Chapter V: Introduction: By Reuben G. Thwaites (3)

There was much delay in adopting the plan; but after summering and wintering as best they could, however, among their friends outside, the inhabitants were gratified with the news that April 21, 1806, Congress had authorized the Governor and judges to lay out a new town, build a court-house and jail, dispose of ten thousand acres near, give former owners and householders lots, convey lots to others and in general settle all details therewith connected. It was not, however, until September 6, 1806, or four months after the date of the act, that the Governor and judges held their first meeting. Interminable slowness seems to have been their purpose; plans and counter-plans, change and repeated change in surveys, their method. Lots were numbered and renumbered, streets laid out on paper, obliterated and then laid out anew in new directions and locations. Decisions were bandied about and referred from one person or authority to another, and questions of ownership of lots, like a shuttlecock, were tossed to and fro. Plans were prepared, approved, used and then discarded. Every new difficulty and scheme seemed to give rise to new and radically different lot outlines and numbers. Lots were capriciously granted and as capriciously withdrawn. Without bond or books of account, without method other than the method of not leaving any record of what moneys were received or how expended, they did as they pleased. As a result, for a year and a half after the fire there was not a single house erected, and up to May, 1807, deeds had been given for only nineteen lots. Meantime, the débris of the fire covered the site of the ancient village, the blackened stone chimneys standing as monuments of the disaster and of the incompetency or worse of those in authority.

The three judges and the Governor in themselves possessed all power, legislative, executive, judicial. They made laws, built court-houses, issued scrip, laid out streets and lots, gave away lots to churches, schools, societies and individuals and were practically "Lords of the Manor of Detroit." The adoption of laws from the original thirteen States, which was all that they were authorized to do, became under their methods a mere burlesque. A writer of that period openly charged, and exaggerated but little in saying, that they would

"parade the laws of the original States before them on the
table, and cull letters from the laws of Maryland, syllables
from the laws of Virginia, words from the laws of New York,
sentences from the laws of Pennsylvania, verses from the laws
of Kentucky, and chapters from the laws of Connecticut."

It is due to one or two of those associated as judges during a part of this régime, to say that Judge Woodward, who was in office for the entire period, was very largely responsible for the conditions that existed. The accession of General Cass as Governor, the establishing of the _Detroit Gazette_, which exposed the proceedings, and the coming of new immigrants finally secured sentiment and people sufficient to have a General Assembly. And with freer discussion and elective methods, order began to reign after twenty years of disorder.

In military matters Detroit has had an almost continuous series of startling experiences. Indians, French, English, and Americans have all struggled in and about the city. Blockhouses, stockades, forts, and cannon have defended it. Stories of attacks, sieges, battles, massacres, and conspiracies crowd its annals. The tramp of regiments, the challenge of sentinels, the bugle-call, the drum-beat, and the war-whoop of the savage were familiar sounds in its past.

Within two years after Fort Pontchartrain was erected, hostile Indians surrounded the stockade, and at varying intervals during many subsequent years the savages sought to dislodge the French and destroy their fortifications. The French traders, however, soon demonstrated that they were willing to deal more liberally than the English, and there can be no doubt but that many Indians came to prefer French methods and manners, for they finally united with the French during the French and Indian War in attacking the English settlements. The victory of Wolfe at Quebec in 1759 and the consequent surrender of Detroit to the English did not please the Indians, and before the final treaty of peace was signed, Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, who had declared his intention to "stand in the path," formed his conspiracy to overthrow all the English posts. He secured the co-operation of a number of tribes and in May, 1763, prepared to strike at Detroit. Fortunately, as has happened more than once in similar plots, female sympathy and tenderness caused the revelation of his design. An Indian maiden gave warning to Gladwin, then commanding at Detroit, who made preparations to foil the conspirators. On the morning of May 7th, Pontiac and a number of his warriors sought admission to the fort.

On arriving at the gateway,[4] Pontiac and his warriors were freely admitted, but found the garrison under arms, the cannons loaded for service and the inhabitants ready for battle. At a glance he foresaw the certain failure of his scheme, and after being warned by Gladwin that his plot had been discovered, he retired still protesting friendship. Within a day or two afterwards he threw off all attempts at concealment, summoned his warriors, massacred several persons on the island now known as Belle Isle and commenced a siege which lasted for five weary months. During the siege, the garrison was relieved several times by provisions and ammunition from Niagara, and on July 29th, by the arrival of 280 soldiers commanded by Captain Dalyell together with 20 rangers from New Hampshire under Major Robert Rogers. Captain Dalyell now determined to "turn the tables" by an attack on the Indians. Gladwin opposed the idea, but was compelled to yield, and on July 31st 250 troops in three detachments marched against the savages. Pontiac in some way was informed of the plan and, ambushed on the border of Parents' Creek, afterwards called Bloody Run, awaited the approach of the soldiers. As the latter reached a small bridge that then crossed the stream not far from what is now the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Adair Street, they heard the war-whoop of the Indians and from every side bullets thinned their ranks. Dalyell and seventeen others were killed, nearly forty soldiers wounded and several captured. Within six hours after this ignominious failure, the rest were glad to be within the shelter of the stockade.

The siege was then renewed with increased vigor until at last General Gage of Boston determined to send a force large enough to subdue the Indians. Accordingly, Colonel Bradstreet was put in command of a combined force of 100 friendly Indians, 900 Canadians, and a detachment of 219 Connecticut militia in charge of the noted Israel Putnam. They came by water from Albany and reached Detroit on August 26, 1764. Their bateaux and barges blocked the river; the display of flags and force alarmed the Indians, and made them yield before an army such as they had never seen before.

Meantime the war-clouds of the Revolution were gathering. The common impression is that the war was fought in the East, around Boston and New York. The important events that occurred at Detroit are usually ignored; that, too, in spite of the fact that at no other point was so much use made of the Indians by the English.

King George and his ministers evidently feared that, unless kept busy defending their homes, the hardy settlers of Western Virginia and Tennessee would aid their brother colonists in the East. In order to prevent them from so doing, deliberate and pitiless plans were made to incite the Indians against the western settlers. Indians were invited to Detroit from as far west and south as Arkansas, and gathered here by thousands. They were feasted, clothed and furnished with guns, scalping-knives, and tomahawks. Blankets, shirts, scarlet cloth and other things were given. The value of the requisitions for this post in a single year reached hundreds of thousands of dollars. The writer has personally seen the original record of the supplying of "sixteen gross of red-handled scalping-knives." Fully equipped, they set forth on their forays, returning with men, women, and children as prisoners, and with many scalps. The expedition which perpetrated the "Massacre of Wyoming" was equipped at this post, as was also the expedition of Captain Bird against Kentucky at a cost of over $300,000. The writer has an original account book of that period giving the names and pay per diem of the French who as guides and interpreters accompanied the English and Indians on some of their raids. The noted Daniel Boone was brought as a prisoner to Detroit after one of these expeditions. After the return of each party the guns of the fort were fired, the prisoners and scalps were counted and recorded, and again the Indians were feasted and given presents.

It was during these days that Col. A.S. De Peyster was in command at Detroit, but he was not in full sympathy with such savage warfare. It will be remembered that it was to him that Burns, while in his sick-chamber, dedicated his last poem, on "Life," beginning:

"My honored Colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the poet's weal," etc.

De Peyster himself could turn a bit of society verse. On one occasion he addressed the following lines to the wife of Lieutenant Pool England, then at Detroit:

"Accept, fair Ann, I do beseech,
This tempting gift, a clingstone peach,
The finest fruit I culled from three,
Which you may safely take from me.
Should Pool request to share the favor,
Eat you the peach, give him the flavor;
Which surely he can't take amiss,
When 't is so heightened by your kiss."

The English officers then at Detroit did not have an easy life. There were resident rebel Americans who made much trouble--some of whom were sent away and others fined. American prisoners, too, were brought here. Some were compelled to work in the streets, in ball and chain, and others were forced to cut wood on Belle Isle.

At last Detroit and the West were yielded by treaty to the United States, but on one pretext or another they were not actually surrendered until July 11, 1796. On that day Fort Lernoult for the first time displayed the Stars and Stripes.[5]

The animosities growing out of the Revolutionary War were not allayed by the peace declarations. The Indians continued to hold allegiance to King George, and frequently massacred Americans. British officials on various occasions assumed such authority that at last there came a renewal of strife and the War of 1812. Again Detroit became a focal point. Twelve hundred troops from Ohio, under command of Governor Hull, were soon marching hither to secure the safety of Detroit. Governor Hull's trunk, containing military papers and plans of great value, which had been sent by boat, was captured near Malden, Canada, by the British who had apparently received the earliest announcement of the declaration of war. Governor Hull arrived at Detroit July 5th, soon afterward crossed to Canada and issued a proclamation, but a few days later returned without having accomplished any results of value. On August 16th, without any reasonable excuse, and without the firing of a single gun, he surrendered his entire force and all of the territory under his control to General Brock. He was tried and found guilty of cowardice, unofficer-like conduct and neglect of duty. In his memoirs, Governor Hull, trying to defend himself, seeks to make Secretary of War Eustis a fool or a traitor, Gen. H.A. Dearborn a knave, and Colonel Cass a conspirator. Original letters and testimony, however, from President Madison, ex-President Jefferson, and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams show that Governor Hull was justly condemned. On September 29, 1813, as the result of Commodore Perry's notable victory of September 10th, the whole region was restored to American control.

Detroit's interest in several local and subsequent wars was large, but the unimportance of some and the well-known results of others make comment thereon unnecessary.

While these varied historical events were taking place, the city was steadily gathering to itself prestige and reputation. Its houses now excel in number and beauty, its streets, wide and well paved, are edged with the smoothest of stone walks and lined with elms, maples, and grassy lawns. The distinctive buildings of the municipality, its court-houses, schools, police stations, water-works, and engine houses are remarkable for their excellent architecture and well-kept condition. The churches, by their number and in their construction, indicate the possession of religious desire and æsthetic taste. The manufacturing interests of Detroit are varied. Its commercial representatives are found in almost every country, and "Detroit" stoves, drugs, and chemicals are known in every clime. We have numerous parks, but Belle Isle is indeed the priceless jewel in the crown of Detroit: woods of green and waters of blue, art and nature, moving waves and waving grass, stillness and activity, vistas and broad views, beautiful flowers and lofty trees, the white sails of numerous vessels, and the swift motions of great steamers all alike are combined in the captivating beauties of this favored place.

Besides serving as a charm to drive away care, our beautiful river gives us one of the greatest ports in the world. More tonnage passes annually through "the Detroit" than in the same time enters and clears the combined ports of London and Liverpool. During the season nearly four hundred vessels pass daily, bearing more grain and minerals than traverse any other stream in the world. The city is a central starting-point for reaching all northern summer resorts, and more steamboat passengers arrive and depart from our wharves than from any others on the Lakes. The stream that attracted the earliest visitors attracts later ones as well. The river never overflows and therefore is never a menace, but always a joy and blessing. Yachts, sail-boats, barges, shells, ferries, steamers, and great "whale-backs" fly and ply over it, and in the season it is a panorama of beauty, gay with music, streamers, and happy _voyageurs_.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Under treaty stipulations negro and Indian slaves were held until Michigan became a State. Detroit has always had to do with slavery questions. Before the Civil War it was an important station on the "Underground Railroad," and occasionally slaves were seized on our streets. Some of the conspicuous leaders of the party that secured the abolition of slavery lived at one time or another in Detroit. General Grant's home may still be seen. United States Senator Zachariah Chandler of "blood-letting letter" fame was one of our oldest merchants, and the notable "fire-in-the-rear" editorial appeared in a local paper.

[4] The gateway was located on what is now the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Griswold Street, and a bronze tablet there erected bears a representation of an Indian warrior and the following inscription:

"This Tablet designates the site of one of the gateways of Fort
Detroit. The original stockade was known as Fort Pontchartrain
and was erected when the city was founded in 1701.

"Through the gateway here located Pontiac, the Ottawa chief,
with a band of Indians, passed on May seventh, 1763, intending
to surprise and massacre the garrison.

"The exposure of his plot on the previous day caused the defeat
of his plans and gave the English the supremacy in this region
until the close of the Revolutionary War."

[5] The Post-office on Fort Street, which occupies a portion of the site of this fort, displays at its southerly entrance a tablet erected in 1896 which bears the following inscription:

"This Tablet designates the site of an
English Fort erected in 1778 by
Major R.B. Lernoult as a defense
against the Americans. It was subsequently
called Fort Shelby, in honor
of Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky,
and was demolished in 1826.

The evacuation of this Fort by the
British at 12 o'clock noon, July 11th,
1796, was the closing act of the War
of Independence.

On that day the American Flag was
for the first time raised over this
soil, all of what was then known
as the Western Territory becoming
at that time part of the Federal Union."

MACKINAC

"THE HOME OF THE GIANT FAIRIES"

BY SARA ANDREW SHAFER

At the northernmost point of the meeting of the waters of the mighty trio of lakes which divide the States of the Middle West from the Dominion of Canada, lies an archipelago in size and beauty like that of the

"Sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily that o'erlace the sea,
And laugh their pride when the light waves
whisper 'Greece.'"

An old writer says that there are two-and-thirty thousand of them, great and small, clustered chiefly where Huron leans her head to meet those of Michigan and Superior, "as if they were discussing some great matter." Perhaps they are talking over the old days and the things and people they knew long ago. Perhaps they speak of the morning when, according to an old saga, the worshippers of the Rising Sun in February saw the Island like a great turtle--_Nocchenemockenung_--rise slowly out of the water, to become the home of the Giant Fairies of the Michsawgyegan, or Lake Country, and to be a place of refuge for the vanished peoples, whose names are as the sound of many waters for beauty and for harmony. Perhaps they tell of the wild, free life of those roving, painted bands of fishers, trappers, and hunters which make pictures of so much action and color against the ever-shifting background of these seas and shores. Perhaps they tell of the coming of the Black Robes in the days when the lilies of France had no fear of the lion of England, and the eagle of the American Republic was as yet unthought of. There are things enough of which the Lakes may speak as their waves lapse on the beach of

"This precious stone set in a silver sea."

Occupying as it does, one of the most important strategic points in the new world, it is not strange that the Island of Mackinac should have a rich and varied history, and that in its earlier Indian-French form "Michilimackinac was a word familiar in the cabinets of European monarchs before it was known to people dwelling along the Atlantic." The name was given not only to pioneer settlements on either side of the Straits, but also to a vast province which reached as far south as the Ohio River and as far west as the Red River of the North. The Straits are but a dozen miles in width, and the Island but nine miles in circumference, but whether it be frozen in the long clasp of "Peboan, the Winter," when the white, endless snows are marked only by the dark accents of evergreens on islet and mainland, over which the cold stars look down, or the Northern Lights flame and fade; whether it be decked with the unspeakable splendors of its early autumn, or rejoices with the sudden coming of its tardy summer, it is a land whose beauty is indescribable, and whose spell is supreme.

The village numbers many thousand flitting folk in summer, but it has less than eight hundred permanent residents. It lies along the perfect crescent of a bay worn into the southeastern end of the Island, at the foot of the cliffs, upon which the long lines of the fort stand sentinel, and is a curious conglomeration of huge caravanserai, summer villa, shop, fish-house, pier, half-French, half-Indian cottage, and church. Old days and new meet over and over again in the little streets, where, in the soft _patois_ of the _habitants_, in the names they bear, and in many of their strongly marked faces, much of the Island's story is suggested. St. Ann's is a true daughter of the first chapels built by the old heroes of the Church. The Mission House tells of the earnest early efforts to teach the tenets and virtues of Calvinism to the savages, made by the reverend geographer, Morse, father of Morse of the electric telegraph, and Mr. Ferry, whose son, born in the village, ably represented Michigan in the Senate of the United States.

Where the fort garden now stands once stood the agency, then the centre of the vast trade of the fur companies. Within its walls Henry Schoolcraft wrote down the precious results of his studies in Indian dialect and folk-lore, from which, as from a root, sprang the perfect flower of our one native epic, _Hiawatha_. Not to have read _Hiawatha_ with the pine-spiced winds of the north blowing upon the page, with the magnificent prospect of the Straits before one's eyes, lifted while a page is turned, and with the waves breaking into a thousand jewels against the rocks at one's feet, is hardly to have read _Hiawatha_ at all.

The Fort is the successor of the feeble early posts set up by the pioneers of France. The great propellers and the swift-winged yachts that throng the summer waters are of a kindred with the birch canoe, most poetic of all water craft--own brother to the violin by reason of the perfect beauty of its lines, having in it

"All the mystery and magic"

of the woodland and the wood life. As of old, the deep wild roses and the frail harebells cling to the cliffs; as of old, in the gorges hushed into fragrant silence by pine and larch and hemlock, arbor-vitæ and juniper, beech, and birch, the shy, delicate flora of the north finds shelter. As of old, the winds try their strength against the splendid masonry of the curious limestone formations for which the place is noted, the Arch Rock, the Fairy Arch, the Chimney Rock, the Sugar Loaf, Scott's Cave, Skull Cave, the Devil's Kitchen. Around each of these the legends cluster like bees about a linden-tree in blossom, but how can they be forgiven whose crass stupidity gave them these commonplace titles and who have lost for us their Indian names?

In the days when New France "had two fountain heads, one in the cane brakes of Louisiana, and the other in the snows of Canada," a charter was given by Louis XIII. to the Hundred Association Company, which was thereby invested with rights almost monarchical, together with injunctions to do all that was possible for Holy Church which was consistent with the keeping of a watchful eye upon such earthly advantages as might accrue from a monopoly of the fur trade and the acquisition of new territory. It was in 1634, under the governorship of Champlain, that Jean Nicolet, a fearless explorer, well versed in woodcraft and in the speech of many aboriginal tribes, was the first paleface to see the white cliffs of Mackinac, as he was also the first to carry back to civilization tidings of a great new sea, the Lac des Ilinese, or Michigan, which he had discovered. That he perished by the capsizing of his canoe in the St. Lawrence River was a great loss to the infant colonies to whom his sixteen years' experience in frontier life would have been very valuable. The path he opened, was, however, soon followed by others. The explorers and traders, Des Grosselliers, Radisson, Perrot, and their fellows did for the world what the Jesuits, the Recollets, and the Sulpicians did for the Church. It is in the _Relations_ sent home by the priests that we learn what were the trials overcome by those dauntless sons of "the sturdy North." Perhaps from no country but France, and in no other years than the glittering, romantic, covetous, daring, devoted years of the seventeenth century, could have come adventurers so tireless and churchmen so selfless as these. To read their simple, patient chronicles is to have new belief in man, new faith in the Church Universal, "which is the blessed company of all faithful people," and to clasp hands across years and above creeds with those courageous pioneers and with those humble saints.

The story of Mackinac is for many years the story of the French in Canada. "Not a cape was turned," says Parkman, "not a river was entered, but a Jesuit led the way." Every year the establishment of new posts pushed the realms of the Unknown Territory nearer and nearer to the sunset. Poor little posts they were, slenderly garrisoned, and feebly armed, but beside each one rose a chapel and a cross where the "bloody salvages" might learn, if they would, the religion of the fathers. The missionaries made, perhaps, but few converts to their faith, but they made many friends for their country by their kindly offices to the sick, the aged, the dying, and the infant, by the gentleness and urbanity of their high breeding, and by the perpetual sacrifice of their lives of love and loyalty. Of their hardships we can only read between the lines of their brave, uncomplaining _Relations_, but what litanies of pain, sorrow, and disappointment, what _Te Deums_ of hope and rejoicing lie in these marks, oft recurring on their queer old maps:

[symbol] _marque des villages sauvages_
[symbol] _marque des etablissements françois._

By 1668 many missions were strung along the waterways. The Island was the centre of a thriving trade, had thirty native villages, and a palisaded enclosure for defence, and a year later its shores were hallowed by the feet of "The Guardian Angel of the Ottawa Mission," Father Jacques Marquette.

Here, in what he called "the home of the fishes," and "the playground of all the winds of heaven," he spent the hard winter of 1669-70, going later to the first Fort Michilimackinac, at St. Ignace, where he built a log-and-bark chapel, and whence he wrote the letters which reflect his pure spirit, as a clear pool reflects a star. Ever alert, ever anxious, "_Ad Majoram Gloriam Dei_," to hear of new countries to be brought to Him, his great opportunity came when the tribes trooped past the Island on their way to the Sault Ste. Marie and the Great Congress, convened on the 14th of June, 1671, by the hardy Perrot. The French wanted to control the frontier trade; the Indians wished a market for their furs. To both peoples pomp and ceremony were natural and dear, so here, in all the splendor of war-paint and wampum, tomahawk, calumet, feathers, bows and arrows, and handsome furs came the braves of many tribes; in all the gay accoutrement of blanket-surtout, scarlet cap, fringed elk-skin leggins, rifle, and dagger-decked sash came the _coureurs des bois_ and the _voyageurs_; in the dignity of their uniforms came a handful of soldiers; with cross and cassock came the priests, to gather under a great wooden cross, to which the arms of France had been nailed, where, by a _procès verbal_, the overlordship of the Great West was assumed by Louis XIV.

Among the representatives of so many scattered savages, Father Marquette doubtless made the inquiries about and gained the knowledge concerning the Great Unknown River which served him in such good stead when, on the 17th of May, 1673, he started with Louis Joliet, five _voyageurs_, and in two canoes, on the voyage which made the Mississippi known to Europe. Of the honor coming from the discovery the good father never thought, but only with joy of new lands to which the message of the Cross could be carried. It is the story of a hero, the story of his short life and of his triumphant death, "alone, a Jesuit, and a Missionary," beside an obscure creek on the Michigan shore, on the 19th of May, 1675, in the eight-and-thirtieth year of his age. Descendants of his Ottawas and his Hurons still tell of his "bright hair, like the sun," and of the great funeral when, two years after his death, his body was brought back to St. Ignace. Whether the dust now held sacred was his or no, is of little moment. In the Book of Life, above and below, the name of Jacques Marquette has long been written, and like the blessing of peace his spirit rests upon the Northland.

In 1679, the _Griffin_, a little ship of sixty tons, took Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, and the garrulous, mendacious Recollet friar, Hennepin, past the Island on their way to the Great River, which they were to explore to the Gulf, and beside which the murdered body of the great Norman was to be flung. He only touched the Island, but the touch of La Salle was a royal accolade.

In 1688, La Honton, a soldier of unusual sagacity, noted the importance of the site, and in 1695 M. de la Motte Cadillac says that the fort, with its garrison of two hundred soldiers, and the village of Canadians and Indians to the number of six or seven thousand souls, made it one of the largest posts in Canada. Disputes between the commandant and the Jesuits, chiefly about the sale of liquor to the Indians, resulted in the discouragement of the priests, who, in 1705, burned their chapel and their school, and went back to Quebec. St. Ignace was then gradually abandoned for a second Michilimackinac on the southern peninsula.

When the French and English war was ended on the Plains of Abraham, George III. became indeed sovereign of the soil of Canada, but Louis XV. was lord of the hearts of too many French, half-breeds, and Indians to make the transfer of allegiance easy. Loves and hates and racial sympathies are not matters for cold diplomacy, and the people of the Northwest waited longingly for a leader who should give them again the light-hearted, friendly rule of the French, under which they had been far happier than they found themselves as subjects of the stern, alien English. In the person of an Ottawa chieftain, the most remarkable personage produced by the Indian race, the leader was found. In the brain of Pontiac, grim, far-seeing, fearless, heroic, there arose as a prophetic vision the assurance that English encroachments upon the rights of his people would never cease so long as they held a rod of ground coveted by an English eye. To avert the evils he foresaw, he planned the capture of all forts west of Niagara, the extermination of all English settlers, and the restoration to the Great Father at Versailles of the lands he had just lost. With incredible swiftness he formed the vast conspiracy whose story has been told, once for all, in the living pages of Parkman's narrative.

Whisperings of coming trouble had been heard at Fort Michilimackinac by Major Etherington, the commandant, but none of so serious a nature as to prevent the presence of the soldiery at a great game of baggatiway which was to be played in a field near the fort by rival companies of Sacs and Chippewas, in honor of the King's birthday, August 4, 1763. The game is a very intricate and brilliant one, requiring great agility and skill, and the participation of a large number of players. As was most natural, the excitement of the onlookers was intense, and when an apparently stray ball flew high over the palisades of the unprotected fort (which had been silently invaded by a crowd of squaws with weapons hidden under their blankets) and at least four hundred players in hot pursuit swarmed over the stockade, nothing was thought amiss, until the cries appropriate to the game changed into the war-whoop, and a massacre began. Of the English, all were either killed or made captive, except Alexander Henry, whose narrative curdles the blood even yet. This event led to the abandonment of the southern fort and the establishment of one on the Island.[6]

"It is now certain," writes Schoolcraft in 1834, "that the
occupancy of Old Michilimackinack--the Beekwutenong of the
Indians--was kept up by the British until 1774; between that
date and 1780 the flag was transferred ... the principal trade
went with it, the Indian intercourse likewise. Some residents
lingered a few years but the place was finally abandoned, and
the site is now covered with loose sand."

By the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, the Island was ceded by Great Britain to the United States. Possession was, however, withheld on one pretext or another, until 1796.

When the second war with England began, it was natural that one of the first points to be attacked should be the fort so commandingly situated. Far from all base of supplies and all possibility of rapid communication, the oft-repeated appeals of General Hull for an effective garrison at this and other important points were totally disregarded in Washington. Only fifty-seven soldiers were in residence in Mackinac when the British forces, 1021 strong, landed before dawn on the 17th of July, 1812, on a point nearly opposite St. Ignace. By eleven o'clock Captain Roberts sent a flag of truce, and a demand of surrender to Lieutenant Porter Hanks, who had had "no intimation" that a war between the powers had been declared until that moment. After considering the futility of resistance, and a consultation with the American traders in the village, with the valor which was ever bettered by discretion, he capitulated.

In August, 1814, an attempt was made to retake the Island. A battle was fought near the scene of the British landing two years before, in which battle Major Holmes and twelve privates were killed, and many men were wounded or missing. The routed Americans, under Colonel Croghan, withdrew to their ships. The Island finally passed into the keeping of the United States in 1815.

Then followed the great days of the fur companies, when the place was astir with a life so gay and vivid that only to hear of it stirs the blood of the untamed savage which centuries of the repressions of civilization have not routed from our hearts. Hundreds of hardy, ill-paid _engagés_, hundreds of happy-go-lucky, hard-working _voyageurs_ and _coureurs des bois_ and hundreds of Indians crowded into the hundreds of tents set up along the beach; into the log-houses of the primitive village, and into the huge barracks of the company, which counted and weighed the rich peltries they had gathered, paying them in return the miserable wages which in dancing, gambling, drinking, fighting, feasting and sleeping, were spent long before the _bateaux_ freighted with the poor necessities for the fast-coming winter were again rowed out toward the wilderness, the brave _chansons_ of the oarsmen growing fainter and fainter as the boats passed steadily out of sight.

An incident but little known connects the Island with one of the great mysteries of history,--the fate of the little son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. That the Dauphin did not die in the Temple, but had been secretly conveyed to America and had been placed among the Indians, was believed by persons whose opinions were entitled to respect; but that he might be found in the person of the Rev. Eleazar Williams, a half-breed missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church among the tribes about Green Bay, was a supposition stranger than any fiction. The story is too long to tell here,[7] but as it touches Mackinac at a single point, it must have a line in this chapter.

On the wharf of the moon-shaped bay, one bright day in October, 1841, a crowd was gathered to see the Prince de Joinville, son of Louis Philippe, then reigning in France, who was on his way to Green Bay, and who had stopped off at Mackinac to visit some of the natural curiosities of the place. A salute had been fired in honor of the royal sailor with true republican fervor, and while the steamer which had brought him waited his pleasure, the village was _en fête_. Waiting on the dock, and also about to embark for Green Bay, was the Rev. Eleazar Williams, who, before the boat left the bay, was, at the request of the Prince, presented to his Highness. The acquaintance thus begun led to disclosures which, if true, make the identity of the Dauphin and the missionary all but certain.

Wrapped in a legend, the Island of Mackinac comes into sight. With a thousand legends, its old fields, its cliffs, its caves, its gorges, its wooded glens, its shores, and its far, dim distances are haunted. With a thousand mysteries and bewilderments and witcheries it holds captive all who come within reach of its magic. With a mystery, which too may be but a legend, our story closes, as the light that smites the waters of the Straits into a myriad of glittering flakes paints on the sunset sky the old, old golden track which the Indians loved to call "the Path that leads Homeward."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The deed for the Island, bought from its Indian owners in 1781 by George III. for £5000, was long in possession of Dr. John R. Bailey, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel U.S.V., and author of a most interesting monograph on Mackinac. It is from its pages, and by his kind permission, that the Indian signatures to the document are here reproduced.

[7] For an admirable statement of the facts bearing upon this interesting problem, the reader is asked to turn to _My Notebook of the French Revolution_, by Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer (A.C. McClurg & Co.). The book upon which Mrs. Latimer has chiefly based her account, _The Lost Prince_, by the Rev. Mr. Hanson, has long been out of print, and is almost inaccessible.

INDIANAPOLIS

THE HOOSIER CAPITAL

BY PERRY S. HEATH

The visitor to the Hoosier capital familiar with the capital of the nation instantly observes a striking similarity between the two. Well he may, for Alexander Ralston, who carried the chains for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, and placed the stakes which fixed the lines and curves of the City of Magnificent Distances, was the surveyor of Indianapolis. When, in 1821, he carved out of the small cleared space in the centre of a great wilderness the plan just one mile square for Indianapolis, his architectural abilities and ambitions had more than a superficial justification. The result was perhaps the handsomest city between Philadelphia and Denver.

When Indianapolis was platted on the surveyor's map it had but 800 inhabitants. By the year 1840 the town had grown to 2672 inhabitants. There were only 48,244 souls in the city in 1870. But by 1890 the population had increased to 105,436, and the census of 1900 placed the population at 169,164. In the latter decade Indianapolis outstripped Rochester, New York, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, and Omaha in increase of population. And the area occupied by the city grew in three quarters of a century from one to twenty-seven square miles.

Entering Indianapolis to-day upon any one of the seventeen independent railroads operated by steam locomotives, or any one of the many interurban electric systems, the traveller is entranced, in passing the wide, asphalted avenues, by the magnificent view which carries the vision to the hub of the city, where the eye readily perceives the panorama of the State House, four or five magnificent hotels, some majestic club-houses, and the world-famed Soldiers' Monument in the Governor's Circle. The city is not one over which dense clouds of smoke hover daily, marks unmistakable of great manufacturing interests. The sky is usually clear. Natural gas and oil are largely employed as fuel for the production of steam. Where coal is used the consumers are largely located in the remote outskirts. During half the year the foliage from the splendid system of shade and other trees along the avenues and streets and in the parks clothes the city in a verdure producing a pleasing effect upon the vision and the atmosphere. In winter-time the well-paved streets and the universal system of cement sidewalks are ever under the enforcement of perfect city regulations, clear of snow and sleet and other impediments to boulevard driving and pedestrianism.

There is about the history of Indianapolis much of quaint Indian tradition and historical attractiveness. While almost every trace of the rural, or the virgin forests which were in view from any point a few years ago, has disappeared and modern structures and improvements abound, the visitor wherever he goes, cannot forget, that he is in a city which made great progress during the last half of the nineteenth century. On every hand this fact is illustrated. It was as late as April, 1816, that Congress authorized the construction of a constitution for the State. As recently as three quarters of a century ago the White River, on which Indianapolis is situated, was dotted from source to mouth, with the canoes of savages, and lined along its banks, in the dense wilderness, with Indian villages. The white man made his way in constant fear through the country. It is true that Vincennes had been settled by white people generations before, but its citizens had at this time few if any relations, social or commercial, with any other section of the Territory, and everywhere the red man continued to be a prime factor, holding and controlling the affairs of the domain. While the White and Wabash rivers in the interior furnished during a part of the year transportation by raft, the old buffalo trail from Vincennes to the Falls of the Ohio, cleared by immigrants, afforded the only safe outlet or inlet, and was in consequence a great thoroughfare. The Whetzels, known to history as the intrepid Indian fighters, paved the way through the Territory and made it possible for immigrants to find Indianapolis in its early days.

At the time this city was located and titled there was so much of Indian lore in the minds of the legislators, and in fact so much of the red man in the wilderness around, a constant source of apprehension, that great difficulty was found in securing a name for the new metropolis. Tecumseh, Suwarrow, Whetzel, Wayne, Delaware, and other names familiar to the paleface hunted by or hunting the red man, were suggested. Finally Mr. Samuel Merrill, a name significant in the modern history of Indiana and Indianapolis, and prominent in the upbuilding and development of the best institutions of the State and city, proposed Indianapolis as the name for the city which is now the pride of all Hoosier hearts.

The original city was platted with streets just one mile in length from end to end. The avenues, or "diagonals," as they were termed on the original plat, radiated from the Circle (the hub) in the centre and constituted that beautiful design which makes the capital of France and the capital of the United States so attractive in appearance, and yet in some respects "a labyrinth or mesh to the unfamiliar." Near the radiating point or Circle was early established a market, which is to-day one of the great conveniences to the residents of the city and to those who market their products and an attraction at most seasons of the year to visitors.

It was not until the removal in November, 1824, of the archives of Indiana from Corydon to Indianapolis, that the latter became the actual capital. In 1827 the Legislature appropriated four thousand dollars for a Governor's residence to be located in the Circle. Its construction was commenced, but never completed. The unfurnished portion was occupied at one time as a schoolhouse, until finally the officers of the Supreme Court made it their headquarters. After some years the crude building was demolished and the ground was converted into a park, the present location of the Soldiers' Monument.

It was not until a third of the nineteenth century had passed, not until near 1840, that Indianapolis became more pretentious than any other country town. The public squares were feeding-grounds for the ox and horse teams of countrymen who came to market. There were practically no industries, and the buildings were primitive and simple. As late as 1875 the wags of the stage and the humorists of the press amused themselves with jeers at the Hoosier capital. The Hoosier was a joke in the East. He was represented as the typical raw character, greatly in need of common advantages and ordinary enlightenment. And the impression persisted until some time after three quarters of the nineteenth century had passed that Indianapolis was simply a congregating-point for him and his kind. About 1880 the city began to take on the appearance of a modern ambitious metropolis. As wealth increased the people resorted in ever increasing numbers to the capital, to enjoy the schools for their children and the best civilization for themselves. Gradually there have gathered there not only the prosperous citizens of the State, but many who have at home or abroad achieved renown in letters, diplomacy, official life, the army and navy. Here have lived two Vice-Presidents of our country. One of our Presidents, the late General Benjamin Harrison, lived and died here. Dialect poets, local historians, and novelists have spent their days here and been the pride of their fellow-citizens.

In 1831 the Legislature made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars for the construction of a State House. The investment, when completed, however, aggregated about sixty thousand dollars. And the State viewed the result with satisfaction and believed she had one of the most attractive and majestic State Houses in the entire country, as indeed she had after the substitution in 1887, at an expense of $1,936,000, of the present magnificent structure.

Indianapolis has more than one hundred church buildings. The City Hall, with a seating capacity of over five thousand, the gift of Mr. Daniel Tomlinson, was constructed at an expense of $150,000, and is principally used for conventions and musical festivals.

In 1836 the State began an elaborate system of internal improvements. Railroads, canals, and turnpikes were subsidized and encouraged in every manner possible. The first railroad to reach Indianapolis came up in 1847 from Madison, on the Ohio River, creating the usual sensation of the new railroad in those days. As long ago as 1860 Indianapolis became the railroad centre of the Central West. The diversified and almost limitless products of the State, of the farm and the mine, and the fact that Indianapolis is in the direct pathway between the East and the West, afforded great attraction to railroad builders. The Union Railroad Station, until recently the largest and best in the United States, is still one of the most commodious, comfortable, and beautiful in the country.

During the Civil War Indianapolis was a storm-centre. The State was not surpassed by any other in the percentage of soldiers sent out to defend the Union. Here they rendezvoused, and Camp Morton and other points about the city for many years after the war bore signs of the long presence of the "Boys in Blue." Indiana possessed a great war Governor in Oliver P. Morton, the steadfast friend of Lincoln and a loyal anti-slavist. For five years in Indianapolis the shrill sound of the fife and the roll of the drum scarcely ever ceased, day or night. Those living to-day who recall the activities of the days of the Civil War view the Soldiers' Monument, in the heart of the city, and the many evidences of reverence for the memory of our Union soldiers in the beautiful cemeteries without surprise. These to them are but simple sequences, natural results.

The straggling village of the first days of the war soon became a bustling little city. For the first time business blocks began to appear along the leading streets and avenues. The architecture in the residences evinced a tendency toward the modern as time progressed. The corduroy or cobble streets were improved. The heavy artillery and ponderous wagons carrying munitions of war required something more substantial in heavy weather, and gravel was thrown upon the muddy thoroughfares. Level as a plain, but beautifully drained by the slight inclines to the White River, it was possible to transform those streams of mud in winter-time and heaps of brown dust in the dry summer into the magnificently paved or perfectly asphalted streets of the present day. The city now has 150 miles of improved streets--forty miles of asphalt, costing $2,514,576; twenty-three miles of brick, $902,276; twelve miles of wooden block, $710,646, and seventy-five miles of gravel and boulder, $777,306. There are 107 miles of cement sidewalks, which required an expenditure of $552,489, and ninety-one miles of sewers, at an outlay of $1,575,878.

Many beautiful residences, surrounded by well-kept lawns and parks, may be viewed by a drive through the city or by a tour over any of the lines of the splendidly managed consolidated street-railway system. The city has 1207 acres of parks, more attractive than the parks of Washington. Riverside Park, containing 953 acres, the ground for which was purchased in 1900, lies along the White River. Garfield Park contains 103 acres; Brookside Park, eighty-one acres; and there are various smaller parks throughout the city. The municipality of Indianapolis has a large park fund, created from the sale of bonds and from a tax levied for park purposes. The financial condition of the municipality is the pride of the citizens. The value of school property is $1,993,620. The city library is a handsome building, erected especially for library purposes, and contains one hundred thousand volumes.

In 1887 the Legislature appropriated $200,000 for the erection in Governor's Circle of the monument to the soldiers and sailors of the State. The conerstone was laid August 2, 1889. The monument was designed by Bruno Schmidt, of Berlin, and was built of Indiana limestone, at an expense of $600,000, including the images at the base. The monument stands 268 feet in height. Around the approaches are eight magnificent candelabra, valued at $40,000. The two cascades are the largest artificial waterfalls in the world, discharging each minute seven thousand gallons. The water is derived from driven wells beneath the monument, and after flowing over the cascade returns to the reservoir, from which it is again used through power furnished by force pumps. In 1900 the revenue of the city was $1,341,861, and the expenditure $1,245,000. The bonded debt was $2,135,700. The assessed valuation of property for 1900 was $126,672,652. There are five national banks with a combined capital of $2,400,000, and four trust companies with a combined capital of $3,000,000. The wholesale trade is extensive, confined mostly to drygoods, boots and shoes, and hats, and reaches as far south as Texas and west to Oklahoma.

Manufacturing interests are large, consisting mainly of structural iron, mill machinery, engines and various kinds of bent-wood. It is contended that only Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York surpass Indianapolis in the amount of many manufactured products. Mill machinery and structural iron is shipped in large quantities to Europe, South America, and other foreign lands. Indianapolis is one of the greatest horse markets in the country, and is surpassed by only three cities as a market for hogs and cattle. A belt railroad circles the city, connecting the two immense stockyards with all the steam railroads.

In May, 1895, John Herron willed to the Art Association $200,000, with which to erect an art gallery. A site has been purchased, and the gallery is this year to be built. The Commercial Club, composed of the leading business men of the city and devoted to advancing the interests of the city, occupies its own building, an elegant eight-story structure. The home for the Columbia Club, a Republican organization of State importance, which has just been completed at an expense of nearly $200,000, is one of the finest club properties in the entire West. The Marion and the University clubs both own their buildings, and the women, too, have a club-house. The Law Building is a handsome and valuable structure of twelve stories, occupied exclusively by attorneys. The corporation has a large law library for the use of the tenants.

State institutions are the Insane Hospital, containing fifteen hundred patients; Institute for the Education of the Blind, and a similar institution for deaf-mutes. The city has a large and handsomely equipped hospital, and there are two others well appointed. A new hotel building will this year take the place of the Bates House, at a cost of more than $2,000,000. The city is adorned with impressive statues of her favorite sons: Morton, Whitcomb, William Henry Harrison, and George Rogers Clark in Monument Place, Vice-President Colfax in University Park, and Vice-President Hendricks in the State House grounds. To these will be added in 1901 one of General Henry W. Lawton, a native Hoosier, who fell in battle in the Philippines, one of General Pleasant A. Hackleman, the only general officer from Indiana killed in the Civil War, and one sometime, of course, of the late ex-President Harrison.

Except Philadelphia, it is doubtful if there is a city in the Union where a greater percentage of the wage-earners possess their own homes. Labor strikes or disturbances are here almost unknown, and the conditions of peace and prosperity are assured for many years to come.

VINCENNES

THE KEY TO THE NORTHWEST

BY WILLIAM HENRY SMITH