USA > Michigan > St Clair County > St. Clair County, Michigan, its history and its people; a narrative account of its historical progress and its principal interests, Vol. I > Part 13
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The state made no examination whatever of this immensely valuable donation : it assumed from the outset that it was all equally valuable. or worthless. In the making of contracts for roads or drains to be paid for in state swamp land. it was customary for the state to issue serip. with which swamp land in any part of the state could be taken up. This serip was generally on the market at a considerable discount. Many fortunes were made by buying this scrip. and locating timber land worth from ten to thirty dollars per acre, at a cost of not over a dollar per acre in cash.
In a case coming before the supreme court of Michigan relating to swamp land scrip. Judge Morse took occasion to say (89 Mich. Rep .. page 274) : "The magnificent dowry of many thousand acres of val- nable lands under the grant of swamp lands by the general govern- ment to this state has been frittered away by the inattention and neg- lect of state officers, and the reckless donations of the legislature, until nothing of any vahie is now left to the people. A few speculators in every county of the state have been enriched, with no corresponding benefit to the great mass of our citizens. It is shown that for all these years since 1850 there has been no examination or classification of these swamp lands as to their value. A tract of worthless bog has been held at the same price as a tract of most valuable pine lands: and contrac- tors under the various jobs. inspired in most instances by the speculators who subsequently acquired the lands, have been free to make their own lists and selections of lands donated. limited only by locality."
While undoubtedly much good was done with the swamp land, yet it cannot be denied that the state wasted a large part of its heritage to the lasting injury of its sons and daughters.
Largely owing to the fact that so much of the land of the county was taken up during the speculative period, culminating in 1836, there was not so much land left upon which the swamp land act could take effect, and there was conveyed to the state as swamp land within the county of St. Clair, only 29,552 acres.
ST. CLAIR FLATS
The title to the land included within the district long known as the St. Clair Flats, has been for many years a matter of judicial dis- pute, and is not yet settled beyond doubt. With the exception of a part of the islands which is high and originally covered by timber and sub- ject to cultivation, the largest part of the so-called flats consists of sub- merged land coming in many places close to the surface of the water. and at times exposed by low water, but for the most part covered with rushes in the summer time. These flats for many years were the para- dise of hunters and fishers.
This desirable quality led to the erection of buildings upon all of
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the channels. either upon piles or upon land which had been created by dredging. and although it was known to be No Man's Land, where title could not be obtained, buildings, in many cases large and ex- pensive. were erected, the Lake St. Clair Fishing and Shooting Club having expended upwards of $80.000 in improvements upon the prop- erty occupied by it. The United States itself made no claim to the territory, but in 1886 the state land commissioner caused a survey of the entire locality to be made by one Bartholomew, and endeavored to have the commissioner of the land department at Washington adopt this survey and convey the territory to the state of Michigan as swamp land, but this was refused.
If it were strictly swamp land and the title had been originally in the general government. it would have passed to the state by the Swamp Land Aet of 1850. If. however, it was submerged land. that is. covered at all times by water, it belonged to the state as trust land which could not be conveyed under ordinary circumstances to private owners. After the survey had been made in 1887 the legislature in 1895 passed a resolution authorizing the beginning of legal proceed- ings to determine the title, and in pursuance of that act, a suit was brought by the state against the St. Clair Fishing and Shooting Club. Under the testimony produced before the circuit judge, he held that the property occupied by the club was in fact swamp land, and upon the case being removed to the supreme court it was held by a majority of that court that there was some evidence to justify the finding of the circuit judge, and if it was swamp land it came under the Swamp Land Act and the state was entitled to recover possession.
After this case was decided. Schuyler S. Olds, as the owner of swamp land serip entitling him to locate swamp lands belonging to the state, applied to the state land office to permit him to locate with that serip lands on the St. Clair flats, to the amount of 757 acres. A part of the land involved was the land occupied by the St. Clair Shooting & Fishing Club. The commissioner refused to permit the location, and the supreme court was asked to compel permission, and it granted an order to that effect on July 10. 1901. The matter being of so much importance, an application for rehearing was granted, and another opinion was filed in September, 1903. and the supreme court decided that so far as related to the land occupied by the club was concerned, it having been previously determined as a fact to be swamp land, that Olds was entitled to a patent, but left the questions relating to the remaining land undetermined.
Mr. Olds then attempted to obtain a patent of the land not occupied by the club, and evidence was taken and submitted to the court, which decided that the rest of the territory involved was submerged lake bottom, and not swamp or overflowed land, and therefore was not sub- jeet to location by swamp land serip. This decision was made in July. 1907.
Another phase of the same question came before the supreme court in a suit brought by the state against the Venice of America Land Company, which claimed all of the lower part of Harsen's Island. not included within the limits of grants made by the United States to the
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Harsens. The state claimed title to the land; first, by the so-called Swamp Land Act; and second, because the premises were submerged land at the time Michigan became a state, and that by the act admitting the state, it acquired title as trustee for the people of the state. A large amount of testimony was taken and the supreme court decided that the premises were a part of the bed of Lake St. Clair at the time Michigan became a state, and that the title therefore passed to the state, which held the lands in trust for the use and benefit of the people for naviga- tion, fishing, etc. The legislature of the state has since passed an act authorizing the sale of the Flats in parcels upon certain conditions, but its action in that direction has been enjoined upon the theory that the state has no power to sell and permanently pass title to that portion of such property, which it holds in trust for the benefit of the entire people of the state and this suit is at present undecided.
CHAPTER VIII
ST. CLAIR COUNTY UNDER THREE FLAGS
FRENCH FORTIFIED POST UNDER DULUTH-FORT ST. JOSEPH-FORT
ABANDONED BY LAHONTAN-SKETCH OF DULUTH-THE ENGLISH FORT SINCLAIR-PATRICK SINCLAIR-THE AMERICAN FORT GRATIOT -CHARLES GRATIOT-TEMPORARILY ABANDONED-SUCCESSIVE COM- MANDANTS-CHOLERA AT THE FORT- FINALLY ABANDONED (1879).
This county is one of very few counties in the state within whose borders has floated the flag of more than one nation over a fortified place. Fort St. Joseph established by the French, Fort Sinclair by the British, and Fort Gratiot by the Americans, all bear evidence of the great changes, political and social, through which this region has passed in a little more than two centuries.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century the French had estab- lishments at the Sault, Mackinac, Green Bay, and controlled the fur trade of the Great Lakes and regions farther west. The Iroquois, however, occupied a very advantageous position south of Lake Ontario, and near the English, and wanted to act as middlemen in the exchange of peltries from the west, for the cloths and guns and other manufac- tured articles of the English. The English themselves were anxious to get in closer touch with the western fur trade, and for that purpose only freedom and access to the great lakes was needed.
FRENCH FORTIFIED POST UNDER DULUTII
The French had much more minute knowledge, through maps and reports, of the water communications, than did the English, and they knew that a fortified place well located anywhere upon the Detroit, as they called the entire straits from Lake Erie to Lake Huron, would be a great protection to the Indians friendly to them, from the Iroquois, and would be also a barrier to English trade and exploration. The beaver trade alone was in itself very profitable, and if it could be con- trolled and the English excluded from it, the business would rival in wealth-producing power the silver mines of Mexico and Peru. To do this, however, there was needed an intelligent monopoly, one which would prevent destruction of the source of supply, but would encourage proper exploitation.
The French government had very positive ideas about the necessity
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of monopoly, but unfortunately could not or did not accompany them with any sufficient knowledge of conditions, or intelligent methods of operating. Its method of controlling the business was to bring it all to Montreal, and it was practically forbidden to trade with the Indians elsewhere. Finding this impracticable, they tried to control it by a system of licenses limited in number. and with restrictions as to num- ber of canoes, amount of goods carried, and other particulars. One result of these restrictions was that many of the most vigorous, hardy and enterprising of the young Frenchmen avoided them by going into the woods on their own account. owning no allegiance to the French king or his government, and became that elass most obnoxious to the king's representative at Montreal, but which carried the name and fame of the French far into the interior of this continent-the coureurs de bois. If their hardihood, bravery, and facility in managing the In- dians had been properly recognized and supported, the results to France might have been vastly different.
Denonville, the governor of New France from 1685 to 1689, was an intelligent man and a good soldier, but weak and greatly subservient to the priests.
In 1686 De la Durantaye was commanding the post of Michili- mackinac, and to him, in June, the governor wrote to fortify the port- age of Toronto, which, as he explains in a letter to M. de Seignelay, the French minister for the colonies, with the post to be established by M. du Lhu, will block the passage against the English should they at- tempt to go again to Michilimaquina. and serve as retreats to their In- dian allies either while hunting or while marching against the Iroquois. The governor also wrote June 6, 1686, to Du Luth, the most famous and most capable of the adventurous young Frenchmen then in the west, to choose a post at the strait (detroit) of Lake Erie, in an ad- vantageous spot so as to secure this passage, protect the savages who go hunting there, and serve them as a refuge against the designs of their enemies and ours, to do nothing and say nothing to the Iroquois unless they venture an attempt. He gives the further instruction that Duluth should go to this post as soon as ever he could, with about twenty men, only, and station them there under the command of which- ever lieutenant he might choose. He should then repair to Michili- mackinac and wait for the Rev. Father Angelran who would bring him full information and instructions. After receiving these he should re- turn with thirty more men received from De la Durantave to the post. He continues, "The post to which I am sending you is of all the more importance as I expect it will put us in connection with the Illinois, to whom you will make known the matters of which the Rev. Father will inform you." He cautions him, however, "I beg you to say nothing about our plans which you may catch a glimpse of." The Illinois were hostile to the Iroquois, and the plans may have had something to do with encouraging their hostility.
Denonville writes the same fall in November to M. Seignelay that he has word of Duluth arriving at his post with fifty men.
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FORT ST. JOSEPHI
The fortified post thus established by Duluth was undoubtedly at about the place where Fort Gratiot was placed 128 years afterward. Baron Lahontan, who as a French officer was himself in command of the fort in 1688, published in 1703, in English, his "New Voyages to North America," which contained a map of New France. This map shows the fort under the name Fort St. Joseph, just below the entrance of St. Clair river upon the American side. This would seem conclu- sive proof of its location, but other and later maps indicate a fort, some- times called Fort Detroit, or Fort Duluth, npon the eastern side of St. Clair river. This location elsewhere is probably due to ignorance of Lahontan's map, and to the fact that the word "detroit" was used by the French to designate both St. Clair and Detroit rivers, and it is called indifferently, the "detroit" or strait of Lake Huron, or the "de- troit" of Lake Erie. This fort was probably a stockaded structure and similar in size and form to the one constructed by Cadillac in 1701 at the place where the city of Detroit is now located.
Duluth-whose name is spelled by the French writers of the time, de Lude, du Lhut, Dulhut-remained in command of the fort until the following year. It had not been built any too soon. In the previous fall a party of thirty Englishmen in search of trade had penetrated as far as Mackinac, where they were captured and their goods confis- cated. In the following spring, Denonville, the French governor, de- termined to proceed against the Iroquois and compel them to cease at- tacking their Indian allies, and for this purpose sent orders to Mackinac and other posts to collect all the French and Indians possible and meet him at the place of the Senecas. Nicholas Perrot, a Frenchman, well known to all the Indian tribes around the Great Lakes, and very influential with them, had spent the winter in collecting the Indians, especially the Ottawas and Hurons, for this purpose. He says, in his "Memoire," that he joined M. de la Durantaye, who had met Tonty at the fort of M. de Lude, situate at "the Detroit," and they had just stopped another party of thirty English.
At the end of this expedition against the Iroquois, which was mod- erately successful, Denonville ordered Baron Lahontan to return with Duluth and take charge of this fort. In his book Lahontan says, "This fort, which was built by M. Dulhut, was garrisoned upon his own charges by the coureurs des bois, who had taken care to sow in it some bushels of Turkey wheat, which afforded a plentiful crop that proved of great use to me." Lahontan sent some of his soldiers to Mackinac to trade with the Indians there, and obtain more wheat for his win- ter's needs. In spite of this addition to their supplies, they would have suffered during the winter if four young Canadians, good hunters, had not stayed with him all winter.
FORT ABANDONED BY LAHONTAN
In the spring of 1688, a party of Hurons from Mackinae, having made their headquarters at the post. on a war expedition against the
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY
Iroquois, returned with the news that the Iroquois intended to attack the post. Lahontan, finding his provisions nearly gone, and not daring to do much hunting, through fear of the Iroquois, went to Mackinac in April to obtain more corn. He did not return till July 1, and upon July 3, left again for another attack upon the Iroquois. Returning from that in August, he found a party of eighty-one Miamis at the fort, who had come from Niagara, and informed him that Denonville was negotiating a peace with the Iroquois. After considering the situa- tion, that a peace would probably be made, that Fort Niagara had been abandoned, and without its support Fort St. Joseph would be of no use, that he had provisions and ammunition for only two months, he resolved to abandon the position, and on August 27 he set fire to the fort and embarked for Mackinac. It is generally assumed that this ended the French occupation at this point, but there is some doubt about it. The English, of course, knew of this fort, and in February, 1688, Thomas Dongan, governor of New York, wrote to the French agents in behalf of the Five Nations. demanding "that the forts at "cadaracqui (Kingston) and Tireksarondia (St. Joseph) may be de- molished," and in the same month these Indians again take the mat- ter up with Dongan and say, "Let the governor go forward and remove the French from Onyagra (Niagara), Cataracque and Tyscharondia, which is the place where we go a beaver hunting, for if those forts continue in the French hands, we are always besieged."
In a French memoir, prepared about 1689, it is said, "If the Iro- quois be in the English interest, it will be almost impossible to main- tain the establishment at the Detroit without very considerable ex- pense, to garrison it two or three hundred picked men at least, would have to be sent thither."
In 1691 in a French document recommending measures for the bet- ter defense of Canada, it is said: "It is well to preserve the posts we occupy in their country, namely, Fort St. Louis of Louisiana, De- troit, and Michilimaquina. These can be kept up at a very trifling expense, which will not be of less utility to us than if it were more considerable."
In 1694 at a conference or council between the French and Indians, the Detroit is spoken of as a fine rendezvous and in 1700 a council is held by M. de Longeuil, commanding for the French king at Detroit with the four nations belonging to his post, these four nations being the Ottawas, Hurons, Potawatomies and Mississauges. It must be remem- bered that the word Detroit at that time had no reference whatever to the locality of the present city of that name, but covered the whole waterway from Lake Erie to Lake Huron, and these references make it probable that there was a continuance until 1700 of the post erected by Duluth.
SKETCH OF DULUTH
Daniel de Gresollon (or Greysolon), Sieur du L'hut, one of the ablest of the French leaders in America, and one whose name should have been retained for the river running through the city of Port
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Huron, was born about 1650, near Paris. Having noble blood, he was as a youth, enrolled as a member of the Royal Guard. Finding ad- vaneement slow, he applied for and obtained a captain's commission in the troops of the marine and came to Canada in 1674; when he was little more than twenty. The next year he returned to France in time to serve with his former comrades in hard fought battles in the Nether- lands. The second year following finds him again in Montreal, retired from his company on half pay, and engaged in the fur trade. In 1678, fired perhaps by love of wandering or desire to explore new lands, or by adventure, he left Montreal destined to spend the greater part of his remaining life in fighting, trading and exploring. The following sum- mer he had reached the country of the Sioux, the first white man to ex- plore that territory. In 1680 he rescued from the Sioux the friar, Hen- nepin, who later returned to France and wrote a book about his travels. For four years he was constantly on the move, extending the influence of the French among the western Indians, risking life and property and apparently with little gain. By his boldness and persisteney he had aroused some official opposition, and had been placed by the in- tendant among the coureurs de bois. To the official mind nothing could be worse than this. A free, unlicensed, unrestricted trader and wanderer, he interfered with the government monopoly, often upset the official plans, but in spite of all it was to his control and authority over the Indians that much of the extension of the French flag was due.
The official clamor against Duluth became at length so strong that in 1682 he felt compelled to go to France, where he was entirely suc- cessful with the authorities, and returned the same year, and was called in couneil by the new governor, La Barre. The next year, under the orders of the French government, he put the post of Michilimaekinae in thorough repair and also built a fort on the north shore of Lake Superior, a short distance up the Kaministiquia river. While in charge at Michilimaekinac he performed an act so indicative of his boldness, activity and good judgment, that it is worth recording.
The Chippewas near the Sault had killed two Frenehmen; realizing that the power of the French over the Indians depended on their com- manding respeet, he set out at once with six men and a Jesuit priest and arriving there, at once arrested one of the murderers, a man of importance among the tribes. He was then in a most delicate position. he must persuade the Indians that there was no course open except that the murderers should be punished with death. The French in the country were so few that if the Indians beeame antagonistic, they could not hope to escape, and yet their future safety and success depended on his ability to convince the Indians that a Frenchman could not be killed or injured with impunity. After anxious days of councils, where firmness, taet, and knowledge of Indian character were finally success- ful, the culprits were put to death, and French authority was trium- phant. When Denonville became governor in 1685 he recognized Du- luth's knowledge of Indian matters by asking him to come down to Quebec for a conference, but later sent the order to build the fort at the Detroit, which was obeyed by the building of Fort St. Joseph. He remained in charge at this post until replaced by Lahontan; in 1690
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HISTORY OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY
he went to Montreal, where he remained until 1695, when he took com- mand of Fort Frontenac, and two years later became captain of a regiment. During the later years of his life he suffered greatly from the gout, which must have been doubly painful to a man of his active habits. He died in February, 1710, at Montreal.
THE ENGLISH FORT SINCLAIR
The second flag to wave over the soil of this county was that of England. raised over Fort Sinclair, located just south of the mouth of Pine river. This fort was built about 1765 by Lieutenant Patrick Sinclair of the British army, and existed for twenty years, when it gradually fell into decay. Nothing is known of its form or size, but it contained at least one brick building. as some portions of it were still standing in 1830. One purpose of its erection was as a trading post with the Indians, and it was used for that purpose until about the time the Americans obtained possession of this section. The situation of this fort, and its name. so nearly resembling the name of the lake below, and also the name of the first governor of the Northwest territory, have caused so much confusion over the name of St. Clair river, and lake, that it seems worth while to inquire into the career of the man respon- sible for it.
PATRICK SINCLAIR
Patrick Sinclair was born at Lybster, a small village in the county of Caithness in the extreme northeast part of Scotland, in 1736; while his given name seems Irish to the modern, it is in fact old Seoteh as well. He entered the British army in 1758 as ensign in the second batallion of the Forty-second Highlanders, and the following year . served in the West Indies. In 1760 he was in America, becoming a lieutenant that year, and when in 1761 his regiment was ordered again to the West Indies. he decided to remain here. and exchanged into the Fifteenth regiment. In 1763 he came to Detroit. and was placed in com- mand of transporting the supplies between Detroit and Michilimaek- inae. While acting in this capacity, he obtained a deed from the In- dians of a large tract of land at Pine river, and erected Fort Sinclair as a post or depot. between the two terminals. This act he later in- sisted was approved by General Gage, then commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, and was impliedly assented to by the English government. The deed was executed in the presence of the officer commanding in Detroit and of the Indian agent at that point.
Sinclair is said to have erected a mill upon this tract, and he cleared land, built houses and barns. set out orchards and evidently set about creating for himself a manor in size befitting a duke of England. It appears from a subsequent conveyance and survey, that the tract deeded to him contained over 24,000 acres. In his correspondence a few years later, when he was established at Mackinac, he refers to the property as the pinery, and his mill was probably built about four miles above the mouth of Pine river, at a point where remains of an
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