"Their wants are very small. If a piece of meat, weighing two or three

pounds, is hung against some tree or fence near to our houses in the

winter, we can have the pleasure of witnessing them merrily banqueting

on it every day for several weeks.

"Sandpipers of the smaller kinds can swim on the surface of the water,

dive beneath and remain under it with the same facility as the duck and

other aquatic birds, although they do not make use of this property

unless driven to extremity. This fact I can pledge my veracity on from

personal observation. They need not use this power of swimming for the

purpose of procuring food, as the substances on which they subsist are

found on the margin of the water."

CHAPTER LVIII.

Value of the equivalent territory granted to Michigan, by

Congress, for the disputed Ohio boundary--Rapid improvement of

Michigan--Allegan--Indian legend--Baptism and death of Kagoosh, a very

aged chief at St. Mary's--New system of writing Indian, proposed by Mr.

Nash--Indian names for new towns--A Bishop's notion of the reason for

applying to Government for education funds under Indian treaties--Mr.

Gallatin's paper on the Indians--The temperance movement.

_1836. Oct. 27th_. I embarked this day, at Michilimackinack, with my

family, for Detroit, to assume the duties of the superintendency at that

point. Nothing, demanding notice, occurred on the passage; we reached

our destination on the 30th. Political feeling still ran high respecting

the terms of admission proposed by Congress to Michigan, and the

convention, which recently met at Ann Arbor, refused their assent to

these terms, under a mistaken view of the case, as I think, and the lead

of rash and heady advisors; for there is no doubt in my mind that the

large area of territory in the upper country, offered as an equivalent

for the disputed boundary with Ohio, will be found of far greater value

and importance to the State than the "seven mile strip" surrendered--an

opinion, the grounds of which are discussed in my "Albion" letters. I

expressed this opinion in the spring of the year, before the Judiciary

Committee of the Senate, where I attended, on the invitation of Hon.

Silas Wright, to impart information, which I was supposed to possess, on

the geography and natural resources of the Lake Superior region.

_Nov. 2d/_. Mr. J.G. Palfrey, acting editor of the _N.A. Review_,

invites me to become a contributor to the pages of that standard

periodical.

_8th_. No territory in the Union has required so long, so very long a

time for its appreciation, as Michigan, and now, that emigration is

freely coming in, it is difficult to estimate the very rapid

improvement of places. An instance of the kind occurs in the details of

a letter which I have just received. "It may not be amiss," says Mr.

A.L. Ely, "to give you a short description of the growth of Allegan. The

site was bought at government prices, in the spring of 1833, by two

gentlemen now living at Bronson, namely, Anthony Cooly and Stephen

Vickery. In November of that year, my father, who was then in Michigan

looking for a location, both for him and myself, purchased for me

one-third of the property, there being in all about 452 acres of land,

for which he paid $1750. In June, 1834, we sent one family from

Rochester, who built two log houses, and grubbed the ground for a mill

race. In October, 1834, Mr. Sidney Ketchum, as agent for some gentlemen

in Boston, purchased all the interests in the property, except those

held by me, for something under $5,000.

"The winter of '34 and '35 was spent in making roads, and getting

provisions together, and preparing to commence improvements. In April,

1835, we commenced the dam and canal for a double saw mill, which were

completed that fall. In May, our plat was laid out in lots. In June, we

commenced selling them. We have sold up to this date 175 lots. In June,

1835, the second family came into the place. In November, the first

merchant commenced selling goods. In December, we commenced the erection

of a small building for a church; it was completed in May, 1836, and a

few days after, accidentally burnt down.

"There are now (Nov. 1836) in Allegan three stores, two large taverns, a

cupola furnace, a chairmaker's shop, two cabinet shops, two blacksmiths,

a shoemaker's shop, a tailor's shop, a school house 20 by 40, costing

$1200; about 40 frame buildings, and over 500 people."

_10th_. I have for many years been collecting from the Indian lodges a

species of oral fictitious legends, which attest in the race no little

power of imagination; and certainly exhibit them in a different light

from any in which they have been heretofore viewed. The Rev. Mr.

McMurray, of St. Mary's, transmits me a story of this kind, obtained

some two months ago by his wife (who is a descendant, by the mother's

side, of Chippewa parents) from one of the natives. This tale impressed

me as worthy of being preserved. I have applied to it, from one of its

leading traits, the name of "The Enchanted Moccasons." "I have written

the story," he remarks, "as near the language in which Charlotte

repeated it as possible, leaving you the task to clothe it with such

garb as may suit those which you have already collected, or as the

substance will merit."

_Sept. 7th_. Mr. McMurray (who is an Episcopal Missionary at St. Mary's)

announces the death of one of the principal and most aged chiefs of the

Odjibwas, in that quarter of the country--Kagcosh. "He bade adieu to

this world of trouble last evening at sunset. I visited him about two

weeks since, and conversed with him on religious subjects, to which he

gave the utmost attention, and on that occasion requested me to baptize

him. I told him that I was willing to do so whenever I could, without

leaving a doubt in my mind as to his preparedness for the rite. I,

however, promised, if his mind did not change, to administer it soon. He

sent for me the day before he died, and requested me again, without

delay, to baptize him, which I did, and have every reason to believe

that he understood and felt the necessity of it."

This venerable chief must have been about ninety years of age. His head

was white. He was about six feet two inches in height, lithe of form,

and long featured, with a grave countenance, and cranial developments of

decided intellectuality. He was of the Crane totem, the reigning family

of that place, and the last survivor of seven brothers, of whom

Shingabowossin, who died in the fall of 1828, was noted as the most

distinguished, and as a good speaker. He was entitled to $500, under the

treaty of 28th March, as one of the first class chiefs of his nation.

_Nov. 2d_. Rev. Mr. Nash presented me letters as a missionary to the

Chippewas. He had prepared a new set of characters by which to write

that language, and presented me a copy of it. Every one is not a Cadmus,

and the want of success which has, therefore, attended the efforts at

new systems of signs to express sounds, should teach men that it is

easier, and there are more practical advantages attending the use of an

old and well-known system, like that of the English alphabet, than a new

and unknown system, however ingenious and exact. The misfortune is that

all attempts of this sort, like new systems of notation with the Roman

alphabet, are designed rather to show that their authors are inventive

and exact, than to benefit the Indian race. For if an Indian be taught

by these systems to read, yet he can read nothing but books prepared

for him by this system; and the whole body of English literature,

history, and poetry, is a dead letter to him. Above all, he cannot read

the English version of the Bible.

_23d_. A friend asked me to furnish him an aboriginal name for a new

town. I gave him the choice of several. He selected Algonac. In this

word the particle _ac_, is taken from _ace_, land or earth; and its

prefixed dissyllable _Algon_, from the word Algonquin. This system, by

which a part of a word is made to stand for, and carry the meaning of a

whole word, is common to Indian compound substantives. Thus

_Wa-we-a-tun-ong_, the Algonquin name for Detroit, is made up from the

term _wa-we_, a roundabout course, _atun_ a channel, and _ong_,

locality. Our geographical terminology might be greatly mended by this

system. At least repetition, by some such attention to-our geographical

names, to the liability of misdirecting letters, might be, to a great

extent, avoided.

_24th_. Mr. Bishop Rese, of the Catholic Church, called to make some

inquiry respecting a provision in the late treaty, designed to benefit

his church. I had traveled on the lake with the Bishop. He is a short,

club nosed, smiling man, of a quizzical physiognomy. He asked me what I

supposed was the cause of the press for the treaty appropriations for

educations, by Protestant missions. I told him that I supposed the

conversion of the souls of the Indians constituted the object of these

applications. "Poh! poh!" said he, "it is the money itself."

_Dec 19th_. Mr. Gallatin's _Synopsis of the Indian Tribes_ is forwarded

to me for a review. "The publication," says Mr. Palfrey, "of the second

volume of _Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society_ was delayed

considerably beyond the time appointed. It was only a week ago that a

copy reached me. I transmit it by mail. Should it not reach you within a

week after the receipt of this, will you have the goodness to inform me,

and I will forthwith let another copy try its fortune."

_23d_. The temperance movement has excited the community of Detroit this

season, as a subject essential to the cause of sound morals. Its

importance is undeniable on all hands, but there is always a tendency in

new measures of reform, to make the method insisted on a sort of moral

panacea, capable of doing all things, to the no little danger of setting

up a standard higher than that of the Decalogue itself. In the midst of

this tendency to ultraism, the least particle of conservative opinion

would be seized upon by its leaders as the want of a thorough

acquiescence and heartiness in the cause. Rev. Mr. Cleaveland transmits

me a resolution of the "Total Abstinence City Temperance Society," for

an address to be delivered in one week. "Do not, do not, do not," he

remarks, "say us nay."

I determined to devote two or three winter evenings to gratify this

desire.

CHAPTER LIX.

Difficulties resulting from a false impression of the Indian

character--Treaty with the Saginaws--Ottawas of Grand River establish

themselves in a colony in Barry County--Payments to the Ottawas of

Maumee, Ohio--Temperance--Assassination of young Aitkin by an Indian at

Leech Lake--Mackinack mission abandoned--Wyandots complain of a trespass

from a mill-dam--Mohegans of Green Bay apply for aid on their way to

visit Stockbridge, Mass.--Mohegan traditions--Historical

Society--Programme of a tour in the East--Parental disobedience--Indian

treaties--Dr. Warren's Collection of Crania--Hebrew

language--Geology--"Goods offer"--Mrs. Jameson--Mastodon's tooth in

Michigan--Captain Marryatt--The Icelandic language--Munsees--Speech of

Little Bear Skin chief, or Mu-kónsewyán.

OFFICE INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT.

_1837. Jan. 5th_. Difficulties are reported as existing between a party

of Indians (of about fifteen souls) of Bobish, and the settlers of

Coldwater, Branch county, (township 8, S. range, 5 west.) About forty

families have settled there within the last fall and summer. The

Indians, who have been in the habit of making sugar and hunting on the

public lands, are disposed not to relinquish these privileges, probably

not understanding fully their right. Mutual threats have passed, which

are repeated by Thomas G. Holden, who requests the interposition of the

Department.

Settlers generally move into the new districts with strong prejudices

against the Indians, whom they regard, mistakingly, as thirsting for

blood and plunder. It only requires a little conciliation, and proper

explanations, as in this case, to induce them at once to adopt the

proper course.

_14th_. Articles of a new treaty were this day signed at my office, by

the Saginaw chiefs, for the sale of all their reservations in Michigan.

These reservations were made under the treaty of September 24th, 1819.

They were ceded by them at Washington, in the spring of 1836, but the

terms, and particularly the advance of money stipulated to be made, were

deemed too liberal by the Senate, and, in consequence, the treaty was

rejected. The object is now attained in a manner which, it is hoped,

will prove satisfactory. By this, as the former treaty, this tribe are

allowed the entire proceeds of the sale of their lands.

_20th_. Rev. Mr. Slater reports that the Ottawas of Grand River, who

were parties to the treaty of 28th of March, have purchased lands in

Barry county for the $6,400 allowed by the ninth article of the treaty,

in trust for Chiminonoquet; and that a mission has been established on

the lands purchased, which is called Ottawa Colony. Difficulties have

occurred with pre-emption claimants in the same lands.

_31st_. Captain Simonton reports the payment of the annuity, amounting

to $1,700, due to the Ottawas of Maumee, Ohio. The entire number of

persons paid by him was four hundred and thirty-three, dividing a

fraction under $4 per soul. In these payments old and young fare alike.

Henry Connor, Esq., the interpreter present, confirms the report of the

equal division, _per capita_, among the Indians, and the satisfaction

which attended the payment, on their part.

_Feb. 1st_. Delivered an address at the Presbyterian Church, before a

crowded audience, on the temperance movement, showing that the whole

question to be decided was, in which class of moderate drinkers men

elected themselves to be arranged, and that ardent spirits, as a

beverage, were wholly unnecessary to a healthy constitution.

Transmitted to Mr. Palfrey a review of Mr. Gallatin's "Synopsis of the

Indian Tribes of America."

_Feb. 1st_. Mr. William A. Aitkin writes from Sandy Lake: "Since I left

you at St. Peter's I have had a severe trial to go through. I came up by

Swan River, but heard nothing there of the melancholy event which had

taken place during my absence at Upper Red Cedar Lake. My eldest son had

been placed at that place last fall, in charge of that post. You saw

him, I believe, last summer; he was in charge of Leech Lake when you

were at that place. He was a young man of twenty-two years of age, of a

very amiable temper, humane and brave, possessed of the most unbounded

obedience to my will, and of the most filial affection for my person.

This, my son, was murdered in the most atrocious manner by a bloody

monster of an Indian. My poor boy had arrived the evening previous to

the bloody act, from a voyage to Red Lake. Early the next morning he

sent off all the men he had to Lake Winnipeck, excepting one Frenchman,

to bring up some things which he had left there in the fall. A short

time after his men had gone, he sent the remaining man to bring some

water from the river; the man returned into the house immediately, and

told him an Indian had broken open the store, and was in it. He went

very deliberately to the store, took hold of the villain, who tried to

strike him with his tomahawk, dragged him out of the store and disarmed

him of his axe, threw him on the ground, and then let him go--and was

turned round in the act of locking the store-door. The villain stepped

behind the door, where he had hid his gun, came on him unawares and shot

him dead, without the least previous provocation whatever on the part of

my poor lost boy. When arrived, I found the feelings of every one

prepared for vengeance. I immediately, without one moment's loss of

time, proceeded to Leech Lake. In a moment there were twenty half-breeds

gathered round, with Francis Brunette at their head, full-armed, ready

to execute any commands that I should give them. We went immediately to

the camp where the villain was, beyond Red Cedar Lake, determined to cut

off the whole band if they should raise a finger in his defence. Our

mutual friend, Mr. Boutwell, joined the party, with his musket on his

shoulder, as a man and a Christian, for he knew it was a righteous

cause, and that the arm of God was with him. We arrived on the wretches

unawares, disarmed the band, and dragged the monster from his lodge. I

would have put the villain to death in the midst of his relations, but

Mr. Boutwell advised it would be better to take him where he might be

made an example of. The monster escaped from us two days after we had

taken him, but my half-breeds pursued him for six days and brought him

back, and he is now on his way to St. Peter's in irons, under a strong

guard. My dear friend, I cannot express to you the anguish of my heart

at this present moment.

"The Indians of all this department have behaved like villains during my

absence, particularly the Indians of Leech Lake, committing the greatest

depredations on our people, and would surely have murdered them if they

had shown the least disposition to resist their aggravations. You will

excuse me from giving you any other news at present. I'm not in a state

of mind to do it."

_Feb. 3d_. Rev. David Green, of Boston, communicates the determination

of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to break up and

abandon the school and mission at Mackinack. This decision I have long

feared, and cannot but deplore. The school is large, and the education

of many of the pupils is such that in a few years they would make useful

practicable men and women, and carry a Christian influence over a wide

circle. By dispersing them now the labor is to some extent lost.

_6th_. Received, a vote of thanks of the Detroit Total Abstinence

Society, for my temperance address of the 1st instant, which is

courteously called "elegant and appropriate." So, ho!

_22d_. A party of Wyandots from the River Huron, of Michigan, visited

the office. They complain that trespasses are committed by settlers on

the lands reserved to them. The trespasses arise from the construction

of mill-dams, by which their grounds are overflowed. They asked whether

they hold the reservation for fifty years or otherwise. I replied that

they hold them, by the terms of the treaty, as long as they shall have

any posterity to live on the lands. They only escheat to the United

States in failure of this. But that I would send an agent to inquire

into the justice of their complaint, and to redress it.

_24th_. Robert Kankapot presents himself with about twenty followers. He

is a Stockbridge Indian of Green Bay, Wisconsin, on his way to the East.

He is short of funds, and asks for relief. No annuity or other funds are

payable, at this office, to this tribe. I deemed his plea, however, a

reasonable one, and loaned him personally one hundred dollars.

I detained him with some historical questions. He says he is sixty-four

years of age, that he was born in Stockbridge, on the head of the

Housatonic River, in Massachusetts. From this town they take their

present name. They are, however, the descendants of the ancient

Mohegans, who lived on the sea coast and in the Hudson Valley. They were

instructed by the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the eminent theologian, who was

afterwards president of Princeton College. Their first migration was

into New Stockbridge, in Oneida County, New York, where the Oneida tribe

assigned them lands. This was about the era of the American Revolution.

They next went, about 1822, to Fox River of Green Bay, where they now

reside. Their oldest chief, at that point, is Metoxon, who is now

sixty-nine.

He says his remote ancestry were from Long Island (Metoacs), and that

Montauk means great sea island. (This does not appear probable

philologically.) He says the opposite coast, across the East River, was

called _Monhautonuk_. He afterwards, the next day, said that Long Island

was called _Paum-nuk-kah-huk._

_March 1st_. To a friend abroad I wrote: "I have written during the

winter an article on Mr. Gallatin's recently published paper on the

Indian languages, entitled _A Synopsis of the Indian Tribes_, which is

published by the American Antiquarian Society. It was with great

reluctance that I took up the subject, and when I did, I have been so

complete a fact hunter all my life, that I found it as difficult to lay

it down. The result is probably an article too long for ninety-nine

readers out of a hundred, and too short for the hundredth man."

_8th_. Mr. Palfrey acknowledges the safe arrival of my article for the

_North American Review_.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions decline $6000

for the abandoned missionary house at Mackinack, offered under the view

of its being converted into a dormitory for receiving Indian visitors at

that point under the provisions of the treaty of 1836.

_17th_. Received a letter of thanks from old Zachariah Chusco, the

converted Jos-sa-keed, for kindness.

_23d_ Received a commission from Gov. Mason, appointing me a regent of

the University of Michigan.

_22d_. The Historical Society of Michigan hold their annual meeting at

my office. In the election for officers I was honored by being selected

its President. A deep interest in historical letters had been manifested

by this institution since its organization in 1828, particularly in the

history of the aboriginal tribes, and means have been put on foot for

the collection of facts. To these, the recent and extraordinary

settlement of the country by emigration from the Bast, has added a new

branch of inquiry, respecting town, county, and neighborhood

settlements. Much of this is held in the memory of old persons, and will

be lost if not gleaned up and preserved in the shape of narratives.

Resolutions for this purpose were adopted, and an appeal made to the

legislature to facilitate the collection of pamphlets and printed

documents. Men live so rapidly now that few think of posterity; society

hastens at a horse's pace, and we pass over so large a surface in so

short a time, that the historian and antiquarian will stand aghast, in a

few years, and exclaim "would that more minute facts were within

our reach!"

_23d_. The Department at Washington instructs me to examine additional

and unsatisfied claims arising under the 5th article of the treaty of

March 28th, 1836, and, after submitting them to the Indians, to report

them for payment.

_28th_. Very different are the diurnal scenes enacted from those which

passed before my eyes at the ice-closed post of Mackinack last winter.

Yet in one respect they are entitled to have a similar effect on my

mind; it is in the craving that exists to fill the intervals of business

with some moral and intellectual occupation that may tend to relieve it

of the tedium of long periods of leisure. When a visitor is dismissed,

or a transaction is settled, and the door closes on a man habituated to

mental labor, the ever-ready inquiry is, What next? To sit still--to do

nothing absolutely but to turn over the thoughts of other men, though

this be a privilege, is not ultimate happiness. There is still a void,

which the desire to be remembered, or something else, must fill.

_31st_. Gen. Cass writes from Paris that he is on the eve of setting

out, with his family, for the Levant, to embark on a tour to the East,

to visit the ancient seats of oriental power. "We proceed directly to

Toulon, where we shall embark on board the frigate Constitution. From

thence we touch at Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Naples, and Sicily, and then

proceed to Alexandria. After seeing Cairo, the Pyramids, Memphis, and, I

hope, the Red Sea, we shall proceed to Palestine, look at Jerusalem, see

the Dead Sea, and other interesting places of Holy Writ, pass by and

touch at Tyre and Sidon, land at Beyrout, and visit Damascus and

Baalbec, and probably Palmyra; touch at Smyrna, proceed to

Constantinople and the Black Sea, and then to Greece, &c.; after that to

the islands of the Archipelago, then up the Adriatic to Venice and

Trieste, and thence return to this place. So, you see, here is the

programme of a pretty good expedition, certainly a very

interesting one."

_April 6th_. By letters received from Albany, a singular chapter of the

inscrutable course and awards of Providence for parental disobedience

and youthful deception is revealed. Alfredus, who departed from my

office in Detroit early in March last, to receive a warrant as a cadet

at West Point, has not appeared among his friends. He was a young man of

good mind, figure, and address, and would doubtless have justified the

judgment of his friends in giving him a military education. His father

had been one of the patriots of 1776, and served on the memorable field

of Saratoga. But the young man was smitten with the romance of going to

Texas and joining the ranks of that country, striving for a rank among

nations. This secret wish he carefully concealed from me, and, setting

out with the view of returning to his father's roof, and solacing his

age by entering the military academy, he secretly took the stage to

Columbus, Ohio. Thence he pushed his way to New Orleans and Galveston.

The next intelligence received of him, was a careful measurement of his

length, by unknown hands, and the statement that, in ascending the

Brazos, he had taken the fever and died.

_10th_. Issued notice to claimants for Indian debts, under the 5th

article of the treaty of March 28th, 1886; that additional claims would

be considered, and that such claims, with the evidence in support of

them, must be produced previous to the first of June next.

_26th_. Received notice of my election as a corresponding member of the

Hartford Natural History Society, Connecticut.

I have filled the pauses of official duty, during the season, by

preparing for the press the oral legends which have been gleaned from

the Indians since my residence at Sault St. Marie, in the basin of Lake

Superior, and at Michilimackinack, under the name of _Algic

Researches_, vol. i.

_10th_. By the treaty of 9th May, 1836, with the Swan Creek and Black

River Chippewas, the United States agree to furnish them thirteen

sections of land West, in lieu of the cessions relinquished in Michigan,

besides accounting to them for the nett proceeds of the land ceded.

Measures were now taken to induce them to send delegates to the Indian

territory west of the Missouri, to locate this tract, and an agent was

appointed to accompany them.

_16th_. Received a copy of my article on Indian languages.

_17th_. The Saginaws, by the cession of the 14th of January, agreed to

leave Michigan, and accept a location elsewhere; and they were now urged

to send delegates to the head waters of the Osage River, where they can

be provided with fine lands, and placed in juxtaposition to

cognate tribes.

_29th_. Received a letter from the editor of the "Knickerbocker." [79]

[Footnote 79: Birchen Canoe: Song of the Ship.]

_May 18th_. Received notice of my election as one of the vice presidents

of the American Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at

New York.

_23d_. William Ward, Esq., of the War Office, Washington, D.C., writes:

"I have received two communications from Dr. Warren, of Boston, on the

subject of a collection of crania and bones of the aborigines. He is

desirous of procuring specimens from the different tribes, and from the

mounds in the different sections of the country.

"Trusting, in a great measure, to your readiness to co-operate in every

effort to advance the cause of science, I have promised him to use the

means my connection with the office might give me to forward his views.

His high reputation must be known to you, and I am sure you will aid him

to complete a collection which, I understand, he has been occupied many

years in making.

"I gather from his letters, that he wishes to procure a few complete

skeletons, and a number of crania, and that it will be desirable to have

as much as possible of the history of each head."

_June 4th_. Michilimackinack. Received a copy of _Bush's Grammar of the

Hebrew Language_, and commenced comparing the Indian tongues with it.

This language has twenty-two letters. In order to impress the elements

upon my own mind, as well as improve theirs, I commenced teaching my

children the language, just keeping ahead of them, and hearing their

recitations every morning.

_26th_. Receive a letter of introduction from Governor Mason, by Mr.

Massingberd, of England, an intelligent and estimable traveler

in America.

_27th_. Dr. Edward Spring, son of the Rev. Gardiner Spring, of New York,

visits the island with the view of a temporary practice.

_July 1st_. A copy of _Stuart's Hebrew Grammar_ reached me this morning.

I have a special motive in making myself acquainted with this ancient,

and, as I find, simple tongue. The course of my investigation of the

Algonquin language, has shown me the want of the means of enlarged

comparison, which I could not institute without it.

_6th_. Major Whiting writes: "I have lately begun _Buckland's Treatise,_

and a noble work it is; the subject he treats just in that way which

will communicate the greatest amount of information to the reading

public. That part which explains the bearing of the Scriptures on

geology, will have a most salutary effect on the public mind. It was all

important that such explanations should be given. Many good minds have

been startled, and approached geology with averted eyes, apprehending

that it ran counter to the great truths of the Bible. Viewed as the

Bible generally has been, geological facts are likely to disturb the

moral world. Either they must be disbelieved, or that literal

interpretation of Genesis, so long received, must be abandoned. To make

this abandonment, without having satisfactory reasons for it, would have

risked much, that never should be put in jeopardy. It had come to this,

geology must be sealed up and anathematized, or it must be reconciled

with the Sacred Writ. Buckland has undoubtedly done the latter; and he

has thus conferred an inestimable blessing on mankind."

_12th_. A remarkable land claim, upon the Indians, who are parties to

the late treaty of 1836, came before me. This consisted of a grant given

by the Chippewas in 1760, to Major Robert Rodgers, of anti-revolutionary

fame, to a valuable part of the upper region on Lake Superior. The

present heir is James Chaloner Alabaster, who says the deed, of which a

copy is furnished, has been in the possession of his family in England

about sixty years. It appears to have been executed in due form for a

consideration. It is prior to the proclamation of George III.

interdicting grants.

_19th_. A band of Chippewas, originally hailing from Grand Island, in

Lake Superior, but now living on the extreme northern head of Green Bay,

visited the office. It embraced the eldest son of the late Oshawn

Epenaysee (South Bird), who died, in the first class of chiefs, at Grand

Island last fall. His name is Ado-wa-wa-e-go (something of an inanimate

kind beating about in the water on shore). They requested that he might

be recognized as their chief. On examination this request was acceded

to, and I invested him with a flag.

_24th_. The department submitted a proposition to the Indians, to take

half their annuities under the treaty of 1836, at the approaching

payments, in goods, and half in silver. If the goods were declined, they

were requested to receive the half annuity in silver, with the other

annuities provided by the treaty, in kind, and to wait for the other

moiety till the next year.

I submitted the offer to a full council of the chiefs and warriors this

day. They debated it fully. A delegation visited the goods, which were

shown by an agent. They decline receiving them, but agree to receive the

half annuity in coin, and wait, as requested, for the other half till

the next payment. This proposition was called the "goods offer," and was

much distorted by the public-press. I was blamed for having carried the

offer into effect, whereas it was declined, and the half annuity in

silver accepted, and the credit asked for, given for the rest.

_25th_. Two bands who had not united in this decision, namely, the bands

of Point St. Ignace and Chenos, came in, by their chiefs, and yielded

their assent to the arrangement of yesterday. Thus the consent became

unanimous on the part of the Indians.

A notification, by a special messenger, to the Grand River Ottawas, is

dispatched to attend the payments at this place on the 1st of September,

and to signify their assent or dissent to the proposed arrangement. Rix

Robinson and Louis Campeau, Esqrs., of that valley, and the Rev. Leonard

Slater, of Barry, are requested to give this notice publicity.

_26th_. Mrs. Jameson embarks in an open boat for Sault Ste. Marie,

accompanied by Mrs. Schoolcraft, after having spent a short time as a

most intelligent and agreeable inmate under our roof. This lady,

respecting whom I had received letters from my brother-in-law Mr.

McMurray, a clergyman of Canada West, evinced a most familiar knowledge

of artistic life and society in England and Germany. Her acquaintance

with Goethe, and other distinguished writers, gave a life and piquancy

to her conversation and anecdotes, which made us cherish her society the

more. She is, herself, an eminent landscape painter, or rather sketcher

in crayon, and had her portfolio ever in hand. She did not hesitate

freely to walk out to prominent points, of which the island has many, to

complete her sketches. This freedom from restraint in her motions, was

an agreeable trait in a person of her literary tastes and abilities. She

took a very lively interest in the Indian race, and their manners and

customs, doubtless with views of benevolence for them as a peculiar race

of man, but also as a fine subject of artistic observation.

Notwithstanding her strong author-like traits and peculiarities, we

thought her a woman of hearty and warm affections and attachments; the

want of which, in her friends, we think she would exquisitely feel.

Mrs. Jameson several times came into the office and heard the Indians

speaking. She also stepped out on the piazza and saw the wild Indians

dancing; she evidently looked on with the eye of a Claude Lorraine or

Michael Angelo.

_27th_. The term _ego_, added to an active Indian verb, renders it

passive. I have given an example of this before in the case of a man's

name. Here is another: The verb _to carry_ is Be-moan in the Algonquin.

By the pronominal prefix _Nim_, we have the sense _I carry_. By adding

to the latter the suffix _ego_, the action is reflected and this sense

is rendered passive.

_29th_. A treaty is concluded this day at Fort Snelling, St. Peter's,

between Governor H. Dodge and the Chippewa Indians, by which they cede a

large and important tract to the United States.

_Aug. 1st_. A discovery of a tooth of the Mastodon has lately been made

in the bed of the Papaw River, in Berrian County, Michigan. It is about

six inches long and three broad. The enamel is nearly perfect, and that

part of the tooth which was covered by it nearly whole, while the

portion which must have been inserted in the socket is mostly broken

off. The diluvian soil of the Michigan Peninsula is thus added to the

wide area of the _mastodonic period_.

_2d_. Capt. Marryatt came up in the steamer of last night. A friend

writes: "He is one of Smollett's sea captains---much more of the

Trunnion than one would have expected to find in a literary man. Stick

Mackinack into him, with all its _rock-osities._ He is not much disposed

to the _admirari_ without the _nil_--affects little enthusiasm about

anything, and perhaps feels as little." He turned out here a perfect sea

urchin, ugly, rough, ill-mannered, and conceited beyond all bounds.

Solomon says, "answer not a fool according to his folly," so I paid him

all attention, drove him over the island in my carriage, and rigged him

out with my _canoe-elège_ to go to St. Mary's.

_3d_. George Tucker, Professor in the University of Virginia, came up

in the last steamer. I hasted, while it stayed, to drive him out and

show off the curiosities of the island to the best advantage.

_5th_. Mrs. Schoolcraft writes from the _Sault_, that Mrs. Jameson and

the children suffered much on the trip to that place from mosquitoes,

but by dint of a douceur of five dollars extra to the men, which Mrs.

Jameson made to the crew, they rowed all night, from Sailor's

encampment, and reached the Sault at 6 o'clock in the morning. "I feel

delighted," she says, "at my having come with Mrs. Jameson, as I found

that she did not know how to get along at all at all. Mr. McMurray and

family and Mrs. Jameson started off on Tuesday morning for Manitouline

with a fair wind and fair day, and I think they have had a fine voyage

down. Poor Mrs. Jameson cried heartily when she parted with me and my

children; she is indeed a woman in a thousand. While here, George came

down the rapids with her in fine style and spirits. She insisted on

being baptized and named in Indian, after her _sail_ down the falls. We

named her Was-sa-je-wun-e-qua (Woman of the Bright Stream), with which

she was mightily pleased."

_9th_. Delegates from the Saginaws, from the Swan Creek and Black

Chippewas of Lower Michigan, stop, on their way, to explore a new

location west, in charge of a special exploring agent.

Mr. Ord, recently appointed a sub-agent in this superintendency, reaches

the island. He is the second person I have known who has made the names

of his children an object of singularity. Mr. Stickney, who figured

prominently in the Toledo War, called his male children One, Two, &c.

Mr. Ord has not evidently differed in this respect from general custom,

for the same reason, namely, an objection to _Christian_ prejudice for

John and James, or Aaron and Moses. He has simply given them Latin

nominatives, from the mere love he has apparently for that tongue. I

believe he was formerly a Georgetown professor.

Capt. Marryatt embarked on board the steamer Michigan, on his return

from the island, after having spent several days in a social visit,

including a trip to the Sault, in company with Mr. Lay, of Batavia.

While here, I saw a good deal of the novelist. His manners and style of

conversation appeared to be those of a sailor, and such as we should

look for in his own Peter Simple. Temperance and religion, if not

morality, were to him mere cant words, and whether he was observed,

either before dinner or after dinner--in the parlor or out of it--his

words and manners were anything but those of a quiet, modest, English

gentleman.

I drove Mr. Lay and himself out one day after dinner to see the

curiosities of the island. He would insist walking over the arched rock.

"It is a fearful and dizzy height." When on the top he stumbled. My

heart was in my throat; I thought he would have been hurled to the rocks

below and dashed to a thousand pieces; but, like a true sailor, he

crouched down, as if on a yardarm, and again arose and completed his

perilous walk.

We spoke of railroads. He said they were not built permanently in this

country, and attributed the fault to our excessive go-aheadiveness. Mr.

Lay: "True; but if we expended the sums you do on such works, they could

not be built at all. They answer a present purpose, and we can afford to

renew them in a few years from their own profits."

The captain's knowledge of natural history was not precise. He aimed to

be knowing when it was difficult to conceal ignorance. He called some

well-characterized species of _septaria_ in my cabinet _pudding-stone,_

beautiful specimens of limpid hexagonal crystals of quartz, _common

quartz_, &c.

Mr. George P. Marsh, of Vermont, brings me a letter of introduction.

This gentleman has the quiet easy air of a man who has seen the world.

His fine taste and acquirements have procured him a wide reputation. His

translation of _Rusk's Icelandic Grammar_ is a scholar-like performance,

and every way indicative of the propensities of his mind for

philological studies.

It is curious to observe, in this language, the roots of many English

words, and it denotes through what lengths of mutations of history the

stock words of a generic language may be traced. Lond, skip, flaska,

sumar, hamar, ketill, dal, are clearly the radices respectively of land,

ship, flask, summer, hammer, kettle, dale. This property of the

endurance of orthographical forms gives one a definite illustration of

the importance of language on history.

_12th_. A large party of Munsees and Delawares from the River Thames, in

Upper Canada, reach the harbor in a vessel bound for Green Bay,

Wisconsin. The Rev. Mr. Vogel, in whose charge they are, lands and

visits the office with some of the principal men. He says that most of

them have been known as "Christian Indians." That the number recognized

by this title on the Thames is 282, of whom 50 have been excommunicated.

Of these Christian Indians, 84 have been left on the Thames, in charge

of the Rev. Abraham Lukenbach.

Mr. Vogel has in his company 202 persons, but says that others,

rendering their number 260 souls inclusive, are on their way by land.

Thirteen of this party, with White Eyes, son of White Eyes of frontier

war celebrity, came on the 9th instant, and have been lodged in the

public dormitory. They are on their way, in the first place, to the

Stockbridges, at Green Bay, and, finally, to their kindred, the

Delawares, on the Kanzas.

_13th_. Early one morning I was agreeably surprised by the arrival of

Mrs. Jameson, whom I had previously expected to spend some time with me,

and found her a most agreeable, refined and intelligent guest, with none

of the supercilious and conceited airs, which I had noticed in some of

her traveling countrywomen of the class of authors.

_15th_. Mukonsiwyan, a Chippewa chief of the first class, calls, on his

way back from a visit to the British annual meeting of the Indians, to

get their subsidies at the Manitouline Islands. He was evidently piqued

in not having received as much as he expected. He attempted to throw

dust in the agent's eyes by the following speech:--

"My father, I wish to warm myself by your fire. I have tried to warm

myself by the British fire, but I could not, although I sat close by.

They put on _green poplar_, which would throw out no heat. _This_ is the

place where hard wood grows,[80] and I expect to be warmed by its heat."

[Footnote 80: The island of Mackinack was formerly covered with a forest

of rock-maple, ironwood, &c., and much of it is still characterized by

these species.]

It was said that an _inferior_ quality of blankets had been issued at

Manitouline. This was the _green poplar_. No guns and no kettles were

given. This is the coldness and want of heat, although sitting close by

the fire. On the contrary, large and extraordinary presents, and of the

best quality, were issued here last season at the execution of the

treaty of 1836. This is the _hard wood_ and _good heat_ thrown out to

all. The figure derived appositeness from the prevalence of such species

on the island.

CHAPTER LX.

Notions of foreigners about America--Mrs. Jameson--Appraisements of

Indian property--Le Jeune's early publication on the Iroquois--Troops

for Florida--A question of Indian genealogy--Annuity payments--Indians

present a claim of salvage--Death of the Prophet Chusco--Indian

sufferings--Gen. Dodge's treaty--Additional debt claims--Gazetteer of

Michigan--Stone's Life of Brant--University of Michigan--Christian

Keepsake--Indian etymology--Small-pox breaks out on the

Missouri--Missionary operation in the north-west--Treaty of Flint River

with the Saginaws.

1837. _Aug. 16th_. A Mr. Nathan, an English traveler, of quiet and

pleasing manners, was introduced. He had been to St. Mary's Falls, and

to the magnificent entrance into Lake Superior, of whose fine scenery he

spoke in terms of admiration. It seems to me that Englishmen and

Englishwomen, for I have had a good many of both sexes to visit me

recently, look on America very much as one does when he peeps through a

magnifying glass on pictures of foreign scenes, and the picturesque

ruins of old cities, and the like. They are really very fine, but it is

difficult to realize that such things are. It is all an optical

deception.

It was clearly so with Marryatt, a very superficial observer; Miss

Martineau, who was in search of something ultra and elementary, and even

Mrs. Jameson, who had the most accurate and artistic eye of all, but

who, with the exception of some bits of womanly heart, appeared to

regard our vast woods, and wilds, and lakes, as a magnificent panorama,

a painting in oil. It does not appear to occur to them, that here are

the very descendants of that old Saxa-Gothic race who sacked Rome, who

banished the Stuarts from the English throne, and who have ever, in all

positions, used all their might to battle tyranny and oppression, who

hate taxations as they hate snakes, and whose day and night dreams have

ever been of liberty, that dear cry of _Freiheit_, whichever war made

"Germania" ring. It has appeared to me to be very much the same with the

Austrian and Italian functionaries who have wandered as far as

Michilimackinack within a few years, but who are yet more slow to

appreciate our institutions than the English. The whole problem of our

system, one would judge, seems to them like "apples of ashes," instead

of the golden fruits of Hesperides. They alike mistake realities for

fancies; real states of flesh and blood, bone and muscle, for cosmoramic

pictures on a wall. They do not appear to dream how fast our millions

reduplicate, what triumphs the plough, and the engine, and loom, are

making, how the principles of a well guarded representative system are

spreading over the world, and what indomitable moral, and sound

inductive principles lie at the bottom of the whole fabric.

Troops arrived from St. Mary's this day, to garrison the Fort, to keep

order during the annuity payments. The chiefs from St. Mary's send over

a boat for their share of the treaty, tobacco, salt, rice, &c.

_18th_. Mr. Conner, the sub-agent, writes that the Saginaws are

afflicted by want and threatened by starvation; and, to render their

condition extreme, the small-pox has broken out amongst them. Ordered

relief to be given in the cases specified.

_20th_. Mrs. Jameson writes to Mrs. Schoolcraft, from Toronto: "If I

were to begin by expressing all the pain it gave me to part from you, I

should not know when or where to end. I do sometimes thank God, that in

many different countries I possess friends worthy that name; kind hearts

that feel _with_ and _for_ me; hearts upon which my own could be

satisfied to rest; but then that parting, that forced, and often

hopeless separation which too often follows such a meeting, makes me

repine. I will not say, pettishly, that I could wish _never_ to have

known or seen a treasure I cannot possess: no! how can I think of you

and feel regret that I have known you? As long as I live, the impression

of your kindness, and of your character altogether, remains with me;

your image will often come back to me, and I dare to hope that you will

not forget me _quite_. I am not so unreasonable as to ask you to write

to me; I know too well how entirely your time is occupied to presume to

claim even a few moments of it, and it is a pity, for 'we do not live by

bread alone,' and every faculty and affection implanted in us by the

good God of nature, craves the food which he has prepared for it, even

in this world; so that I do wish you had a little leisure from eating

and drinking, cares and household matters, to bestow on less important

things, on me for instance! poor little me, at the other side of

the world.

"Mrs. McMurray has told you the incidents of our voyage to the

Manitouline Island, from thence to Toronto; it was all delightful; the

most extraordinary scenery I ever beheld, the wildest! I recall it as a

dream. I arrived at my own house at three o'clock on the morning of the

13th, tired and much eaten by those abominable mosquitoes, but otherwise

better in health than I have been for many months. Still I have but

imperfectly achieved the object of my journey; and I feel that, though I

seized on my return every opportunity of seeing and visiting the Indian

lodges, I know but too little of them, of the women particularly. If

only I had been able to talk a little more to my dear Neengay! how often

I think of her with regret, and of you all! But it is in vain to repine.

I must be thankful for what I have gained, what I have seen and done! I

have written to Mrs. McMurray, and troubled her with several questions

relative to the women. I remark generally, that the propinquity of the

white man is destruction to the red man; and the farther the Indians are

removed from us, the better for them. In their own woods, they are a

noble race; brought near to us, a degraded and stupid race. We are

destroying them off the face of the earth. May God forgive us our

tyranny, our avarice, our ignorance, for it is very terrible to

think of!"

_21st_. Judge McDonnel, of Detroit, reached the island with Captain

Clark of St. Clair, these gentlemen having been engaged since spring, in

a careful and elaborate appraisement of the Indian improvements, under

the 8th article of the treaty of 28th March, 1836. They commenced their

labor in the Grand River Valley, and continued it along the entire

eastern coast of Lake Michigan, to Michilimackinack, not omitting

anything which could, by the most liberal construction, be considered

"as giving value to the lands ceded." Not an apple tree, not a house, or

log wigwam, and not an acre, once in cultivation, though now waste,

was omitted.

They report the whole number of villages in this district at twenty-two,

the whole number of improvements at 485, and the gross population at

3,257 souls. This population live in log and bark dwellings of every

grade, cultivate 2477 acres of land, on which there are 3,212 apple

trees; besides old fields, the aggregate value of which is put at

$74,998. They add that these appraisements have been deemed everywhere

fully satisfactory to the Indians.

_23d_. A poor decrepit Indian woman, who was abandoned on the beach by

her relatives some ten days ago, applied for relief. It is found that

she has been indebted for food in the interim to the benevolence of Mrs.

Lafromboise.

_23d_. "I take the liberty," says A. W. Buel, Esq., of Detroit, "of

addressing you concerning the little book in my possession, touching the

early history of New France and the Iroquois. You may recollect,

perhaps, that on one occasion last winter or spring, when you were in

this city, I had some conversation with you concerning it. It is written

in French, of old orthography, and was published at Paris, A. D. 1658.

It purports to have been written by a Jesuit, Paul Le Jeune; I am

however, inclined to think that it was not all written by him, inasmuch

as the orthography of the same Indian words varies in different parts of

the book. It is rather a small duodecimo volume and contains about 210

pages, of rather coarse print. To give you a better idea of the

contents, I will mention the titles of the several chapters." These

are omitted.

"A few others are appended. The early history of the Iroquois, and of

our own country, even after its settlement by Europeans, you are well

aware, is buried in great obscurity. Even Charlevoix's _Histoire de

Nouvelle France_, I believe, has never been translated into English. I

have never seen it, if it has been. That work I suppose to be at present

the starting point in the history of the Iroquois and New France, as

regards minuteness of detail.

"This little book (Le Jeune) was published a considerable time previous.

It appears by it that the Jesuits had, for several years previously,

sent some letters; but I am confident that this is the first book ever

published touching directly and minutely the history of the Iroquois.

Caleb Atwater, in his book on western antiquities, speaks of a little

work published in Latin at Paris, I think, in 1664, as the first

touching the history of New France and the Iroquois. I could not at

first decide whether it be of much value, I thought it to be such a book

as would immediately find its way to the missionaries, and so small as

to be easily overlooked. I became at once so far interested in it, as

to translate it into English, not certain that I should ever make any

further use of it. I have, however, been solicited by some, either to

publish a translation of it, or a compendium of the principal matter

contained in it, and beg to trouble you so much as to ask your views of

the probability of the utility of doing so. Will the task be equal to

the reward?"

_25th_. Troops from Green Bay pass Mackinack on their way to Florida, to

act in the campaign against the Seminoles--a weary long way to send

reinforcements; but our army is so small, and has so large a frontier to

guard, that it must face to the right and left as often as raw recruits

under drill.

_26th_. Received a copy of the _Miner's Free Press_ of Wisconsin of the

11th of August, containing an abstract of a treaty concluded by Gov.

Dodge with the Chippewas of the Upper Mississippi, ceding an important

tract of country, lying below the Crow-wing River.

_Sept. 3d_. The old chief Saganosh died.

_4th_. The Chippewas of Sault Ste. Marie got into a difficulty, among

each other, respecting the true succession of the principal

chieftainship, and the chiefs came in a body to leave the matter to me.

The point of genealogy to be settled runs through three generations, and

was stated thus:--

Gitcheojeedebun, of the Crane totem, had four sons, namely, Maidosagee,

Bwoinais, Nawgitchigomee, and Kezhawokumijishkum. Maidosagee, being the

eldest, had nine sons, called, Shingabowossin, Sizzah, Kaugayosh,

Nattaowa, Ussaba, Wabidjejauk, Muckadaywuckwut, Wabidjejaukons, and

Odjeeg. On the principles of Indian descent, these were all Cranes of

the proper mark, but the chieftainship would descend in the line of the

eldest son's children. This would leave Shingabowossin's eldest son

without a competitor. I determined, therefore, to award the first chiefs

medal to Kabay Noden, the deceased chief Shingabowossin's eldest son.

_10th_. The annuity payments commence.

Major Jno. Garland, U.S.A., having succeeded Major Whiting as the

general disbursing officer on this frontier, arrived early in the month.

This officer has been engaged, with his assistants and the aid of the

Indian department, about a week, in preparing the pay rolls of the

Indian families, and correcting the lists for deaths, births, and new

families. All the payments which were made in silver, at the agency, in

my presence, were divided _per capita_. This business of counting and

division took three days, during which time the proportionate share of

$21,000, in half dollars, was paid. The annuities in provisions,

tobacco, &c., were delivered in bulk to the chiefs of villages, to be

divided by them.

Mr. John J. Blois, of Detroit, proposes to publish a gazetteer of

Michigan, and writes requesting statistical information, &c., of the

upper country, an Indian nomenclature, &c.

Mr. Palfrey writes proposing to me to review Stone's _Life of Brant_,

and Mr. Dearborn, the publisher at New York, sends me the proofs.

_15th_. The payments are finished, and the Indians begin to disperse. I

invested Kabay Noden with his father's medal, and his uncle,

Muckadaywuckwut, with a flag; recommending at the same time the division

of the St. Mary's Chippewas into three bands, agreeably to fixed

geographical boundaries.

Having finished the business of the payments, the disbursing agent

embarks on board of the steamer Michigan, and the island, which has been

thronged for three weeks with Indians, Indian traders, and visitors,

began immediately to empty itself of population. During this assemblage,

to pay the Ottawas and Chippewas their annuity, great care and

exactitude have been observed by the concurrently acting officers of the

army and the Indian department, to carry out strictly the agreements

made with them in the spring, by which the payment of half their annuity

in silver, due for 1837, was postponed till 1838. Yet it was reported in

a few days, and reiterated by the press, that the Indians had been

defrauded out of half their annuities, and that goods, and those of a

bad quality, had been given them for silver. And my name was coupled

with the transaction, although the Indians of all nations who were under

my charge, in the State of Michigan, had, from first to last, been

treated with the kindness and justice of a father. The Government at

Washington came in for no little abuse. Mrs. Jameson wrote from Toronto,

asking "whether it was true that a Miami chief had offered $70,000 to

enable the Indian Department to pay their debt to the Indians

in specie."

_23d_. The Indians Akukojeesh and Akawkoway brought a case of salvage

for my action. They had found a new carriage body, and harness; a box of

7 by 9 glass, and 18 chairs, floating on the lake (Huron), N.E. of the

island. They supposed the articles had been thrown overboard, in a

recent storm, or by a vessel aground on the point of Goose Island,

called Nekuhmenis. The Nekuh is a brant.

_30th_. Chusco dies.

Completed and transmitted the returns and abstracts of the year's

proceedings and expenditures.

_Oct 1st_. I sent the interpreter and farmers of the Department to

perform the funeral rites for Chusco, the Ottawa jossakeed, who died

yesterday at the house erected for him on Round Island. He was about 70

years of age; a small man, of light frame and walked a little bent. He

had an expression of cunning and knowingness, which induced his people,

when young, to think he resembled the muskrat, just rising from the

water, after a dive. This trait was implied by his name. For many years

he had acted as a jossakeed, or seer, for his tribe. In this business he

told me that the powers he relied on, were the spirits [81] of the

tortoise, crow, swan, and woodpecker. These he considered his familiar

spirits, who received their miraculous power to aid him directly from

_Mudjee Moneto_, or the Great Evil Spirit. After the establishment of

the Mission at Mackinack, his wife embraced Christianity. This made him

mad. At length his mind ran so much on the theme, that he fell into

doubts and glooms when thinking it over, and finally embraced

Christianity himself; and he was admitted, after a probation of a year

or two, to church membership. I asked him, after this period, how he had

deceived his people by the art of powwowing, or jugglery. He said that

he had accomplished it by the direct influence of Satan. He had

addressed him, on these occasions, and sung his songs to him, beating

the drum or shaking the rattle. He adhered firmly to this opinion. He

appeared to have great faith in the atonement of Christ, and relied with

extraordinary simplicity upon it. He gave a striking proof of this, the

autumn after his conversion, when he went with his wife, according to

custom, to dig his potatoes on a neighboring island. The wife

immediately began to dig. "Stop," said he, "let us first kneel and

return thanks for their growth." He was aware of his former weakness on

the subject of strong drink, and would not indulge in it after he became

a church member.

[Footnote 81: Indians believe animals have souls.]

_3d_. Received an application for relief from the Black River

Chippewas, near Fort Gratiot. It is astonishing how completely the

resources of the Indians have failed with the game, on which they

formerly relied. When a calamity arrives, such as a white settlement

would surmount without an effort, they at once become objects of public

charity. Kittemagizzi is their immediate cry. This is now raised by the

Black River band, under the influence of small-pox.

_14th_. Received a copy of the treaty of the 29th of July last with the

Chippewas. This tribe, like all the other leading tribes of the race, is

destined to fritter away their large domain for temporary and local

ends, without making any general and permanent provision for their

prosperity. The system of temporary annuities will, at last, leave them

without a home. When the buffalo, and the deer, and the beaver, are

extinct, the Indian must work or die. In a higher view, there is no

blessing which is not pronounced in connection with _labor_ and _faith_.

These the nation falter at.

_18th_. Finished my report on the additional debt claim, under the

treaty of 1836, agreeably to the instructions of the Commission of

Indian Affairs, of the 23d March last, and to the published notice of

April 10th. These claims on the debt fund of the treaty have received

the best consideration of the agent and the Indian chiefs, with the aid

of a secretary authorized at Washington, and the result is forwarded

with confidence to head-quarters.

_19th_. My arduous duties during the summer had thrown some of my

private correspondence in the rear. It may now be proper to notice some

of it. A letter (Aug. 20th) from St. Mary's says: "The schooner John

Jacob Astor arrived on the 18th instant from the head of Lake Superior,

and the captain brings us information of Mr. Warren's arrival at La

Pointe. He attended the treaty at St. Peter's, concluded by Gov. Dodge.

The Indians are to receive $700,000 in annuities for twenty years,

$100,000 to the half-breeds, and $70,000 for Indian creditors."

"Captain Stanard brought down a specimen of native copper, similar to

the piece of forty-nine pounds weight in your cabinet. It was at De

l'Isle, fifteen leagues on the north shore from Fond du Lac."

Mr. John T. Blois, of Detroit (Sept. 20th), informs me that he is

preparing a Gazetteer of Michigan. "Of the topics," he remarks, "I had

proposed to submit to your consideration, one was the etymology of the

Indian nomenclature, to the extent it has been adopted in the

application of proper names to our lakes, rivers, and other inanimate

objects. In the preparation of my work, this subject has frequently

presented itself to my mind as one of interesting importance, and whose

development is more auspicious, at the present time, than it may be at a

future day. I had a particular desire to rescue the Indian names from

that oblivion to which the negligence of the early settlers of other

States has permitted them to descend, by the substitution, for no

reasonable cause, of insignificant English or French names, without

regard to either good taste or propriety.

"I wish, among other things, to ask of you the favor to inform me of the

origin and signification of the name of our adopted State, Michigan."

A correspondent at Detroit (J.L.S.) writes (21st Sept.): "Bills have

been introduced into both Houses to carry out the President's

sub-treasury system, and 'tis said Calhoun will support the measure.

These bills, which were introduced by Wright and Cambreleng, propose

that treasury notes shall be issued not to exceed $12,000,000."

Mr. Palfrey (25th Sept.) suggests my reviewing Col. Stone's "Life of

Joseph Brant," and the publishers (Geo. Dearborn and Co.) transmit me

the proof sheets on sized paper. I sat down with enthusiasm to read them

(as far as sent) preparatory to a decision. Many things are desirable,

and most worthy of commendation. But there were some errors of fact and

opinions, which I could not pass over without bringing forward facts

which I felt no capacity to manage, without giving offence to one whom I

had every reason to regard as a friend. Brant had been the scourge of my

native State during all the long and bloody war of the Revolution; and

his enormities had the less excuse to be plastered over on account of

his having received a Christian education, and speaking and writing his

own language. He was doubtless a man much above his red brethren

generally, for mental conception and boldness. It is true, I had heard

all the terrific details of his cruelties from the lips of my father,

who was an actor in the scenes described, at an age when impressions

sink deep. But I had outlived my youthful impressions, and felt disposed

to regard him as one of the most celebrated individuals of his race,

which race I had learned to regard as one of the peculiar types of

mankind. But I thought it injudicious to lay the story of the Revolution

on his shoulders--with the real causes of which his life had about as

much to do as the fly on the wagon-wheel, in turning it. I therefore on

broad grounds declined it.

The establishment of the University of Michigan and its branches over

the State, now excited considerable attention, and I began to receive

letters from various quarters on the subject. "At a meeting of the

people of this county (Kalamazoo)," says A. Edwards, Esq., "very

advantageous offers were made to the Board, in case it was by them

deemed proper to establish here one of the two branches contemplated

within the senatorial district."

Mr. Daniel B. Woods, Dorchester, Mass., writes me respecting an article

for the "Christian Keepsake," which has passed to the hands of the Rev.

Mr. Clark, of Philadelphia.

_25th_. Letters were received to-day from the Secretaries of the

Presbyterian, and from the Methodist Boards of Missions at New York,

proposing the establishment of missions for the Ottawas and Chippewas,

under the fourth article of the treaty of 1836. I advised Mr. Lowry, the

organ of the former, and also the Methodist Society, to select positions

south of this island in Lake Michigan.

_27th_. The first snow falls for the season.

_30th_. The chiefs of the Ottawas at L'Arbre Croche request that I would

procure and send them vaccine matter, having heard that the small-pox

existed at Grand River, and at Maskigo,

An Ottawa Indian, called Mis-kweiu-wauk (Red Cedar) brought a

counterfeit half dollar, saying that he had received it at the payments,

from Major Garland. It seemed to me that such was not the fact, but that

he had been sent by some saucy fellow. But I thought prudent to give him

a good half dollar in its place.

_Nov. 4th_. Information was received, that a strong party of Boisbrules

and Indians, who went west from Red River early in the fall, to hunt the

buffalo agreeably to their custom, were met and attacked by the Gros

Venters and Sioux of the plains, and one hundred of their number killed

in the affray.

_10th_. Completed arrangements to leave the office during the winter in

charge of Mr. F. W. Shearman.

_11th_. Embarked at Mackinack on board the steamer "Madison," for the

lower country.

_18th_. Arrived at Detroit, and resumed the duties of the

superintendency at that point. Charles Rodd reports that three hundred

Saginaws have taken shelter on the St. Clair, from the ravages of the

small-pox, that they will pass the winter in the vicinity of Point au

Barques; and that, consequently, they will not attend the payments at

Saginaw this fall.

_17th_. Asked H. Conner, Esq., the signification 'of "Monguagon," He

replied, the true name is Mo-gwau-go [nong], and was a man's name,

signifying dirty backsides. It was the name of a Wyandot who died there.

_Mo_, in the Algonquin, means excrement; _gwau_ is a personal term; _o_,

the accusative; and _nong_, place. I observe that, in the Hebrew, the

same word _Mo_, denotes semen. The mode of combination, too, is not

diverse; thus, _mo-ab,_ in Hebrew, is a substantive of two roots, _mo_,

semen, and _ab_, father.

Paukad [Hebrew], Hebrew, means to strike upon or against any person or

thing. Pukatai Chip, is to strike anything animate or inanimate. Paukad,

in the same tongue, means a stroke of lightning.

_17th_. Judge Riggs, who has charge of affairs at Saginaw, reports that

about twenty Indians have been carried off by the small-pox, on the

Shiawassa, and the same number on the Flint River. Says the disease was

first brought to Saginaw by Mr. Gardiner D. Williams, and it was

afterwards extended to the Flint by Mr. Campau.

_21st_. Rev. J. A. Agnew, of N.Y., addresses me as one of the Regents

of the University, under a belief that the Board will, very soon,

proceed to the election of a chancellor and professors. He takes a very

just view of the importance of making it a fundamental point, to base

the course of instruction on a sound morality, and of insuring the

confidence of religious teachers of evangelical views,

_25th_. Mr. Conner brought me, some days ago, a cranium of an Indian,

named B-tow-i-ge-zhig (Both Sides of the Sun), who was killed and buried

near his house in a singular way.

It seems that another Indian, a young man, had fallen from a tree, and,

in his descent, injured his testicles, which swelled up amazingly.

Etowigezhig laughed at him, which so incensed the young fellow that he

suddenly picked up a pot-hook and struck him on the skull. It fractured

it, and killed him. So he died for a laugh. He was a good-natured man,

about forty-five, and a good hunter. I gave the skull to Mr. Toulmin

Smith, a phrenological lecturer.

_26th_. Mr. Cleaveland (Rev. John) preached his farewell sermon to the

First Presbyterian Church, Detroit, from Jonah iii. 2: "Arise and go to

Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid

thee." This message he has faithfully and ably delivered to them for

about five years that he has occupied this pulpit.

_27th_. A letter of this date, from Fort Union, on the Missouri,

published in the St. Louis Bulletin, gives a frightful account of the

ravages of the small-pox among the Mandans, Aurickerees, Minitares and

Gros Venters, of the Missouri. This disease, which first broke out about

the 15th of July, among the Mandans, carried off about fifteen hundred

of that tribe. It left about one hundred and thirty souls.[82] It spread

rapidly, and during the autumn carried off about half of the two tribes

mentioned. It was carried to the Blackfeet, Crees, and Assinaboines, who

also suffered dreadfully. Upwards of one thousand of the Blackfeet

perished, and about five hundred Minitares. Whole lodges were swept

away, and the desolations created were frightful.

[Footnote 82: The report that they were entirely extinguished was an

error. The survivors fled to their relatives, the Minnitares, where they

increased rapidly, when they returned to their ancient villages on the

Missouri, where they now (1851) reside, numbering about five

hundred souls.]

_28th_. Mr. F. Ayer writes from Pokegoma, on Snake River, of the St.

Croix Valley of the Upper Mississippi: "Shall we be molested by

government soon, or at a future time; or, in case the government sell

the land to a company, or to individuals, will they consider our case

and make any reservation in our favor?"

_Dec. 2d_. Rev. Oren O. Thompson writes in relation to

Michilimackinack:--

"1. Have you a missionary engaged for that station?

"2. Do you feel the importance and necessity of obtaining one who is

already acquainted with the Indian language?

"3. Do you wish to engage one for that station, who is in sentiment a

Presbyterian?

"4. Are there appropriations for his support?

"5. What will be his business particularly?

"6. How long will he probably be wanted there?

"7. What, in your opinion, is the prospect of his usefulness there?"

_Dec. 1st_. Mr. Hamill, of Lawrenceville, N.J., responds to my inquiry

for a suitable school for my son--a matter respecting which I am just

now very solicitous.

_13th_. Set out by railroad for Flint River, accompanied by Major

Garland and Mr. Conner. Weather very cold, and the snow forming a good

road. At Pontiac, we took a double sleigh, and drove out to Flint

Village. I was invited to his house by Mr. Hascall, who did everything

to render the visit agreeable. Between 400 and 500 Indians were

assembled. They appeared poorly clad, and needy, having suffered greatly

from the small-pox during the autumn and winter. About 40 had died on

the Shiawassa River, and some 30 on the Flint. After the Major had

completed the payment of their annuities and delivery of goods, I opened

a negotiation with them to complete the sale of their reservations.

_16th_. In a letter of this date, Dr. Greene, Sec. of the A.B.C., for F.

Missions, adverts to the positions heretofore taken, by that board,

respecting the missionary establishment at Mackinack. The moral position

of that Board, with respect to _that_ Mission, appears to me to be

wrong. This mission involves the mission cause, in some important

respects, with the entire question of missionary operations over the

North-west--reaching from lat. 42° to 49°, with many degrees of

longitude; for, from all this region, the Indian boys and girls of the

mission have been collected. It began operations with them, I think, in

1822; and having, in this interval, expended many thousand dollars, and

erected expensive buildings, it now drops the thing, just at the point

when the Indians have commenced important cessions, and when their

condition is such that they are not only inclined to receive interior

teachers and evangelists, which have been raised at that central point,

but, by these cessions to the government, they have provided funds for

schools and teachers.

Merely because the excellent superintendent determined, two or three

years ago, to leave this important point and enter into secular

business, to provide for a growing family; and because the attraction of

foreign fields carries young clergymen abroad, to the detriment of the

home field, it does not, I think, fulfil the highest requisitions of

duty to abandon the field, and thereby to leave it to be said that the

Board doubts God's purposes with regard to the red man. If the

missionary himself, who has so many years conducted the concern with

approbation, was not willing to trust his rewards to a higher power, but

aimed, as it were, to steady himself by stretching forth his hand, it

seems to me the race ought not to be the sufferers for such a course.

They constitute a vastly more appropriate field of labor than the

"millions of foreign lands," who sit, to a large extent, unaffected by

the Gospel. Not, indeed, that those fields should be neglected; but the

Indian race, and these large families of it, are worthy of a warmer

sympathy than I can see in Dr. Greene's letters, or the decisions of the

Board by whom he is governed.

_20th_. Signed a supplementary treaty with the Saginaws at Flint. By

this treaty the Saginaws relinquish their reserves in this valuable and

rapidly settling portion of the country, and agree to accept a location

on the head waters of the Osage, which their chiefs, have explored. They

are to occupy two of their reservations on the west shores of Saginaw

Bay, for five years. The government is to pay them the entire proceeds

of the land, as sold in the public land offices. They set apart funds

for schools, and to pay their debts. This tribe has now no instructors.

They have the reputation of being turbulent, and averse to all plans of

improvement. Their history is fraught with deeds of violence. They made

bloody inroads on the settlements of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania,

after the close of the war of the Revolution, and brought away captives.

One of these was the notorious and infamous John Tanner. They lived

under a perfect dictator, in the person of Kish-ka-ko, who made and

altered laws to suit a strong-willed savage mind. They were originally a

band of Chippewa refugees. They settled here when the Sauks in the 17th

century were driven off. Their name is derived from this. The true sound

of the word is _Saukinong_, or Place of the Sauks. It has been

improperly assimilated to Saganosh, _i.e._, Englishman.

_23d_. Rev. John A. Clark, of Philadelphia, writes, requesting a

contribution to the "Christian Keepsake," which denotes the interest in

the Indian subject to be unabated.

CHAPTER LXI.

Tradition of Pontiac's conspiracy and death--Patriot war--Expedition of

a body of 250 men to Boisblanc--Question of schools and missions among

the Indians--Indian affairs--Storm at Michilimackinack--Life of

Brant--Interpreterships and Indian language--A Mohegan--Affair of the

"Caroline"--Makons--Plan of names for new towns--Indian legends--Florida

war--Patriot war--Arrival of Gen. Scott on the frontiers--Résumé of the

difficulties of the Florida war--Natural history and climate of

Florida--Death of Doctor Lutner.

1838. _Jan. 1st_. OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, DETROIT,--In the recent trip

to Flint River, Mr. Henry Conner told me one day that he had been

acquainted with the Indian person who, in 1763, informed Major Gladwyn,

the commanding officer at Detroit, of Pontiac's conspiracy.

The affair had other motives than Carver imagines. She thought more of

saving the life of Major Gladwin than of saving the whole Anglo-Saxon

race. She had been a very handsome person in her youth, being nearly

white, though of Indian blood. Owing to her gallantries, her husband had

bit off her nose. When an old woman, she became intemperate, and, on one

of these occasions, at a sugar camp on the Clinton River, she fell

backward into a boiling kettle of sap, and thus perished. Truly "the way

of the transgressor is hard."

He stated the tradition respecting Pontiac's death as it was related by

a chief who well knew the facts. The English made great efforts to

conciliate a man of such powerful abilities and influence, and

endeavored to enlist him as an ambassador among the Western Indians to

bring them into their interests. Pontiac used deception in appearing to

fall in with their views, and went on this business to the country of

the Illinois, which was then about to be surrendered to them. They took

the precaution to send with him, as an associate, a chief called

Chianocquot, or the Big Cloud, who was strongly attached to their

interests. When Pontiac reached the region of the Illinois posts,

instead of persuading the Indians to peace and friendship with the

English, he advised them not to surrender the country, and, in his

addresses to them, he used the most persuasive arguments to dissuade

them from permitting the surrendry at all, and gave vent to his natural

feelings and sentiments in favor of the French and against the English.

This had been his policy at Detroit. He appeared instinctively to dread

the advance of the English race, or, perhaps, really foresaw that their

arts and industry, against the adoption of which he so vehemently

inveighed, would uproot and crush the aboriginal race. Chianocquot was

roused to anger by this duplicity and dispatched him.[83]

[Footnote 83: Nicollet, in his _Hydrographical Report_ in 1841, has

placed this tradition in its proper light. He gives a somewhat different

account of Pontiac's death, which he states to have taken place when he

was in liquor, and the blow was insidiously given.

A Kaskaskia Indian, it seems, was hired for a barrel of rum by an Indian

trader to commit the act. The blow he inflicted by his club fractured

the skull of his victim, who lingered a while, but eventually died of

the wound. This was at Fort Chartres, in Illinois.]

Mr. Conner continued: Pontiac's village and residence near Detroit was

Peach Island and the main shore directly abreast of it, north-east. In

the summer he lived on the island, and in the winter on the main land.

Pontiac was offended at the Indian who, during the siege, killed

McDougel, and would have put him to death for the act had the murderer

not fled. The man who did it had been absent, and did not know that this

officer had received permission to return to the fort.

_4th_. Walter Lowrie, Esq., Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of

Foreign Missions at New York, writes that the Executive Committee have

determined to establish a mission and school among the Chippewas and

Ottawas of Lake Michigan as early in the spring as suitable men can

be procured.

_8th_. The Canadian, or patriot war, is now at its height. The city has

been kept in a perfect turmoil by it for weeks. The setting fire to

outbuildings or deserted houses almost every dark night, appears to be

connected with it. One dark night I stumbled and fell on an uneven

pavement on a part of Jefferson Avenue, and immediately a voice cried

"Hurrah for Canada!" There was an intense excitement among the lower

classes in its favor, which it required a high degree of moral energy in

the lovers of law and order to keep down.

This morning a conservative force of 250 volunteer militia embarked, at

two P.M., in a steamer for Amherstburg (the Malden of the war of 1812),

to demand the surrendry of the State arms recently taken from their

place of deposit--the city jail. This demand is to be made of the

patriot refugee force from Canada, who are about to take post on the

island of Boisblanc, at the mouth of the Detroit River. It was a

well-armed force, with muskets and cartridge-boxes well filled; but it

was found that, on the way down the river, their cartridge-boxes had

been relieved, by persons friendly to the patriots on board, of every

particle of ammunition. The detachment returned about eleven o'clock at

night, having proved wholly unsuccessful in the object of the movement.

Mr. Ball, a representative in the local legislature from Kent County,

called this day to inquire into the propriety of establishing a

sub-agency at Grand Rapids, on Grand River, for the ostensible benefit

of the Ottawas in that quarter. The question of the division of funds

between schools established for a part of the same people at Gull

Prairie, under the care of Mr. Slater, and the separate school at Sault

Ste. Marie, in Chippewa County, in the care of Mr. Bingham, both of

which are under the general direction of the Baptist Missionary Board at

Boston, was considered and approved, and letters written accordingly.

These efforts, at detached points, to improve the race must, we are

inclined to believe, eventually fail. Two races so diverse in mind and

habits cannot prosper together permanently; but the hope is that

temporary good may be done. An Indian who is converted and dies in the

faith, is essentially "a brand plucked out of the fire," and no man can

undertake to estimate the moral value of the act. A child who is taught

to read and write is armed with two requisites for entering civilized

life. But the want of general efficient efforts, unobstructed by local

laws and deleterious influences, cannot but, in a few years, convince

the Boards that the colonization of the tribes West is the best, if not

the only hope of prosperity to the race _as a race_.

_9th_. Lieut. E. S. Sibley, U.S.A., sets out to pay the Grand River

Indians. I commissioned Charles H. Oakes, Esq., to witness the pay

rolls. Mr. Conner returns the same day from attending the payments of

the Swan Creek and Black River bands. He reports the Indians on the

American side of the lines not disposed to engage in the present unhappy

contest in the Canadas. Exertions, he affirms, have been made by the

British authorities to induce the Chippewas living in Canada, opposite

to the mouth of Black River, to engage in the conflict against their

revolted people, but without success. They threatened, if matters were

pushed, to flee to the American side. He states, also, that a council to

the same effect had been held with the Canada Indians opposite Peach

Island, at the foot of Lake St. Glair, which resulted in the same

declaration.

_12th_. The appraisement rolls transmitted to Washington by Messrs.

Macdonnel & Clarke, the appraisers appointed under the 8th article of

the treaty of 28th March, 1836, were judged to be too high; and the

subject was referred for revision to Maj. Garland and myself. I this day

transmitted a joint reply of the major and myself, stating how

impossible it would be to revise so complex a subject without

opportunities of personal examination in each case--a business which

neither of us desires.

_16th_. Received the first winter express from Mackinack, transmitting

reports from the various persons in official employ there. They report a

great storm at that place on the 8th and 9th of December, 1837, in the

course of which the light-house on Boisblanc was blown down, and other

damage done by the rise of water.

_18th_. Received the Senate's printed document, No. 1, containing the

President's annual message and all the Secretaries' reports. The

Commissioner of Indian Affairs recommends the abolition of sub-agencies,

and the raising of the pay of interpreters--two measures recommended in

my annual report. The department is very much in the hands of ignorant

and immoral interpreters, who frequently misconceive the point to be

interpreted. Could we raise up a set of educated and moral men for this

duty, the department would stand on high grounds. Surely, a sort of

normal institute could teach the principles of the Indian grammar, as

well as the Greek. There is no _sound_ without a _meaning_, and no

meaning conveyed without an orthographical _rule_. They do not _gabble_

at random, as some think. Their modes of utterance are, it is true,

often defective, but they are not without grammatical _laws_, I inquired

into this matter at my first entrance into the Indian country of the

Algonquins, sixteen years ago. I found that verbs had eight classes of

conjugations, and ten including the broad vowels; five declensions of

nouns, and two sets of pronouns, one to be placed before and the other

at the end of the verb and substantive. That all substantives could be

changed into verbs; that there were a stock of adjective and

prepositional participles, and that the mode of forming compounds and

derivatives was varied, but all subject to the most exact rules. They

have a very accurate appreciation of _sound_ and its varied meanings,

and are pushed to use figures to help out or illustrate a meaning; but

the excessive refinements of syntax, for which some contend, are

theories in the minds of unpracticed collaborators.

_18th_. I wrote to Mr. Palfrey, E.N.A.R., declining to review Stone's

"Brant," and apprizing him of the preparation of an article on the

"North-west," by Mr. I. Lanman. "I take this occasion to say that I have

received the proof-sheets of some hundred and fifty pages of Col.

Stone's _Life of Brant_. It is a work somewhat discursive, and involves

some critical points in Indian history and customs. I should not feel

willing to commence a notice of it, without having the whole before me.

The hero of the work hardly exerts influence enough on the revolutionary

contest to justify the attempt of piling on him so much of the materials

of that momentous contest, and I think, moreover, there is a perceptible

attempt made to _whitewash_ a man who lived and died with no slight nor

undeserved opprobrium."

_19th_. Hendrick Apaumut, a Mohegan chief, of Wisconsin, applied for

aid, in money, to facilitate his journey to Washington. What the Indians

lack, in their business affairs, is system and method; foresight to

plan, and stability to carry into effect.

Received a copy of the message of the President, communicating the

thrilling circumstances of the recent massacre on board of the ill-fated

steamer "Caroline," and the gross outrage of national rights committed

by the burning of that boat and the destruction of her crew. Palliatives

for the act will undoubtedly be plead; but the act itself will probably

make a hero, in the estimation of his countrymen, of Mr. McNab, if it

does nothing more.

_22d_. The friends of education in Michigan, having assembled in

convention, issue a circular calling attention to that vital subject,

and recommend a "Journal of Public Instruction" to the patronage of the

people. There can be no fear of our institutions as long as education is

cherished.

_24th_. Maconse (the Little Bear), chief of the Swan Creeks, writes to

Gov. Mason that it is reported some of his people are about to join the

Canadian authorities to put down the partial revolt. The Governor,

probably thinking I would better know how to deal with him, sends the

letter to me. The fellow, whose moral code is not very high, only meant

to give himself a little consequence by it. Both he and his people will

take good care to keep out of harm's way.

_24th_. Gov. Mason informs me that he has communicated to the

Legislature of Michigan my plan for a system of Indian names

communicated to him on the 12th instant, for the new counties and towns,

founded on the idea of the avoidance of the number of dead letters

reported as annually received at Washington, from their misdirection.

This misdirection is supposed to arise chiefly from great repetition of

old township, city, county, and village names. Let any one take up a

gazetteer or post-office list who wishes to see this. Names that are

sonorous and appropriate are rejected; but there is hardly a county in

any of the new States without their Springfields, and Fairfields, and

Oxfords, and Warwicks without number. Where they do not abound taste is

often put to shame. Mud Creek, and Jack's Corner, and Shingle Hollow are

doubtless appropriate names compared to some. But cannot _we supply a

remedy by drawing on the aboriginal vocabulary_?

_26th_. Completed the revision of a body of Indian oral legends,

collected during many years with labor. These oral tales show up the

Indian in a new light. Their chief value consists in their exhibition of

aboriginal opinions. But, if published, incredulity will start up

critics to call their authenticity in question. There are so many Indian

tales fancied, by writers, that it will hardly be admitted that there

exist any _real_ legends. If there be any literary labor which has cost

me more than usual pains, it is this. I have weeded out many vulgarisms.

I have endeavored to restore the simplicity of the original style. In

this I have not always fully succeeded, and it has been sometimes found

necessary, to avoid incongruity, to break a legend in two, or cut it

short off.

The steamer "Robert Fulton" arrived at Detroit, with three companies of

U.S. troops, under the command of Col. Worth, to keep up neutrality, put

down the wild "patriot movement," and prevent disturbances on

the frontier.

_27th_. Mr. Trowbridge tells me that he has heard of the arrival of our

minister to France (Gen. Cass), at Port Mahon, with his family, on his

return to Paris, from his Mediterranean tour. He had carried out a

letter to Com. Elliot, from the President, to offer him every facility

in this trip to visit the sites of Oriental cities.

_30th_. Transmit to Washington a plan and estimates for building a

dormitory at Mackinack, under the provision of the treaty of March,

1836. Such a building has been long called for at that point, where the

Indians are often sojourners, without a place to sleep, or cook the

provisions furnished them.

_Feb. 1st_. The _Knickerbocker Magazine says_: "That the Indian oratory

contains many attributes of true eloquence. With a language so barren,

and minds too free for the rules of rhetoric, they still attained a

power of touching the feelings, and a sublimity of style, which rival

the highest productions of their more cultivated enemies."

_7th_. Mr. Palfrey, in a letter of this date, observes: "I have only to

repeat that, in the preparation of the article (on Stone's

'Brant'--which I hope you will not think of giving up), I trust you will

not hesitate to introduce, with the utmost freedom, whatever your

respect for the truth of history, and distaste for the tricks of

bookmaking, may dictate."

_11th_. General Jessup writes to the department that, "we have committed

the error of attempting to remove the Seminoles, when their lands were

not required for agricultural purposes, when they were not in the way of

the white inhabitants, and when the greater portion of their country was

an unexplored wilderness, of the interior of which we were as ignorant

as of the interior of China." He recommends a line of occupancy west of

the Kissamee and Okee Chubbe, which they may be allowed to occupy.

_20th_. W. Lowrie, Esq., S.P.B.F. Missions, in a letter of this date,

says: "I was glad to see your suggestion to the government in relation

to a cabinet and library in the Indian office."

_22d_. Charles E. Anderson, Esq., of New York, announces his intention

to visit Europe. "I will not leave here until the 15th of March, at

least, when I shall take out my wife with me, and anticipate much

gratification in presenting her to such a pattern of goodness and true

feminine excellence as Mrs. Cass. Anything you wish to forward I will

attend to with pleasure, and when in Paris will not forget the

interesting subject of your letter, and will inform you what books may

be obtained respecting the early history of the country."

_26th_. Gen. Scott this day arrived at Detroit, with a view to quiet the

disturbances on the lines, and see to the proper disposition of the

troops along the chain of lakes to effect this end. I immediately called

on him, and offered him any of the peculiar facilities, which are at the

command of the Indian department, in sending expresses in the Indian

country, &c.

_27th_. Major H. Whiting, U.S.A., writes from St. Augustine, Florida:

"I have been favored with your letter of a month since, it having, I

dare say, made all due diligence the post office arrangements admit. But

the time shows the sort of intercourse I am doomed to have with my

Detroit friends. I consider that the country ought to feel under

obligations to one who serves her at such a sacrifice. Indeed, she can

make us no adequate return, but to allow me to return--the only _return_

I ask. When, however, that favor will be granted is past my guessing.

You ask when the war will terminate? You could not puzzle any of us more

than by putting such a question. We are more at our wit's end than the

war's end. And yet I do not see that anything has been left undone, that

might have been done. The army has moved steadily toward its objects.

But those objects are like a mirage, they are always nearly the same

distance off. What can we do in such a case?

"The army for the last few weeks has been operating in a country that is

more than half under water. It has often been difficult to find a spot

dry enough for an encampment. If the troops do not all come out

web-footed, it is because water can't make a duck's leg.

"I am on the lookout for specimens. I have one small alligator's bones,

and have laid in for those of a larger one, an old settler, no doubt

going back to Bartram's days. Alligators here have suffered more than

the Indians in this war. I should judge that several hundreds have been

killed from the boats as they pass up and down. They all have a bed

just in the bank of the river, where they sleep in the sun, and the

temptation is too great for any rifle, and they generally wake up a

little too late. Mineral specimens here are not various. I have

collected a few in order to show my friends, who can draw inferences

from them. Shells have had a principal hand in the formation of this

peninsula. They form the ninety-ninth part of the rock in this quarter.

It is a most convenient formation, being worked almost as easily as

clay, and yet it makes substantial walls. Frost, I presume, would play

the deuce with it. But that is a thing not much known here. I have not

yet had the pleasure to fix my northern eye on a piece of ice this

winter, though there has been a cream thickness of it once or twice. A

pitcher frozen over here makes more noise than the river frozen over at

Detroit. The frogs have piped here all winter--happy dogs. I have been

out at all times and in all places, and I don't think my nose has been

blue but once since I have been here--I have not been blue myself once.

I have not yet been to Ponce de Leon's spring. But there are some

springs here of a wondrous look. They are so transparent that the fish

can scarce believe themselves there in their own element. The Mackinack

waters are almost turbid to them. They have a most sulphurous odour, and

_might_ renew a man's youth, but it must be at the expense of all sweet

smells. I would rather keep on than go back on such conditions.

"In the fight which Lieut. Powell had with the Indians, a Doctor Lutner

was killed, who was a scientific man, and had joined the expedition to

botanize, &c. He had already done something in that way, and would have

done much more. Such a life is a great loss."

CHAPTER LXII.

Indiana tampered with at Grand River--Small-pox in the Missouri

Valley--Living history at home--Sunday schools--Agriculture--Indian

names--Murder of the Glass family--Dr. Morton's inquiries respecting

Indian crania--Necessity of one's writing his name plain--Michigan

Gazetteer in preparation--Attempt to make the Indian a political

pack-horse--Return to the Agency of Michilimackinack--Indian skulls

phrenologically examined--J. Toulmin Smith--Cherokee question--Trip to

Grand River--Treaty and annuity payments--The department accused of

injustice to the Indians.

1838. _March 2d_. LIEUT. E. S. SIBLEY, U.S.A., called at the office,

and reported certain things which had been put into the heads of the

Indians of Grand River, by interested persons, which they had at the

recent annuity payments, requested him to state to me. Also, the fact of

an outrage upon one of their number, committed by a white person, which

should have been redressed at once by the civil magistrates. There is

but one way of escape for the Indians living in white communities, that

is, to place them, at once, under the protection, and subject to the

penalties of our criminal and civil codes.

_3d_. Renewed and confirmatory accounts are published at St. Louis, of

the desolating effects of the small-pox among the Indian tribes on the

Missouri. In addition to the tribes mentioned in the first accounts as

having suffered, the Upsarokees, or Crows, have been dreadfully

afflicted. The various bands of the Pie-gans, Blood Indians, and

Blackfeet, have lost great numbers. And the visitation of this appalling

disease, against which they have no remedy, has been one of the severest

ever felt by these tribes. Compared to it, the loss that the Saginaws

and other local bands in Michigan have felt, is small; but it is an

instructive fact, that the outbreak has been concurrent in point of

time, on the Missouri and in Michigan, which would seem to imply a

climatic condition of the atmosphere, on a wide scale, favorable to

morbid eruptions.

_6th_. A.E. Wing, Esq., declines to deliver the annual address before

the Michigan Historical Society, owing to other engagements. Few men who

have capacity are found willing to devote the time necessary for the

preparation of a literary address, even where the materials for it would

appear to lie ready. The pressing practical calls of life, in a new

country, where there is no hereditary wealth, appear to furnish a valid

reason for this. But another reason is, that the materials and frame-work

of an address are sought for at too great a distance, and are thought to

lie too deeply buried, to be disinterred by any but extraordinary hands.

This is a mistake. The subjects are at home, and exist not only in

exploring old literary mines, but in the very circumstances around us.

What more extraordinary than the current which throws such masses of

people daily among us, tearing up, as it were, the old plan of life, and

laying the foundations of new social ties in the wilderness. Not a

county is settled in the West, the initial steps of which does not

furnish legitimate materials for an address which would edify the living

generation, and instruct those which are to follow us. A single century

hence, and how much tradition will sleep in the grave that might now be

rescued! Somebody has written a book "How to Observe," but there is good

need of another--"HOW TO THINK."

_7th_. A new and growing society has every kind of moral want. The

necessity for education exists in a thousand forms; and if the friends

of it do not bestir themselves, the enemies will. The friends of the

Sunday School Union, in Michigan, feeling impressed with these views,

issued a circular this day, making an appeal which deserves a hearty

response. Michigan mind appears very active in every department.

_17th_. Received a circular (from Messrs. Baloh & Wales, of Marshall,

Calhoun Co.) for the issue of an agricultural paper, adequate to the

wants of that interest.

_29th_. Dr. D. Houghton, the agent of the Geological Survey of the

State, which is in progress, commits to me, in a letter of this date,

the topic of the Indian terminology, and the bestowal of new names, from

the aboriginal vocabulary.

_30th_. An inquest was held this day, in Ionia, on the head waters of

Grand River, on the bodies of a woman and two children, supposed

(mistakingly) to have been murdered by the Indians. By the testimony

adduced, it is shown that a Mr. Aensel D. Glass, of whose family the

bodies consist, lived about four miles from the nearest neighbor. He had

not been seen since the 14th of the month. On the 28th, a Mr. Hiram

Brown, one of his nearest neighbors, went there on business, and found

the house burned, and the bodies of his wife and children lying half

burned in the area of the house (which was of logs), having been

previously most horribly mutilated. No trace could be found of Mr.

Glass, nor of a good rifle, two axes, and two barrels of flour, which he

was known to have had.

Suspicion first fell on the Grand River Ottawas. I investigated the

subject, and found this unjust. They are a peaceable, orderly,

agricultural people, friendly to the settlers, and having no cause of

dislike to them. Suspicion next fell on the Saginaws, who hunt in that

quarter, and whose character has not recovered from the imputation of

murder and plunder committed during the war of 1812. Petossegay was

named as the probable aggressor. But on an investigation made by Mr.

Conner, at Saginaw, this imputation was also found improbable, and he

was dismissed, leaving the horrible mystery unexplained.[84]

[Footnote 84: Mr. Glass was subsequently, in 1841, found alive in

Wisconsin.]

_April 1st_. Dr. Samuel George Morton, of Philadelphia, who is preparing

a comprehensive work on aboriginal crania, writes:--"Your obliging

letter, offering me any information you might possess that would promote

my work on the skulls of the American tribes, makes me free to put to

you the following inquiries, inasmuch as I am desirous of seeing as many

tribes, and as many individuals as possible, in a limited space of time.

"When will the next annual payment be made at Mackinaw, and how many

tribes, and what number of people do you think will assemble on

that occasion?

"If I visit Mackinaw, can I readily cross the country to the

Mississippi, and what length of time will be required on the journey?

"It is my intention to visit Mackinaw, or any adjacent place, that, in

your judgment, will give me the greatest opportunity for seeing the

Indians, and I shall await your advice thereon.

"My work progresses rapidly. Twenty of sixty plates are already

finished, and I hope to complete the work before the close of the year.

I shall soon have an opportunity of forwarding, as far as Detroit, a set

of my plates for your inspection and acceptance."

_10th_. Washington Irving writes: "I have to acknowledge the receipt of

a letter informing me of my having been elected an honorary member of

the Michigan Historical Society, of which, I perceive, you are

President. Not being able to make out the name of the Corresponding

Secretary, I have to ask the favor of you to assure the Society of the

deep sense I entertain of the honor they have done me, and my ready

disposition to promote the views of so meritorious an institution." What

is worthy of note herein is this, that the name which the distinguished

writer could not make out, is that of one of our most fluent penmen,

namely, C.C. Trowbridge, Esq., but who, on scrutiny, I perceive, writes

his name worse than anything else, and so inconceivably bad that a

stranger might not be able to guess it.

_16th_. Mr. John T. Blois, who is engaged on a Gazetteer of the State of

Michigan, acknowledges the receipt from me of some details respecting

the statistical and topographical departments of his work. The

difficulty to be met with by all gazetteers of the new States, consists

in this, that most classes of the data alter so much in a few years that

the books do not present the true state of things. Towns and counties

spring up like magic, and if old Aladdin had his lamp he could not more

expeditiously cover the shores of streams, and valleys, and plains, with

seats, mills, and various institutions belonging to our system.[85]

[Footnote 85: This was proved by the result. The work was published in

Oct., 1838, and was a very creditable performance, but the author had

been two or three or even four years about it, and the information was

just this time out of date.]

_19th_. A memorial is got up in Ionia County, on Grand River, respecting

the Indians, their feelings and their affairs. In it facts are

distorted, opinions misapprehended, and the acts and policy of the

government and its agents greatly misconceived in some things, and

wholly misrepresented in others. And the paper, when examined by the

lights of treaties and acts, as they really occurred, is to be regarded

as the work of some ambitious man who wishes to get on the backs of the

Indians to ride into office, or to promote, in some other way, selfish

and concealed ends. All such attempts, though they may seem to "run

well" for a time, and may result in temporary success, may be safely

left to the counteraction of right opinions. For it has always remained

an axiom of truth, verified by every day's experience, "That he that

diggeth a pit for his neighbor shall himself fall into it."

_20th_. General Jo. M. Brown, of the militia, who with the valor of the

redoubtable Peter Stuyvesant at Christina, marched into Toledo,

"brimful of wrath and cabbage," transmits the above precious memorial,

not to the Department, or the President, to whom it is ostensibly

addressed, but to the editor of a political party paper at Detroit, to

"manufacture" public opinion, claiming, at the same time, very high

motives for so very disinterested an act, in which the good of the

Indians, and the integrity of public faith, are clearly held forth as

the aim of the writer. The editor endorsing it with most high-sounding

phrases, in which he speaks of it as taking fit place beside the most

atrocious fictions, which have been conjured up by mistaken heads and

zealous hearts, anxious to ride the aforesaid "Indian question," in

relation to the Cherokees and Florida Indians. When all this

grandiloquent display of parental sympathy, and a sense of outraged

justice, is stripped of its false garbs and put into the crucible of

truth, the result is, that political capital can be made just now of the

handling of the topic. A delay of a few months (owing to the fiscal

crisis at Washington) in the payment of half the annuity for the year,

and the neglect or refusal of a few bands to come for the other moiety,

as ready in silver, and paid at the stipulated time and place, is made

the subject of allusion in this political hue and cry. As to these

bands, they are the most peaceable, corn-planting, and semi-agricultural

bands in the State. They have been pre-eminently cultivators from an

early date of their history, and have been so characteristically

addicted to barter, in the products of their industry as to be called by

the other Algonquin bands, Ottawas, or traders from the days of

Champlain. They had probably as little to do with the Glass murder in

Ionia, which is alleged as an instance of hostility to the United

States, as Gen. Jo. M. Brown himself.

_20th_. Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz, one of our female writers, in a note of

acknowledgment to the Hist. Soc., falls into the same quandary about

making out the signature of one of our most expert and beautiful penmen,

that Washington Irving did. She could by no means make out Mr.

Trowbridge's name, and addressed her reply to me.

_21st_. Having passed the winter at Detroit, I left the Superintendency

office in charge of Mr. Lee, an efficient clerk, and embraced the

sailing of one of the earliest vessels for the Upper Lakes, to return to

Michilimackinack. Winter still showed some of its aspects there,

although gardening at Detroit had been commenced for weeks. The

difference in latitude is nearly four and a half degrees; the

geographical distance is computed by mariners at 300 miles.

_May 1st._ In a communication from Mr. J. Toulmin Smith, he expresses

his anxiety to procure some Indian skulls from the tribes of the Upper

Lakes, to be employed in his lectures on phrenology; and, also, for the

purpose of transmission to London. This gentleman lectured acceptably on

this topic during the winter at Detroit. During these lectures, I gave

him the skull of Etowigezhik, a Chippewa, who was killed on Mr. Conner's

farm about four or five years ago. He pronounced the anterior portion to

exceed in measurement by one-half an inch the posterior, and drew

conclusions favorable to the natural intellect.

_10th_. The Cherokee question assumes a definite crisis. Gen. Scott

issues, under this date, a friendly proclamation to the Cherokees,

calling on them to remove peaceably, under the terms of the treaty of

1835, telling them that more than two years had already elapsed after

the time agreed on, and that they would be provided, in their removal to

the west of the Mississippi, with food, clothing, and every means of

transportation; and making a just and humane appeal to their sense of

justice to remote; but assuring them that, if these considerations were

allowed to pass unheeded, his instructions were imperative, and he had

an army at his command, and would be compelled to order it to act in the

premises. Such an appeal must be successful.

However much we may sympathize with the poetic view of the subject, and

admire that spirit of the human heart which loves to linger about its

ancient seats and homes, the question in this case has assumed a purely

practical aspect founded on public transactions, which cannot be

recalled. The inaptitude of the Indian tribes generally, for conducting

the business of self-government, and their want of a wise foresight in

anticipating the relative power and position of the two great opposing

races in America, namely, the white and red, has been the primary cause

of all their treaty difficulties. The treaties themselves are not

violated in any respect, but being written by lawyers and legalists, the

true intent of some of these provisions, or the relative condition of

the parties at a given time, are not sometimes fully appreciated; and at

other times, the Indian chiefs exercise diplomatic functions which their

nation has not restored, as in the case of the Creeks of Georgia, or to

the exercise of which the majority are actually opposed, as in the

treaty of New Echota with the Cherokees. Some of their most intelligent

and best minds led the way to and signed the treaty of final cession of

New Echota, in 1835. But the compensation being found ample, and the

provisions wise, and such as would, in the judgment of the United States

Senate, secure their prosperity and advancement permanently, that body,

on large consideration, yielded its assent, making, at the same time,

further concessions to satisfy the malcontents. These are the final

arrangements for leaving the land to which Gen. Scott, in his

proclamation, alludes.

This tribe has lived in its present central position longer than the

period of exact history denotes. They are first heard of under the name

of "Achalaques," by the narrator of De Soto's Conquest of Florida, in

1540; within a dozen years of three centuries ago.

_June 2d_. I proceeded, during the latter part of May, to visit the

Ottawas of the southern part of Michigan, to inquire about their schools

under the treaty of '36, and to learn, personally, their condition

during the state of the rapid settlements pressing around them. I went

to Chicago by steamboat, and there found a schooner for Grand River.

Here I was pleased to meet our old pastor, Mr. Ferry, as a proprietor

and pastor of the newly-planned town of Grand Haven. I had to wait here,

some days, for a conveyance to the Grand Rapids, which gave me time to

ramble, with my little son, about the sandy eminences of the

neighborhood, and to pluck the early spring flowers in the valley. The

"Washtenong," a small steamer with a stern-wheel, in due time carried us

up. Among the passengers was an emigrant English family from Canada, who

landed at a log house in the woods. I was invited, at the Rapids, to

take lodgings with Mr. Lewis Campeau, the proprietor of the village. The

fall of Grand River here creates an ample water power. The surrounding

country is one of the most beautiful and fertile imaginable, and its

rise to wealth and populousness must be a mere question of time, and

that time hurried on by a speed that is astonishing. This generation

will hardly be in their graves before it will have the growth and

improvements which, in other countries, are the results of centuries.

_5th_. I this day, in a public council at the court house, paid the

Indians the deferred half annuity of last year (1837) in silver coin,

and afterwards concluded a treaty with them, modifying the treaty of

28th March, 1836, so far as to make it obligatory on the government to

pay their annuities here instead of Michilimackinack. The annuities in

salt, tobacco, provisions and goods, were also delivered to them by

agents appointed for the purpose. They expressed themselves, and

appeared to be highly gratified, with the just fulfilment of every

treaty obligation, and with the kind and benevolent policy and treatment

of the American government.

I took this occasion to call their attention to the murder of the Glass

family in Ionia, in the month of March last. They utterly disclaimed it,

or any participation of any kind in its perpetration. They agreed to

send delegates west, in accordance with the 8th art. of the treaty of

'36, to explore the country on the sources of the Osage River, for their

future permanent residence. They were well content with their teachers

and missionaries of all denominations. The Chief Nawequageezhig, in

particular, spoke with a commanding voice and just appreciation on the

subject, which evinced no ordinary mental elevation, purpose

and dignity.

_11th_. George Bancroft, Esq., of Boston, in a letter of this date,

observes: "I can only repeat, what before I have urged on you, to

collect all the materials that can illustrate the language, character

and origin of the natives, and the early settlement of the French." The

encouragement I receive from my literary and scientific friends, and

which has been continued these many years, is, indeed, of a character

which is calculated to stimulate to new exertions, although the love for

such exertions pre-exists. I do not know that I shall live to make use

of the materials I collect, or that I have the capacity to digest and

employ them; but if not, they may be useful in the hands of

other laborers.

_16th_. Office of Indian Affairs, Michilimackinack. On returning from

Grand River, I observed a continuation of the misrepresentations begun

last winter, respecting the Indian policy and proceedings of the

Department. A ground for these misconceptions, and in some things,

perversions, arose from the _goods' offer_ for the half annuity, made in

1837. This offer being rejected by the Michigan Indians, was renewed to

those of Wisconsin, and accepted by the Menomonies of Green Bay. Traders

and merchants who were expecting the usual payments of cash annuities to

the Indians, were sorely disappointed by finding a single tribe in the

lake country paid in merchandise. The policy itself was a bad one, and

denoted the inexperience and consequent unfitness of Mr. Carey A. Harris

for the post of Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington. I

anticipated the storm it would raise on the frontiers, and, when the

project was transmitted to me, did not attempt to influence my Indians

(the Michigan Indians) to accept or reject it, but left it entirely to

their own judgments, after appointing two honest men to show the goods

and state the prices. A less impartial course appears to have been

pursued at Green Bay, where this policy of the "goods offer" of 1837 was

loudly called in question. I had shielded the tribes under my care from

it, and should have had credit for it from all honest and candid men,

but finding no disposition in some quarters to discriminate, I

immediately, on reaching home, sat down and wrote a plain and clear

statement of the affair for the public press, and having thus satisfied

my sense of justice and truth, left others, who had acted wholly out of

my jurisdiction and influence, to vindicate themselves. J.W. Edmonds,

Esq., and Maj. John Garland, who had been chief actors in the matter,

did so. But it seemed like talking against a whirlwind. The whole action

of this offer, on the Michigan Indians, _was to postpone, by their own

consent_, the payment of the half annuity in coin one year.

The Grand River Indians declined to come to Mackinack, the place

specially named in the treaty, to receive their half annuity, in

consequence of which, it was not practicable to send it to them till the

next spring. I paid it myself on the 5th of June, 1848, in silver. Yet

the rumor of gross injustice to the Indians only gained force as it

spread. The Grand River memorialists made "nuts" of it, and General Jim

Wilson wielded it for my benefit, in his classical stump speeches in New

Hampshire. I had carefully shielded my Indians from a cent's loss, yet

my name was pitched into the general condemnation, like the thirteenth

biscuit in a baker's dozen. Nothing rolls up so fast as a lie, when once

afloat.[86]

[Footnote 86: Harris felt disobliged by my independence of action

respecting the "goods offer." He had, in fact, been overreached by a

noted commercial house, who dealt heavily in Indian goods in New York,

who sold him the goods on credit; but who actually collected the

_specie_ from the western land offices, on public drafts, before the

year expired. He vented this pique officially, by suspending my report

of Oct. 18th, 1837, on the debt claims against the Indians, finally

_assumed_ powers in relation to them, directly subversive of the

principles of the treaty of March 28th, 1836, which had been negotiated

by me, and referred them for revision to a more supple agent of his

wishes at New York, who had been one of the efficient actors in the

"goods offer" at Green Bay, Wisconsin, as above detailed.]

CHAPTER LXIII.

Missions--Hard times, consequent on over-speculation--Question of the

rise of the lakes--Scientific theory--Trip to Washington--Trip to Lake

Superior and the Straits of St. Mary--John Tanner--Indian improvements

north of Michilimackinack--Great cave--Isle Nabiquon--Superstitious

ideas of the Indians connected with females--Scotch

royals--McKenzie--Climate of the United States--Foreign coins and

natural history--Antique fort in Adams County, Ohio--Royal Society of

Northern Antiquaries--Statistics of lands purchased from the

Indians--Sun's eclipse--Government payments.

1838. _June 18th_. W. Lowrie, Esq., Missionary Rooms, N.Y., announces

the sending of an agent to explore the missionary field, which it is

proposed to occupy by the Presbyterian Board, in the region of Lake

Michigan, bespeaking my friendly offices to the agent.

The plethora of success which has animated every department of life and

business, puffing them up like gas in a balloon, since about '35 has

departed and left the fiscal system perfectly flaccid and lifeless. The

rage for speculation in real estate has absorbed all loose cash, and the

country is now groaning for its fast-locked circulating medium. A friend

at Detroit writes: "With fifty thousand dollars of productive real

estate in the city, and as much more in stocks and mortgages, I am

absolutely in want of small sums to pay my current expenses, and to rid

myself of the mortification produced by this feeling I am prepared to

make almost any sacrifice."

_27th_. Received a communication from the chief engineer of the New York

canal (Alfred Barrett, Esq.) on the subject of the rise of water in the

lakes. "A question of considerable importance," he says, "has arisen in

our State Legislature, in relation to the rise of water in Lake Erie.

The lake has been gradually increasing in its height for the last ten

years, and has gained an elevation of four feet above that of 1826. The

inhabitants along the shores of the lake as far as Detroit, upon both

sides, and many throughout our State, have been led to attribute this

increase to the erection of the State and the United States pier at the

outlet of the lake, opposite Black Rock, which presents an obstruction

to the action of the river. But this evidently is not the only cause of

the rise of the lake, for, by observation, we find the Niagara River

below the dam, and the surface of Lake Ontario, to have increased in the

same ratio in the same time. Lake Ontario is four feet higher than it

was in 1826.