"Not a cape was turned," says Parkman, "not a river was entered, but a
Jesuit led the way." Every year the establishment of new posts pushed the
realms of the Unknown Territory nearer and nearer to the sunset. Poor
little posts they were, slenderly garrisoned, and feebly armed, but beside
each one rose a chapel and a cross where the "bloody salvages" might learn,
if they would, the religion of the fathers. The missionaries made, perhaps,
but few converts to their faith, but they made many friends for their
country by their kindly offices to the sick, the aged, the dying, and the
infant, by the gentleness and urbanity of their high breeding, and by the
perpetual sacrifice of their lives of love and loyalty. Of their hardships
we can only read between the lines of their brave, uncomplaining
_Relations_, but what litanies of pain, sorrow, and disappointment, what
_Te Deums_ of hope and rejoicing lie in these marks, oft recurring on their
queer old maps:
[symbol] _marque des villages sauvages_
[symbol] _marque des etablissements françois._
By 1668 many missions were strung along the waterways. The Island was the
centre of a thriving trade, had thirty native villages, and a palisaded
enclosure for defence, and a year later its shores were hallowed by the
feet of "The Guardian Angel of the Ottawa Mission," Father Jacques
Marquette.
[Illustration SUGAR LOAF ROCK, MACKINAC ISLAND.]
Here, in what he called "the home of the fishes," and "the playground of
all the winds of heaven," he spent the hard winter of 1669-70, going later
to the first Fort Michilimackinac, at St. Ignace, where he built a
log-and-bark chapel, and whence he wrote the letters which reflect his pure
spirit, as a clear pool reflects a star. Ever alert, ever anxious, "_Ad
Majoram Gloriam Dei_," to hear of new countries to be brought to Him, his
great opportunity came when the tribes trooped past the Island on their way
to the Sault Ste. Marie and the Great Congress, convened on the 14th of
June, 1671, by the hardy Perrot. The French wanted to control the frontier
trade; the Indians wished a market for their furs. To both peoples pomp and
ceremony were natural and dear, so here, in all the splendor of war-paint
and wampum, tomahawk, calumet, feathers, bows and arrows, and handsome furs
came the braves of many tribes; in all the gay accoutrement of
blanket-surtout, scarlet cap, fringed elk-skin leggins, rifle, and
dagger-decked sash came the _coureurs des bois_ and the _voyageurs_; in the
dignity of their uniforms came a handful of soldiers; with cross and
cassock came the priests, to gather under a great wooden cross, to which
the arms of France had been nailed, where, by a _procès verbal_, the
overlordship of the Great West was assumed by Louis XIV.
Among the representatives of so many scattered savages, Father Marquette
doubtless made the inquiries about and gained the knowledge concerning the
Great Unknown River which served him in such good stead when, on the 17th
of May, 1673, he started with Louis Joliet, five _voyageurs_, and in two
canoes, on the voyage which made the Mississippi known to Europe. Of the
honor coming from the discovery the good father never thought, but only
with joy of new lands to which the message of the Cross could be carried.
It is the story of a hero, the story of his short life and of his
triumphant death, "alone, a Jesuit, and a Missionary," beside an obscure
creek on the Michigan shore, on the 19th of May, 1675, in the
eight-and-thirtieth year of his age. Descendants of his Ottawas and his
Hurons still tell of his "bright hair, like the sun," and of the great
funeral when, two years after his death, his body was brought back to St.
Ignace. Whether the dust now held sacred was his or no, is of little
moment. In the Book of Life, above and below, the name of Jacques Marquette
has long been written, and like the blessing of peace his spirit rests upon
the Northland.
In 1679, the _Griffin_, a little ship of sixty tons, took Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de la Salle, and the garrulous, mendacious Recollet friar, Hennepin,
past the Island on their way to the Great River, which they were to explore
to the Gulf, and beside which the murdered body of the great Norman was to
be flung. He only touched the Island, but the touch of La Salle was a royal
accolade.
In 1688, La Honton, a soldier of unusual sagacity, noted the importance of
the site, and in 1695 M. de la Motte Cadillac says that the fort, with its
garrison of two hundred soldiers, and the village of Canadians and Indians
to the number of six or seven thousand souls, made it one of the largest
posts in Canada. Disputes between the commandant and the Jesuits, chiefly
about the sale of liquor to the Indians, resulted in the discouragement of
the priests, who, in 1705, burned their chapel and their school, and went
back to Quebec. St. Ignace was then gradually abandoned for a second
Michilimackinac on the southern peninsula.
[Illustration THE OLD BLOCKHOUSE (1780) OVERLOOKING THE LAKE.]
When the French and English war was ended on the Plains of Abraham, George
III. became indeed sovereign of the soil of Canada, but Louis XV. was lord
of the hearts of too many French, half-breeds, and Indians to make the
transfer of allegiance easy. Loves and hates and racial sympathies are not
matters for cold diplomacy, and the people of the Northwest waited
longingly for a leader who should give them again the light-hearted,
friendly rule of the French, under which they had been far happier than
they found themselves as subjects of the stern, alien English. In the
person of an Ottawa chieftain, the most remarkable personage produced by
the Indian race, the leader was found. In the brain of Pontiac, grim,
far-seeing, fearless, heroic, there arose as a prophetic vision the
assurance that English encroachments upon the rights of his people would
never cease so long as they held a rod of ground coveted by an English eye.
To avert the evils he foresaw, he planned the capture of all forts west of
Niagara, the extermination of all English settlers, and the restoration to
the Great Father at Versailles of the lands he had just lost. With
incredible swiftness he formed the vast conspiracy whose story has been
told, once for all, in the living pages of Parkman's narrative.
[Illustration "OLD STONE QUARTERS," FORT MACKINAC, 1780.]
Whisperings of coming trouble had been heard at Fort Michilimackinac by
Major Etherington, the commandant, but none of so serious a nature as to
prevent the presence of the soldiery at a great game of baggatiway which
was to be played in a field near the fort by rival companies of Sacs and
Chippewas, in honor of the King's birthday, August 4, 1763. The game is a
very intricate and brilliant one, requiring great agility and skill, and
the participation of a large number of players. As was most natural, the
excitement of the onlookers was intense, and when an apparently stray ball
flew high over the palisades of the unprotected fort (which had been
silently invaded by a crowd of squaws with weapons hidden under their
blankets) and at least four hundred players in hot pursuit swarmed over the
stockade, nothing was thought amiss, until the cries appropriate to the
game changed into the war-whoop, and a massacre began. Of the English,
all were either killed or made captive, except Alexander Henry, whose
narrative curdles the blood even yet. This event led to the abandonment of
the southern fort and the establishment of one on the Island.[6]
[Illustration SIGNATURES OF THE CHIPPEWA CHIEFS WHO, IN 1781, DEEDED THE
ISLAND TO KING GEORGE III. FROM "MACKINAC," BY JOHN R. BAILEY, M.D., BREVET
LIEUT.-COL. U.S.V., BY WHOSE KIND PERMISSION THEY ARE HERE REPRODUCED.]
"It is now certain," writes Schoolcraft in 1834, "that the
occupancy of Old Michilimackinack--the Beekwutenong of the
Indians--was kept up by the British until 1774; between that
date and 1780 the flag was transferred ... the principal trade
went with it, the Indian intercourse likewise. Some residents
lingered a few years but the place was finally abandoned, and
the site is now covered with loose sand."
By the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, the Island was ceded by Great Britain to
the United States. Possession was, however, withheld on one pretext or
another, until 1796.
[Illustration FORT MACKINAC, AND THE CANNON CAPTURED BY COMMODORE PERRY.]
When the second war with England began, it was natural that one of the
first points to be attacked should be the fort so commandingly situated.
Far from all base of supplies and all possibility of rapid
communication, the oft-repeated appeals of General Hull for an effective
garrison at this and other important points were totally disregarded in
Washington. Only fifty-seven soldiers were in residence in Mackinac when
the British forces, 1021 strong, landed before dawn on the 17th of July,
1812, on a point nearly opposite St. Ignace. By eleven o'clock Captain
Roberts sent a flag of truce, and a demand of surrender to Lieutenant
Porter Hanks, who had had "no intimation" that a war between the powers
had been declared until that moment. After considering the futility of
resistance, and a consultation with the American traders in the village,
with the valor which was ever bettered by discretion, he capitulated.
In August, 1814, an attempt was made to retake the Island. A battle was
fought near the scene of the British landing two years before, in which
battle Major Holmes and twelve privates were killed, and many men were
wounded or missing. The routed Americans, under Colonel Croghan, withdrew
to their ships. The Island finally passed into the keeping of the United
States in 1815.
Then followed the great days of the fur companies, when the place was
astir with a life so gay and vivid that only to hear of it stirs the blood
of the untamed savage which centuries of the repressions of civilization
have not routed from our hearts. Hundreds of hardy, ill-paid _engagés_,
hundreds of happy-go-lucky, hard-working _voyageurs_ and _coureurs des
bois_ and hundreds of Indians crowded into the hundreds of tents set up
along the beach; into the log-houses of the primitive village, and into the
huge barracks of the company, which counted and weighed the rich peltries
they had gathered, paying them in return the miserable wages which in
dancing, gambling, drinking, fighting, feasting and sleeping, were spent
long before the _bateaux_ freighted with the poor necessities for the
fast-coming winter were again rowed out toward the wilderness, the brave
_chansons_ of the oarsmen growing fainter and fainter as the boats passed
steadily out of sight.
[Illustration REV. ELEAZAR WILLIAMS. REPRODUCED FROM LATIMER'S "SCRAP BOOK
OF THE REVOLUTION," BY PERMISSION OF A.C. McCLURG & CO.]
An incident but little known connects the Island with one of the great
mysteries of history,--the fate of the little son of Louis XVI. and Marie
Antoinette. That the Dauphin did not die in the Temple, but had been
secretly conveyed to America and had been placed among the Indians, was
believed by persons whose opinions were entitled to respect; but that he
might be found in the person of the Rev. Eleazar Williams, a half-breed
missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church among the tribes about Green
Bay, was a supposition stranger than any fiction. The story is too long to
tell here,[7] but as it touches Mackinac at a single point, it must have a
line in this chapter.
On the wharf of the moon-shaped bay, one bright day in October, 1841, a
crowd was gathered to see the Prince de Joinville, son of Louis
Philippe, then reigning in France, who was on his way to Green Bay, and
who had stopped off at Mackinac to visit some of the natural curiosities
of the place. A salute had been fired in honor of the royal sailor with
true republican fervor, and while the steamer which had brought him
waited his pleasure, the village was _en fête_. Waiting on the dock, and
also about to embark for Green Bay, was the Rev. Eleazar Williams, who,
before the boat left the bay, was, at the request of the Prince,
presented to his Highness. The acquaintance thus begun led to
disclosures which, if true, make the identity of the Dauphin and the
missionary all but certain.
Wrapped in a legend, the Island of Mackinac comes into sight. With a
thousand legends, its old fields, its cliffs, its caves, its gorges, its
wooded glens, its shores, and its far, dim distances are haunted. With a
thousand mysteries and bewilderments and witcheries it holds captive all
who come within reach of its magic. With a mystery, which too may be but a
legend, our story closes, as the light that smites the waters of the
Straits into a myriad of glittering flakes paints on the sunset sky the
old, old golden track which the Indians loved to call "the Path that leads
Homeward."
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The deed for the Island, bought from its Indian owners in 1781 by
George III. for £5000, was long in possession of Dr. John R. Bailey, Brevet
Lieutenant-Colonel U.S.V., and author of a most interesting monograph on
Mackinac. It is from its pages, and by his kind permission, that the Indian
signatures to the document are here reproduced.
[7] For an admirable statement of the facts bearing upon this interesting
problem, the reader is asked to turn to _My Notebook of the French
Revolution_, by Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer (A.C. McClurg & Co.). The
book upon which Mrs. Latimer has chiefly based her account, _The Lost
Prince_, by the Rev. Mr. Hanson, has long been out of print, and is almost
inaccessible.
[Illustration]
INDIANAPOLIS
THE HOOSIER CAPITAL
BY PERRY S. HEATH
The visitor to the Hoosier capital familiar with the capital of the nation
instantly observes a striking similarity between the two. Well he may, for
Alexander Ralston, who carried the chains for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and
placed the stakes which fixed the lines and curves of the City of
Magnificent Distances, was the surveyor of Indianapolis. When, in 1821, he
carved out of the small cleared space in the centre of a great wilderness
the plan just one mile square for Indianapolis, his architectural abilities
and ambitions had more than a superficial justification. The result was
perhaps the handsomest city between Philadelphia and Denver.
When Indianapolis was platted on the surveyor's map it had but 800
inhabitants. By the year 1840 the town had grown to 2672 inhabitants. There
were only 48,244 souls in the city in 1870. But by 1890 the population had
increased to 105,436, and the census of 1900 placed the population at
169,164. In the latter decade Indianapolis outstripped Rochester, New York,
St. Paul, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, and Omaha in increase of
population. And the area occupied by the city grew in three quarters of a
century from one to twenty-seven square miles.
Entering Indianapolis to-day upon any one of the seventeen independent
railroads operated by steam locomotives, or any one of the many interurban
electric systems, the traveller is entranced, in passing the wide,
asphalted avenues, by the magnificent view which carries the vision to the
hub of the city, where the eye readily perceives the panorama of the State
House, four or five magnificent hotels, some majestic club-houses, and the
world-famed Soldiers' Monument in the Governor's Circle. The city is not
one over which dense clouds of smoke hover daily, marks unmistakable of
great manufacturing interests. The sky is usually clear. Natural gas and
oil are largely employed as fuel for the production of steam. Where coal is
used the consumers are largely located in the remote outskirts. During half
the year the foliage from the splendid system of shade and other trees
along the avenues and streets and in the parks clothes the city in a
verdure producing a pleasing effect upon the vision and the atmosphere. In
winter-time the well-paved streets and the universal system of cement
sidewalks are ever under the enforcement of perfect city regulations, clear
of snow and sleet and other impediments to boulevard driving and
pedestrianism.
[Illustration OLD STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS.]
There is about the history of Indianapolis much of quaint Indian tradition
and historical attractiveness. While almost every trace of the rural, or
the virgin forests which were in view from any point a few years ago, has
disappeared and modern structures and improvements abound, the visitor
wherever he goes, cannot forget, that he is in a city which made great
progress during the last half of the nineteenth century. On every hand this
fact is illustrated. It was as late as April, 1816, that Congress
authorized the construction of a constitution for the State. As recently as
three quarters of a century ago the White River, on which Indianapolis is
situated, was dotted from source to mouth, with the canoes of savages, and
lined along its banks, in the dense wilderness, with Indian villages. The
white man made his way in constant fear through the country. It is true
that Vincennes had been settled by white people generations before, but its
citizens had at this time few if any relations, social or commercial, with
any other section of the Territory, and everywhere the red man continued to
be a prime factor, holding and controlling the affairs of the domain. While
the White and Wabash rivers in the interior furnished during a part of the
year transportation by raft, the old buffalo trail from Vincennes to the
Falls of the Ohio, cleared by immigrants, afforded the only safe outlet or
inlet, and was in consequence a great thoroughfare. The Whetzels, known to
history as the intrepid Indian fighters, paved the way through the
Territory and made it possible for immigrants to find Indianapolis in its
early days.
[Illustration NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY, INDIANAPOLIS.]
At the time this city was located and titled there was so much of Indian
lore in the minds of the legislators, and in fact so much of the red man in
the wilderness around, a constant source of apprehension, that great
difficulty was found in securing a name for the new metropolis. Tecumseh,
Suwarrow, Whetzel, Wayne, Delaware, and other names familiar to the
paleface hunted by or hunting the red man, were suggested. Finally Mr.
Samuel Merrill, a name significant in the modern history of Indiana and
Indianapolis, and prominent in the upbuilding and development of the best
institutions of the State and city, proposed Indianapolis as the name for
the city which is now the pride of all Hoosier hearts.
The original city was platted with streets just one mile in length from end
to end. The avenues, or "diagonals," as they were termed on the original
plat, radiated from the Circle (the hub) in the centre and constituted that
beautiful design which makes the capital of France and the capital of the
United States so attractive in appearance, and yet in some respects "a
labyrinth or mesh to the unfamiliar." Near the radiating point or Circle
was early established a market, which is to-day one of the great
conveniences to the residents of the city and to those who market their
products and an attraction at most seasons of the year to visitors.
[Illustration BENJAMIN HARRISON.]
It was not until the removal in November, 1824, of the archives of Indiana
from Corydon to Indianapolis, that the latter became the actual capital. In
1827 the Legislature appropriated four thousand dollars for a Governor's
residence to be located in the Circle. Its construction was commenced, but
never completed. The unfurnished portion was occupied at one time as a
schoolhouse, until finally the officers of the Supreme Court made it their
headquarters. After some years the crude building was demolished and the
ground was converted into a park, the present location of the Soldiers'
Monument.
[Illustration STATE HOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS. EAST FRONT.]
It was not until a third of the nineteenth century had passed, not until
near 1840, that Indianapolis became more pretentious than any other country
town. The public squares were feeding-grounds for the ox and horse teams of
countrymen who came to market. There were practically no industries, and
the buildings were primitive and simple. As late as 1875 the wags of the
stage and the humorists of the press amused themselves with jeers at the
Hoosier capital. The Hoosier was a joke in the East. He was represented as
the typical raw character, greatly in need of common advantages and
ordinary enlightenment. And the impression persisted until some time after
three quarters of the nineteenth century had passed that Indianapolis was
simply a congregating-point for him and his kind. About 1880 the city began
to take on the appearance of a modern ambitious metropolis. As wealth
increased the people resorted in ever increasing numbers to the capital, to
enjoy the schools for their children and the best civilization for
themselves. Gradually there have gathered there not only the prosperous
citizens of the State, but many who have at home or abroad achieved renown
in letters, diplomacy, official life, the army and navy. Here have lived
two Vice-Presidents of our country. One of our Presidents, the late General
Benjamin Harrison, lived and died here. Dialect poets, local historians,
and novelists have spent their days here and been the pride of their
fellow-citizens.
In 1831 the Legislature made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars for
the construction of a State House. The investment, when completed, however,
aggregated about sixty thousand dollars. And the State viewed the result
with satisfaction and believed she had one of the most attractive and
majestic State Houses in the entire country, as indeed she had after the
substitution in 1887, at an expense of $1,936,000, of the present
magnificent structure.
Indianapolis has more than one hundred church buildings. The City Hall,
with a seating capacity of over five thousand, the gift of Mr. Daniel
Tomlinson, was constructed at an expense of $150,000, and is principally
used for conventions and musical festivals.
In 1836 the State began an elaborate system of internal improvements.
Railroads, canals, and turnpikes were subsidized and encouraged in every
manner possible. The first railroad to reach Indianapolis came up in 1847
from Madison, on the Ohio River, creating the usual sensation of the new
railroad in those days. As long ago as 1860 Indianapolis became the
railroad centre of the Central West. The diversified and almost limitless
products of the State, of the farm and the mine, and the fact that
Indianapolis is in the direct pathway between the East and the West,
afforded great attraction to railroad builders. The Union Railroad Station,
until recently the largest and best in the United States, is still one of
the most commodious, comfortable, and beautiful in the country.
During the Civil War Indianapolis was a storm-centre. The State was not
surpassed by any other in the percentage of soldiers sent out to defend the
Union. Here they rendezvoused, and Camp Morton and other points about the
city for many years after the war bore signs of the long presence of the
"Boys in Blue." Indiana possessed a great war Governor in Oliver P. Morton,
the steadfast friend of Lincoln and a loyal anti-slavist. For five years in
Indianapolis the shrill sound of the fife and the roll of the drum scarcely
ever ceased, day or night. Those living to-day who recall the activities of
the days of the Civil War view the Soldiers' Monument, in the heart of the
city, and the many evidences of reverence for the memory of our Union
soldiers in the beautiful cemeteries without surprise. These to them are
but simple sequences, natural results.
[Illustration SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, INDIANAPOLIS.]