credit for suggesting the proviso contained in it against slavery, and also for aids to religion and knowledge, and for assuring forever the common use, without charge, of the great national highways of the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence and their tributaries to all the citizens of the United States. To Thomas Jefferson is also dne much credit, as some features of this ordinance were embraced in his ordin- anee of 1784. But the part taken by euch in the long, laborious and eventful struggle which had so glorious a consummition in the ordinance, conseerating for- ever, by one imprescriptible and unchangeable monument, the very heart of our country to freedom, knowledge and union, will forever honor the names of those illustrious statesmen.

Jefferson had vainly tried to secure a system of government for the North- western Territory. He was an emancipationist and favored the exclusion of slavery from the Territory, but the South voted him down every time he proposed a meas- ure of this nature. In 1787, as late as July 10, an organizing aet without the anti- slavery clause was pending. This concession to the South was expected to carry it. Congress was in session in New York. On July 5, Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts, came into New York to lobby on the Northwestern Territory. Everything seemed to fall into his hands. Events were ripe. The state of the publie eredit, the growing of Southern prejudice, the basis of his mission, his per- sonal character, all combined to complete one of those sudden and marvelous revo- lutions of publie sentiment that once in five or ten centuries are seen to sweep over a country like the breath of the Almighty.

Cutler was a graduate of Yale. He had studied and taken degrees in the three learned professions, medicine, law, and divinity. He had published a scien- tifie examination of the plants of New England. As a scientist in America, his name stood second only to Franklin. He was a courtly gentleman of the old style, a man of commanding presence and inviting face. The Southern members said they had never seen such a gentleman in the North. le came, representing a Massachusetts company that desired to purchase a traet of land. now included in Ohio for the purpose of planting a colony. It was a speculation. Government money was worth eighteen cents on the dollar. This company had collected enough to purchase 1,500,000 aeres of land. Other speculators in New York made Dr. Cutler their agent, which enabled him to represent a demand for 5,500.000 aeres. As this would rednee the national debt, it presented a good opportunity to do something.

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

Massachusetts then owned the territory of Maine, which she was crowding on the market. She was opposed to opening the Northwestern region. This fired the zeal of Virginia. The South caught the inspiration, and all exalted Dr. Cutler. The entire South rallied around him. Massachusetts could not vote against him, because many of the constituents of her members were interested personally in the Western speculation. Thus Cutler making friends in the South, and doubtless using all the arts of the lobby, was enabled to command the situation. True to deeper convictions, he dictated one of the most compact and finished documents of wise statesmenship that has ever adorned any human law book.

He borrowed from Jefferson the term " Articles of Compact," which preceding the federal constitution, rose into the most sacred character. He then followed very closely the constitution of Massachusetts, adopted three years before. Its most prominent points were :

1. The exclusion of slavery from the territory forever.

2. Provision for public schools, giving one township for a seminary and every section numbered 16 in each township ; that is, one thirty-sixth of all the land for public schools.

3. A provision prohibiting the adoption of any constitution or the enactment of any law that should nullify pre-existing contracts. Be it forever remembered that this compact declared that " religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of edu- cation shall always be encouraged." Dr. Cutler planted himself on this platform and would not yield. Giving his unqualified declaration that it was that or noth- ing, he took his horse and buggy and started for the constitutional convention at Philadelphia. On July 13, 1787, the bill was put upon its passage, and was unani- mously adopted.

Thus the great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, a vast empire, were consecrated to freedom, intelligence and morality. Thus the great heart of the nation was prepared to save the union of States, for it was this act that was the salvation of the Republic and the destruction of slavery. Soon the South saw their great blunder and tried to have the compact repealed. In 1803 Congress re- ferred it to a committee, of which John Randolphi was chairman. He reported that this ordinance was a compact, and opposed repeal. Thus it stood, a rock in the way of the on-rushing sea of slavery.

The " Northwestern Territory" included, of course, what is now the tate of Indiana, and October 5, 1787, Major General Arthur St. Clair was elected by Con- gress, Governor of this territory. Upon commencing the duties of his office he was instructed to ascertain the real temper of the Indians, and do all in his power to remove the causes for controversy between them and the United States, and to

ה. r.

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

effect the extinguishment of Indian titles to all the land possible. The Governor took up quarters in the new settlement of Marietta, Ohio, where he immediately began the organization of the government of the territory. The first session of the General Court of the new territory was held at that place in 1788, the judges being Samuel H. Parsons, James M. Varnum and John C. Symmes, but under the ordinanee, Gov. St. Clair was president of the court. After the first session, and after the necessary laws for government were adopted, Gov. St. Clair, accompanied by the judges, visited Kaskaskia for the purpose of organizing a civil government there. Full instructions had been sent to Maj. Hamtramck, commandant at Vin- cennes, to ascertain the exact feeling and temper of the Indian tribes of the Wabash. The instructions were accompanied by speeches to each of the tribes. 1 Frenchman. named Antoine Gamelin, was dispatched with these messages April 5. 1790, who visited nearly all the tribes on the Wabash, St. Joseph, and St. Mary's Rivers, but was coldly received, most of the chiefs being dissatisfied with the policy of the Americans toward them, and prejudiced through English misrepresentation. Full accounts of his adventures among the tribes, reached Gov. St. Clair at Kaskas- kia, in June, 1790. Being satisfied that there was no prospect of effeeting a general peace with the Indians of Indiana, he resolved to visit Gen. Harmar, at his head- quarters at Fort Washington, and consult with him on the means of carrying on an expedition against the hostile Indians; but before leaving he intrusted Winthrop Sargent, the secretary of the Territory, with the execution of the resolutions of Congress regarding the lands and settlers on the Wabash. He directed that officer to proceed to Vineennes. lay out a county there, establish the militia and appoint the necessary civil and military officers. Accordingly Mr. Sargent went to Vin- cennes and organized Camp Knox, appointed the officers, and notified the inhabi- tants to present their claims to lands. In establishing these claims the settlers found great difficulty, and concerning this matter the secretary in his report to the president wrote as follows :

Although the lands and lots which were awarded to the inhabitants appeared from very good oral testimony to belong to those persons to whom they were awarded, either by original grants, purchase or inheritance, yet there was scarcely one ease in twenty where the title was complete, owing to the desultory manner in which publie business had been transacted, and some other unfortunate canses. The original eoneessions by the French and British commandants were generally made upon a small serap of paper, which it has been customary to lodge in the notary's office, who has seldom kept any book of record, but committed the most important land concerns to loose sheets, which in process of time have come into possession of persons that have fraudulently destroyed them ; or unacquainted with their consequence. innocently lost or trifled them away. By French usage they are

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

considered family inheritances, and often descend to women and children. In one instance, during the government of St. Ange, a royal notary ran off with all the public papers in his possession, as by a certificate produced to me. And I am very sorry further to observe that in the office of Mr. Le Grande, which continued from 1777 to 1787, and where should have been the vouchers for important land transac- tions, the records have been so falsified, and there is such gross fraud and forgery as to invalidate all evidence and information which might be otherwise acquired from his papers.

Mr. Sargent says there were about 150 French families at Vincennes in 1790. The heads of all the families had been at one time vested with certain titles to a portion of the soil ; and while the secretary was busy in straightening out those claims, he received a petition signed by eighty Americans, asking for the confirma- tion of grants of land ceded by the Court, organized by Col. John Todd, under the authority of Virginia. With reference to this cause, Congress, March 3, 1691, em- powered the territorial governor, in cases where land had been actually improved and cultivated under a supposed grant for the same, to confirm to the persons who made such improvements the lands supposed to have been granted, not, however, exceeding the quantity of 1,100 acres to any one person.

CHAPTER V.

MILITARY HISTORY.

PONTIAC'S SIEGE OF DETROIT.

In the Spring of 1763 Pontiac determined to take Detroit by an ingenious attack. He had his men file off their guns so that they would be short enough to conceal under their blanket clothing as they entered the fortification. A Canadian woman who went over to their village on the east side of the river to obtain some venison, saw them thus at work on their guns, and suspected they were preparing for an attack on the whites. She told her neighbors what she had seen, and one of them informed the commandant, Major Gladwyn, who at first slighted the advice, but before another day had passed he had full knowledge of the plot. There is a legend that a beautiful Chippewa girl, well-known to Gladwyn, divulged to him the scheme which the Indians had in view, namely, that the next day Pontiac would come to the fort with sixty of his chiefs, each armed with a gun cut short and hidden under his blanket ; that Pontiac would demand a council, deliver a speech, offer a peace-belt of wampum, holding it in a reversed position as the signal for

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.., Part 4

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co.
Number of Pages: 814