USA > Michigan > Grand Traverse County > Sprague's history of Grand Traverse and Leelanaw counties, Michigan embracing a concise review of their early settlement, industrial development and present conditions...to which will be appended...life sketches of well-known citizens of the county > Part 41
USA > Michigan > Leelanau County > Sprague's history of Grand Traverse and Leelanaw counties, Michigan embracing a concise review of their early settlement, industrial development and present conditions...to which will be appended...life sketches of well-known citizens of the county > Part 41
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more than that if measured by the crooks of the channel. The outlet of this lake is Carp river. At the south end of the lake it is a lit- tle more than three miles from Grand Trav- erse bay, while its north end reaches to with- in half a mile of Lake Michigan. Glen lake lies within a mile of Lake Michigan, into which it outlets. It covers about one-sixth of a township. The surface of the country is high and rolling, and it was originally heav- ily timbered. The soil presents the usual va- riety of the Grand Traverse region.
The topography of Leelanaw county is thus described by Professor Winchell : "Some parts of the county present hills of formidable magnitude. Most of the northern part of the triangle is decidedly rough. The ridge of land separating Carp lake from Sut- ton's bay attains an elevation of nearly four hundred feet above the bay. The slopes, however, are passable for loaded wagons.
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Carp lake is a beautiful sheet of pure water, resting in the bosom of the hills, which, with their rounded, forest-covered forms, furnish a setting of surpassing loveliness. Except for a short space on the east side, south of the Narrows, the shores of the lake are occupied by dry and arable land. The region between Glen Arbor and Traverse City is substantial- ly an undulating plateau, lying at an eleva- tion of about three hundred feet above the lake. Glen Lake is surrounded by hills, which attain an elevation of two hundred to four hundred feet. North Unity is a bold bluff of clay and sand, formed by the wasting of the lakeward-side of a prominent hill by the action of the waves. Sleeping Bear Point is an enormous pile of gravel, clay and sand which has been worn away on its ex- posed borders till the lakeward face presents a precipitous slope rising from the waters to an elevation of five hundred feet and forming with the horizon an angle of fifty degrees. Back from the face of the bluff is an undulating plateau of clay, pebbles and sand, covering an area of six or eight square miles, over which the only signs of vegeta- tion are a few tufts of brown, coarse grass with scattered clumps of dwarfed and gnarley specimens of balm of gilead-a min- iature desert, lying three hundred and eighty feet above the lake. Across this waste of sand and clay the wind sweeps almost in- cessantly, sometimes with relentless fury, driving pebbles and sand into the shelter of neighboring forests and causing the stunted poplars to shrink away in terror at its vio- lence. The pelting sand has polished the ex- posed surfaces of the larger fragments of rocks to such an extent that they reflect the sunlight like a mirror. Their surfaces are sometimes worked into furrows, pits and
grotesque inequalities in consequence of the unequal hardness of different portions of the stone. The 'Bear' proper is an isolated mound rising an hundred feet above this des- olated plateau and singularly covered with evergreens and other trees, presenting from the lake the dark appearance which suggested to the early navigators the idea of a bear in repose. Empire bluff, six miles further south, presents a section of another hill, which attains an altitude of nearly four hun- dred feet."
From an eminence about four hundred feet high, two or three miles inland from Glen Arbor, on the northeast side of Glen lake, can be seen one of the most varied and beautiful landscapes to be witnessed in any country, and one which is well worth the pencil of an artist. The view is towards the west, and it should be taken when the sky is clear and the atmosphere is pervaded with that softening haze which fuses the sharper angles of the landscape and throws over it a thin veil of inscrutable vagueness. From our hill summit we look down on the tops of the trees which cover the plain immediately fronting us. On the left is a portion of Glen lake, its nearer shore concealed by the forest and the remoter one exposing a white pebbly margin, from which the verdant hills beyond rise hundreds of feet above the watery mir- ror in which their forms are so clearly fash- ioned. In front of us the green hills separate Glen lake from Lake Michigan and conceal from view the desert sand fields of Sleeping Bear. Not completely, however, for the naked and glistening flanks of the northern slope stretch beyond the forest-covered ridge and embrace the placid harbor, which strug- gles through the intercepting foliage and blends with the boundless expanse of the
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great lake, still beyond. Farther off, in the midst of water, rises the green outline of the South Manitou island, bearing on its head a glistening cap of sand. Still farther to the north rises the form of the North Manitou, which seems trying to hide itself behind the towering bluff of North Unity, that guards the entrance to the harbor from the north. Two little lakes nestle in the rich woodland that spreads its verdure between us and the harbor, screening themselves like wood nymphs behind the thick foliage which half conceals their charms. It is doubtful wheth- er a scene superior to this one exists in the country.
Another enchanting view is obtained from the bluff at Omena. From this point the beholder has an exquisite view of Grand Traverse bay, with its eastern and western arms dissolving in smoke in the dim distance, and the broad lake seen through the mouth of the bay sinking beneath the northern horizon. An emerald fringe of forest skirts the oppo- site shore; the softened outlines of the pen- insula emerge from the misty embrace of the two arms of the bay, and all around the framework of this scene loom from the back- ground the purple hilltops looking perpet- ually down upon the picture.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
Until 1847 the beautiful peninsula now known as Leelanaw county was practically a terra incognita, here and there along its western shore, where its precipitous bluffs tower above the blue waters of Lake Mich- igan, nestled a few Indian villages, whose in- habitants hunted and Mshed, and planted their small clearings during the summer, closing their lodges when the rigors of win- ter approached and going south to the Kala- mazoo river to pass the winter months. But three miles divided them from lovely Grand Traverse bay on the east, but it took many weary miles of canoe travel to follow the coast from the inland lake, now known as Carp lake, at Leland, around the point where Cat-head Light sends forth its glow to light
the vessels' path, and still farther, where the long point of the peninsula winds around like the convolutions of a shell to form the quiet harbor of Northport, that haven of the storm-tossed mariner.
Then no light shone over the dark waters that beat upon that dangerous coast, where the Indians saw the great Cat's Head resting on the outstretched paws as it lay waiting for its prey. No steamers plowed their way to busy ports along its shores. No villages sent their smoke curling upward from happy firesides. Only the red man's birch canoe went to and fro, and now and then the snow white sails of some small .ves- sel fluttered across to Mission Point to leave supplies for the Indian mission there.
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In 1847 John Larue came from Chicago to the Manitou islands in search of health. At that time there was a pier on each of the two islands, where passing steamers used to call for wood; the one on the north island was owned by Mr. Pickard, that on the south by Mr. Barton. On the North Manitou were two fishermen without families. The light- house was kept by a man named Clark.
There were, as has already been said, no white men at that time in Leelanaw county. Farther south, at the mouth of Betsey river, where Frankfort now stands, there was liv- ing a white man named Joseph Oliver, with an Indian wife, who supported his family by trapping and fishing. There were no In- dians living on the Manitous, but they fre- quently came there to trade. Finding the climate favorable to his health, Mr. Larue commenced trading with the Indians, and the next year moved his establishment over to the mainland, locating at what was then called Sleeping Bear bay, but now Glen Ar- bor. He was the first white settler in the county connected with its subsequent history.
FIRST MISSIONARY ESTABLISHED IN THE COUNTY.
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The first Christian mission among the Indians of the region was established at Old Mission by Rev. Peter Dougherty in 1839, and was removed to New Mission, now Omena, in 1853, a history of which is given , elsewhere in this work. It was in June, 1849. that the first white settler landed on the quiet shores of Northport harbor to establish the second Indian mission of this region.
·The Indian bands, formerly at Black River, now Holland, Mich., under the charge
of Rev. George N. Smith, as missionary, in- cluded those of Onumunese, the chief, whose village lay at the mouth of the river at Le- land, called by the Indians Me-shu-may- abing, or Sturgeon river, and those of the Chiefs Louis Maksaba and Naganaba, who had their villages on the great lake bluffs near Cat-Head and it was the intention when circumstances made it desirable to remove the Indian colony from Black river to re- establish it near those villages.
When Mr. Smith came north in 1848 to examine the location he found that it would not be possible to land goods on ac- count of the high bluffs, and also that there was no harbor in which vessels would be secure. But the chief told him that he could guide him to a better place, where the shores were low and boats could lie in safety, and, crossing the intervening strip of forest to the bay, they found it all that could be desired, and at once selected it as their future loca- tion. In the following spring, all being ar- ranged, a small schooner was purchased by Mr. Smith and James McLaughlin, the latter of whom had been appointed to teach farm- ing to the Indians, and on June 1, 1849, the little band of fifteen white people embarked on their little vessel and set sail for Grand Traverse bay. These were Rev. George N. Smith, wife and four children; James Mc- Laughlin, wife and three children; William H. Case, employed as Indian blacksmith, with wife and one child, and George Pierson, farmer's assistant. It was a slow and tem- pestuous voyage, but on the twelfth day they safely reached their haven and landed at the present site of Northport, which Mrs. Smith described as looking "like the Garden of Eden," with its circling green shore and blossoming wild roses. The next day was
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begun Mr. McLaughlin's house, the first ever erected in this part of the region.
Mr. Smith, having brought a little lum- ber from his former schoolhouse at Black river, made a slight shelter for his family while clearing a spot on which to build his house, and on the 16th of the month was laid the walls of the oldest house now exist- ing in Leelanaw county, which was a few months previous to this writing moved from its old foundations to make way for the new Traverse City, Leelanaw & Manistique Rail- road, the first to traverse these shores. Soon a little land was cleared, gar- dens were planted and the shrubs, trees and flowers brought from the old homes were set out to beautify the new. In August Mr. Smith finished preparing the ground, in which he planted a crop of potatoes, from which, he records, he ripened and harvested thirty-nine bushels before the snow came.
A little incident of that first year was re- cently related by James J. Mclaughlin, one of the four survivors of that first little colony, at the old settlers' meeting, which, by an odd coincidence was held at Northport on the fifty-fourth anniversary, lacking one day, of the colonists' arrival in the bay. On the first Fourth of July it was decided that it was proper to hoist the national colors and cele- brate "Independence Day." But a difficulty was found to exist in the fact that they had no flag, and in none of the three families could be found the colors necessary for the construction of one. But George Pierson, who had fought in the war of 1812, and in whose veins the fires of patriotism still burned, declared that he would give his red flannel shirt for the red stripes if Mrs. Mc- Laughlin would give cloth for the white ones, which she did. But, alas! not among
them all could be found the blue material for the field of stars. But the boys were not. to be easily defeated. On board the schooner was found a pot of lead-colored paint, which by a plentiful admixture of the laundry sup- ply of indigo blueing was transformed into the required color, and used. After marking the outlines of thirteen stars on a white field they painted around them, and thus triumph- antly completed their flag, which on the morning of the Fourth was flung to the breeze, while the cannon, made of a stout log, charged with powder, aided by the three guns of the company, thundered a salute. During the day Mr. Smith delivered a pa- triotic oration, the ladies furnished a boun- teous dinner, and thus was achieved the first Fourth of July celebration of Leelanaw county.
Soon after the arrival at Grand Traverse bay the Indian colony established their vil- lage where Northport now stands, naming it Wakazooville, after the head chief, Peter Wakazoo, and the mission work went pros- perously on. Mr. Smith held the church services in his own house until the following spring, when he built another building near his own to serve as a church and school- house, furnishing it with the doors, windows and seats brought from his former church at Black river, and began the first school ever taught on the Leelanaw peninsula, consisting of the five white children of the colony and a number of the Indians.
It would not be just, even if it were possi- ble, in writing a history of this county, to ig- nore a more particular mention of the people to whom is due its settlement at that time- that strange people whose origin is mystery, whose history is tradition, whose only litera- ture has been the stories told . in fantastic
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imagery around their campfires, and who haye not even a hierogylphic for their identi- fication-the Indians. For the sole motive that inspired the souls of the earnest mission- aries who braved all the hardships of pioneer life in the forest wilds, was the conversion of these heathen people to the Christian faith, and to this end the principal advancement of the region was in the establishment of three Indian missions here. The tribes here represented, the Ottawas and Ojib- ways, had ever been the white man's friends, peaceful hunters and traders, and the missionaries found in them many noble qualities not always possessed by their white neighbors. When leaving their lodges, while migrating to and fro, or when absent for any reason, a small log placed across the wigwam door was the sign that the owner was not at home, and no mat- ter how far or how long he was gone no one would ever enter his lodge until he returned. If an article was lost the finder did not carry it away from the place where he found it, but placed it in a conspicuous position, on the assumption that the owner would look for it on the trail he had passed over.
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In all their life among them Mr. Smith testifies that he never locked his doors and never lost the value of a penny by theft. In 1848 he traveled with them in a birch bark canoe from Kalamazoo to Mackinaw. From the fragile nature of these boats they were never taken close to the shore when loaded, so that the bottom would not strike stones or rough obstructions, but the occu- pants would step out when the water became shallow and wade ashore, carrying their pre- cious bark upon their shoulders. But on all their travels with Mr. Smith, whenever they were to land, their first act was to carefully
lift their "teacher," as they called him, and carry him ashore, after which they landed the canoe.
One of the worst difficulties met with by Mr. Smith in his work among them was their love for "fire-water." It required constant vigilance to keep them from getting liquor whenever any vessel came to trade, and on the annual payments, held at Mackinaw is- land, it was impossible to keep them all so- ber, though many of those of Mr. Smith's mission were induced by him to take the pledge of abstinence and keep it. And it is a notable fact that up to the present day the people who were his charge and their de- scendants are temperate, industrious and strongly religious, in marked contrast to the majority of their race. It was a part of their early religious training to learn to sing church hymns, Mr. Smith and his wife being greatly devoted to music; and the little old melodeon on which Mrs. Smith played the church music through those early years is still treasured in her son's family as a sacred relic. Each Sunday it was borne to the little log church by the Indians and carried back when the services were over. The Indians have quite true and clear voices, and are fond of singing, but during many years' acquaintance with them the writer of this has never heard one of them sing a secular song; and the same devout spirit seems to control their gen- eral lives. They appear to have no merry- makings among them, their church-going. which is carefully attended, with its Christ- mas and New Year's celebrations and camp- meetings, being their only social gatherings.
Soon after the arrival of the Indian col- ony at Northport a council of all the bands was held, to which the Indians of
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Mr. Daugherty's mission were invited, that friendly relations might be established be- tween them, and much visiting between the two missions followed, until finally, in 1853, Mr. Daugherty's mission was removed from its first location and established by the gov- ernment as a manual training school for the Indians at the place now known as Omena, five miles south of Northport, where now the old mission school house is transformed into a fashionable summer resort.
At about the same time was also estab- lihed a Catholic Indian mission at the village of the chief, Pashaba, about four miles far- ther south, where was built a church and school house under the charge of the French priest, Father Mrack, who faithfully labored there with his "poor, wayward children" for several years.
In 1855 a large number of the Indians of Cross Village, to whom Father Mrack had been ministering, left that point and set- tled at Pashabatown, and this faithful priest went with them and established a school for them there and made his home among them. He also attended the Chippeway and Ottowa Indians at Manistee, and went as far north as Petoskey, making his rounds either on the back of an Indian pony or by canoe. Father Mrack labored faithfully among these In- dians until, at the death of Bishop Baragy, early in 1869, he was nominated for the bishopric of Marquette, and was consecrated February 7th of the same year. After nine years' labor as bishop, his health becoming poor, he resigned his see in 1878. Then, having learned that these Pashaba Indians were without a priest, he returned to them and labored among them until ill health and old age obliged him to retire from all active
work, in 1891, when he went away to St. Mary's Hospital at Marquette to die.
When Mr. Smith landed first on the western shore he had to survey and cut his own way across to the bay. Only the most imperfect government survey had been made. It was not until December, 1851, that Abra- liam S. Wadsworth began his new survey of the Leelanaw peninsula, and a company start- ed to survey a road toward Grand Rapids. Previous to this but an Indian trail crossed the intervening distance, and the work of road-making must have progressed slowly, for in 1856 Mr. Smith's son, on his way to college at Oberlin, went by trail from Old Mission to Muskegon, and from there to Grand Rapids. Mail came by way of Mack- inaw, sometimes but once in three or four months, brought from there as opportunity offered by Indians passing to and fro. It was a vast leap toward conditions of civili- zation when a mail route was established and mail arrived as often as once a week.
On April 14, 1851, is recorded the arrival of the steamboat "Michigan" with provisions for sale, of which Mr. Smith says: "This is probably the first steamboat that has ever landed here. It seems cheerful to see it."
Gradually a few other white settlers be- gan to arrive. Now and then a storm-driven steamer would seek the harbor for refuge and the colonists would get a chance to replenish their supplies. In the fall of 1851 John Le- rue brought in a cargo of goods to trade with the Indians for wood, furs, fish or any- thing they might have to sell. In 1854 O. L. White and J. M. Burbeck established a gen- eral store. The next year a dock was built .by H. O. Rose and Amos Fox, and business was opened with the outside world. In this
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year also a white family, that of Antoine Manseau, settled at Carp Lake, followed soon by others, and land was cleared and homes built in every direction.
It was in the spring of 1853 that the or- ganization of Grand Traverse county was completed and four townships organized, that of Leelanaw comprising the whole of Leelanaw county, including the Manitou islands. At the first township meeting six voters were present. - Mr. Smith was elected treasurer, justice of the peace for three years and commissioner of highways, and Mr. Ma- son, living at Carrying Place, where "Cedar Lodge" now stands, was elected justice of the peace and assessor. Though few in number, the little community succeeded in carrying on an orderly routine of life, and ere long a busy line of vessels and steamers were plying between the Leelanaw peninsula and other
ports, and Leelanaw county had ceased to be a wilderness.
The oldest church building in the county is that still standing in a good state of preser- vation in its little cemetery at Omena. Many others have been built since then in all the hamlets along both shores. Six are at North- port. Large Catholic churches and schools, as well as others, are established at Sutton's Bay and Provemont, and almost all denomi- nations are represented in the county.
Schools are numerous, well attended and well supported. There are graded schools in all the larger villages, that of Northport em- ploying five teachers. In four towns news- papers are now published, and the advent of two railroads accentuate the progress made from trail to rail in the half century since Leelanaw county came into existence.
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CHAPTER III.
CIVIL HISTORY OF LEELANAW COUNTY.
The organization of Grand Traverse county, which was completed in 1853, em- braced the present counties of Leelanaw and Benzie, and constituted one township called Leelanaw, of which Samuel G. Boice was the first supervisor. Joseph Dame was super- visor in 1854, Lansing Marble in 1855 and George N. Smith in 1856.
A special meeting of the board of super- visors of Grand Traverse county was held March 6, 1856, at which the townships of Glen Arbor, North Unity and Centerville
were organized. The territory remained in this condition until the winter of 1861-2, when an act organizing the county of Leela- naw was passed by the legislature, as fol- lows :
"An act to organize the county of Leela- naw and define the county of Benzie.
"Section I. The people of the state of Michigan enact, That all that part of the county of Leelanaw which lies north of the south line of township 28 north shall be or- ganized and the inhabitants thereof shall be
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entitled to all the rights, privileges and pow- ers to which by law the inhabitants of other organized counties in this state are entitled.
"Sec. 2. At the township meeting to be held in the several townships in said county on the first Monday in April next there shall be an election of all the county officers to which by law the county may be entitled, whose term of office shall expire on the first day of January A. D. eighteen hundred and sixty-five and when their . successors shall have been elected and qualified.
"Sec. 3. The board of county canvassers under the provisions of this act shall meet on the second Tuesday succeeding the day of election, as herein appointed, in the village of Northport, in said county, at the house of Joseph Dame or such other place as may be agreed upon and provided by such board, and organize by appointing one of their number as chairman and another secretary, and shall thereupon proceed to discharge all the duties of a board of county canvassers as in other cases of the election of county officers as prescribed by the general law.
"Sec. 4. The location of the county seat of said county shall be determined by the vote of the electors of said county at a special election, which is hereby appointed to be held by the several townships of said county on the first Monday in June next. There shall be written on the ballots then polled by the qualified electors of said county one of the following names of places, to-wit: Glen Ar- bor, Leland or Northport, and that one which shall receive the greatest number of votes shall be the county seat of Leela- naw.
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