From place to place in my previous traveling, I had been told of the charms of the lakes, and especially of the Island of Mackinaw. This island is chiefly known as a principal station of the great Northwestern Fur Company. Others know it as the seat of an Indian Mission. Others, again, as a frontier garrison. It is known to me as the wildest and tenderest piece of beauty that I have yet seen on God's earth.

Harriet Martineau .

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Standard Guide Map of Mackinac Island, Michigan .

Mackinac Island.

Mackinac Island is situated in the Straits of Mackinac, which divide the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan, and connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The island is at the Lake Huron end of the Straits. It is eight miles in circumference. with an area of three and one-half miles. The surface is elevated, the main plateau being 150 feet above the surface of the lake, the upper plateau 294 feet, and the highest point near the southern end 318 feet. For the most part the shore rises abruptly from a narrow beach in high hills and precipitous bluffs. The surface is densely wooded with maple, oak, birch and beech, and other trees common to the latitude, and a profusion of evergreens, juniper, arbor vitæ, tamarack, spruce and pine. The hazel abounds, and there are lilacs in the village of prodigious growth.

The climate was once facetiously described by an officer stationed at Fort Mackinac as nine months of winter and three months of cool weather; and Marquette wrote that about this central point the three great lakes surrounding it “seem incessantly tossing ball at each other. For, no sooner has the wind ceased blowing from Lake Michigan than Lake Huron hurls back the gale it has received, and Lake Superior in its turn sends forth its blasts from another quarter, and thus the game is played from one to another.” The summer coolness, the breezes and the marvelously pure air with its invigorating tonic, have long attracted visitors, and the most convincing testimony to the health-giving qualities of the climate as well as to the scenic attractions of the island is afforded by the host of annual visitors who return to Mackinac year after year.

The island is justly famed for its scenery. The heights command views of sea and shore, ever changing with the varying lights and shades of the hours and the movements of passing ships. Well kept roads thirty miles of them—lead in various directions from the village, through the woods, amid curious rock formations, now along the edge of the bluff with vistas of the lake, and again to some open outlook, whence the panorama is bounded only by the limitations of vision. There are glens and ravines innumerable; open spaces which were the ancient gardens of the Indians; and delectable parks, whose clumps of shrubs and trees are so effectively arranged that one at first thought credits the artistic effect to the skill of landscape artist rather than to the caprice of nature.

The place names here are memorials of an historic past. “Mackinac” takes us back to Indian days; “St. Ignace” perpetuates the record of missionary endeavor under the regime of New France; “British Landing” and “Fort Holmes” recall the stirring events of the War of 1812.

The old form of Mackinac was Michilimackinac, meaning “Great Turtle.” Michi (or Missi as the French wrote it), meaning great, enters into the composition of other names: Michigan, great water; Mississippi, great river. Marquette spelled it Michilimakinong, which is close to the Indian 0022 4

ARCH ROCK AND GITCHIE MANITOU. Photo by Rossiter

pronunciation, Mishinimakinang. The old legend is that once upon a time when the people were gathered on the shore, where now stands St. Ignace, to watch the rising sun, in the Manitou or February moon, they saw the island rise out of the lake before their astonished vision. Seen from that point the contour of the island is that of a turtle, and this was the name they gave it.

Another interpretation is that the Indian name was Mishi-min-auk-in-ong, meaning the place of dancing spirits—ethereal and shadowy beings of Indian mythology who were believed to make the island a chosen haunt.

Formerly the French form Mackinac was written in English Mackinaw; but this spelling appears now only in the name of Mackinaw City across the Straits. Mackinac is pronounced as if in the final syllable it were spelled Mackinaw.

Approach .—From whatever direction one may come in the journey to Mackinac, the one approach to the island is the harbor on the southern end, with the old town stretching along the crescent shore, and the heights rising abruptly in the background, crowned on the bluff with the white walls and green slopes of old Fort Mackinac. The island was aptly described by a British officer early in the century as a “fortress built by nature for herself”; others have called it a miniature Gibraltar; and we accept the fortified heights as of right belongings to the scene. Handsome summer homes line the crest of the plateau east and west of the village; and hotels give town and island the dominating air of a pleasure resort.

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FAIRY ARCH. Photo by Rossiter.

The Chief Points of Interest for their historical associations, are: Fort Mackinac and Fort Holmes, Earley's Farm, the scene of battle in the War of 1812, and the British Landing; and Skull Cave, the hiding place of Alexander Henry. The natural objects are: Arch Rock and Sugar Loaf; Robinson's Folly, Giant's Stairway and Fairy Arch; Pontiac's Lookout, Lover's Leap, Chimney Rock, the Devil's Kitchen. All these are referred to on pages noted in the index. They may be seen most expeditiously be employment of the carriage service, which is a feature of the island.

Carriages .—The conventional drive from the village is over a route which includes the chief points of interest, at a charge for the trip of one dollar for each person in the party.

The East End and the West End are extensions of the town in these 0024 6

ROBINSON'S FOLLY. Photo by Rossiter.

directions, each of them a summer cottage district, with handsome architecture and beautiful grounds.

The Post Office is on the main street near the steamboat wharf. There are daily mails throughout the year, and in the season five a day.

The Churches are: The Old Mission Church, undenominational; St. Anne's, Roman Catholic; Trinity, Protestant Episcopal.

Arch Rock , on the eastern side of the island, is the most famous of the natural curiosities of Mackinac. It is a part of the high cliff which here forms a conspicuous feature from the water, and affords from its heights magnificent views of stretching sea and distant shore. A large section of the lower Part of the rock has fallen away, and the remaining portion has been sculptured by the agency of the elements into an arch of singularly perfect and pleasing lines. The work of erosion is constantly progressing; and more than seventy years ago visitors predicted the early downfall of the rock. The summit of the arch is 149 feet above the lake surface; the height from the base of buttress to the top of the rock is 49 feet. Beneath, part way down the steep descent, are other similar formations, rudimentary arch rocks. One of these distinguished by the beauty of its sylvan setting is the Fairy Arch , which is under the first step of the Giant's Stairway, and is reached by the shore walk from the village. The Giant's Stairway consists of a succession of jutting cliffs, which, by large fancy may be likened to the steps of a staircase. At the water's edge below Arch Rock, and originally forming a part of it, are two masses of rock which still retain the Indian designation of Gitchie Manitou , the landing 0025 7

SUGAR LOAF. Photo by Rossiter.

place of the great Manitou of the Lakes. Here, on the occasion of his visits to the island, the Manitou stepped ashore, ascended the cliff by the Giant's Stairway, and entering through Arch Rock, passed on to Sugar Loaf, which was his wigwam.

Sugar Loaf , as the Indian fancied it, the abode of his deity, is a much more poetic and romantic conception than the Brobdingnagian loaf of sugar which the white man's dull imagination found in it. The rock is a huge cone rising 90 feet amid the forest growth. In the west side at a height of 0026

ROCK. Photo Rossiter.

0027 10 30 feet it is pierced by a grotto, from which radiate fissures throughout the mass. The exterior is broken with crevices and cracks and indentations, and so gives lodgment for the scanty vegetation springing from seeds brought by the winds and the birds. In the early days of white settlement, the records say, large trees grew from near the summit. An admirable and imposing landscape with Sugar Loaf as a central feature is had from Prospect Point.

The agency of water in the sculpture of the rock is clearly manifest; and as if to confirm the old Indian legend of the island's rising from the lake, the scientists tell us that at some period of geologic time Sugar Loaf must have been submerged beneath the sea. Here the former presence of water is demonstrated at what is now an altitude of 250 feet above the present level of the lake; and at various other points on the island may be discerned clearly marked terraces showing at least four different coast lines, the series rising to the height of the fort. Professor Winchell thinks that the emergence of the island probably was due to two causes, first, the subsidence of the waters of the sea which originally, covered it; and, second, the elevation of the land by some tremendous convulsion of nature. Here and there, scattered over the island, are boulders of foreign origin, which must have been brought here by the ice of the glacial period from the far north.

Robinson's Folly is a bold and precipitous bluff some half-mile east of the village, rising 127 feet above the water. It is popularly believed to have been named after Capt. Daniel Robinson, or Robertson, a British officer who was in command of the post from 1782 to 1787. The name appears in the early records. Robinson's Folly is mentioned as a strategic point in some of the official documents of the War of 1812, and in the proceedings of the first Mackinac County Court, held on the island in 1818, the “debtor's limits” were marked by a line “commencing at the Streights at such a point below Robinson's Folly as that a straight line drawn directly through or directly over the point of said Folly shall strike the northeastern angle of Fort Michilimackinac.”

Of what the folly was there are various legends. One is that the Captain had built for himself a summer house or eyrie on the edge of the bluff, and that it was so insecurely perched that in a storm it was blown down to the rocks below. A second version is that the Folly was the favorite trysting place of white man and Indian girl, and that when the faithless soldier brought to the island a white wife, the discarded flame, having enticed him one day to their old meeting place, hurled him and herself with him over the brink to destruction. Again the story runs that as the soldier was one day strolling here he beheld the form of a seductive Indian girl. Eluding his advances, the vision of loveliness retreated toward the edge of the cliff, and walking backward appeared as if about to fall over it. The infatuated man sprang forward to save her, when with a mocking laugh the apparition vanished into thin air and her victim plunged to destruction.

There remains the tale of Peezhiki and Wintemoyeh. Peezhiki was a chief dwelling on the Isle des Iroquois. Wintemoyeh was his daughter. 0028 11 Peezhiki had promised Wintemoyeh in marriage to Assibun, a warrior of the Chegoimegons. Assibun was old and ugly. Wintemoyeh, young and blooming, hated him and demurred to playing May to his January. She loved the white man Robinson; and for the purposes of this story, at least, Robinson loved her. When he heard about Assibun and Wintemoyeh's peril he promptly invited her to come to Mackinac and be his; and she came and was his. They spread the wedding feast on the top of this rock; the wedding guests were gathered, and all went merry as a marriage bell. The festivities were at their height, when Peezhiki appeared on the scene with a gun. The bullet he intended for Robinson missed its mark and killed another. The red man and white grappled in a death struggle; and the white man prevailed. Robinson forced his antagonist to the edge of the cliff and threw him over. But in his fall Peezhiki caught an overhanging limb, and hung suspended in mid-air. Wintemoyeh, a daughter still, sprang to the rescue of her father, was seized by the chief, and both fell—thus making the total of five fatalities involved in the several legends of Robinson and his folly.

Lover's Leap is a solitary pinnacle of rock rising 145 feet from the lake shore a mile west of the village. The legend which gives it its name is that in the long ago an Indian maiden of the Ojibway tribe, betrothed to Ge-niw-e-gon, watched from this height the departure of her lover with a war expedition across the water; and to the rock she came day after day to await his coming. At last the party, returning without him, brought word of his death, and the distracted maiden, seeing in fancy the spirit of her warrior lover beckoning her to him, repaired to this spot where her fond eyes had bidden him farewell, and leaping over the brink joined “the innumerable caravan” of Indian girls who have jumped from the Lover's Leaps of so many American summer resorts.

Chimney Rock , 175 feet high, on the southwest shore, is best seen from the water. Further north, near the British Landing, on the west shore, is Pulpit Rock, or Friendship's Altar.

The Devil's Kitchen , a mass of calcareous rock hollowed out by the action of water and fashioned into semblance of a Dutch oven, is on the shore west of the village, and is reached by the beach boulevard.

Skull Cave , a cavern formed by an overhanging rock. is on Garrison Avenue. southwest of Fort Holmes. Devoid of interest as a natural curiosity, it is popularly believed to have been the refuge of Alexander Henry, whose adventure here is related on another page. A larger cavern is Scott's Cave , named from the discoverer, on the north side of the island a mile from British Landing.

British Landing is that point of the northwestern shore where in the War of 1812 the British troops debarked for the attack upon Fort Mackinaw; and Earley's Farm was the scene, later in the same war, of the repulse of the American forces by British and Indians. The farmhouse occupied at that date by Michael Dousman still remains. This is the only farm on the island.

The Old Cannon on the beach road below the fort is said to have been one of the guns captured by Perry in the battle of Lake Erie. There were 0029 12 formerly in Fort Mackinac two cannon which bore the legends, “Taken at Saratoga,” and “Taken from Lord Cornwallis.” Alexander Henry tells us that when he came to old Fort Michilimackinac there were mounted on its bastions brass cannon, which had been captured by a party of French-Canadians on a plundering expedition against the posts of Hudson's Bay.

The House of Anne , the old Government Indian agency, which stood just east of the present schoolhouse, was burned in the seventies. It has been made famous by Constance Fenimore Woolsen in her novel of “Anne.” Miss Woolsen was at one time a resident of the island.

The Cemeteries, separated by the carriage road, Roman Catholic and Protestant, contain no graves of special note. Many of the graves are marked by the conventional military headstone with its simple inscription. U.S. Soldier, No. —. The epitaph of Capt. John Ctitz, who died in 1836, while in command of the post, commemorates him as “Distinguished alike for ardent zeal and intelligence in the duties of his profession and manly frankness and sincerity in intercourse with his associates.”

St. Anne's Catholic Church , built in 1874, succeeded the church which had been built at Old Mackinac in the last century, and in 1780, when the military post was transferred to the island, had been taken down, brought across on the ice and set up again on this site.

Point Lookout , which is included in the carriage route, overlooks a stretch of woodland having for its central feature the conical mass of Sugar Loaf.

The Golf Links of the Wawashkemo (or Crooked Trail) Club are on the picturesque heights beyond the West End.

Steamboat Excursions are made in the season to St Ignace and other nearby points. Those whose course is around the island afford an opportunity to view Arch Rock and other objects from the water.

The Bluff Walk along the summit of the south shore, affords many charming views. The walk begins at the upper end of the line of cottages, at the end of the board walk, just before the road turns to the right and climbs the hill.

Of the Indians who were formerly the populous dwellers in all this region, only a remnant—of the Chippeway tribe—remains. In the early days of French settlement, the two races intermingled, and a portion of the island population is of mixed blood.

Mackinac Island State Park .—In 1875 Congress set aside 911 acres of the public domain on the island to be the Mackinac National Park; and in 1895, the military post having been abandoned, the park, fort and reservation, 1,114 acres in all, were ceded to Michigan “for use as a State Park.” The park is under the control of a board of five commissioners. The area comprise very nearly one-half of the island. Provision is made for leasing building plots for a term of years, and many of the handsome summer homes east and west of the village are upon such leased plots. The dwellings of the fort also are leased.

Les Cheneaux Islands , or Pine Islands, the name corrupted into “The Snows.” are a group of one hundred islands in Lake Huron, fourteen miles northeast of Mackinac, famous for their fishing.

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The story of the Old Mission Church is closely connected with that of the Mission House. Early in the century the Connecticut Missionary Society, which was a body formed for the conversion of the heathen of North America. sent here Rev. Wm. M. Ferry, a Presbyterian minister, who in 1823 established a mission school for Indian children. The Mission House was built in 1825; and the church building was completed in 1830, the lumber for it having been hauled across on the ice. Mackinac was then a busy center of the fur trade and a popular meeting place for the tribes. The school attracted scholars from all the surrounding country, some of them coming hundreds of miles. Church and school grew with the prosperity and importance of Mackinac, flourished for a few years and then declined with the shrinking of the island's population, until in 1837, after having enrolled some 500 scholars, the mission was abandoned. and the church was closed. From that time until 1895 it was practically disused. or was used for other than church purposes. In 1895, the property having been acquired by certain visitors and residents, the church was reopened as the Union Chapel of Mackinac Island. It is altogether independent of sectarian or denominational control. and summer visitors are cordially welcomed to the Sabbath services. In preparing the edifice for occupancy once more. care was taken to permit no alterations from the original style and arrangement. The straight-backed pews, old-time pulpit, high choir gallery and small-paned windows, all were jealously preserved. Said Rev. Dr. Meade C. Williams in the discourse at the reopening:

“So the church was built, and truly a pioneer church for this part of the world it was. It is interesting to reflect that we are sitting to-day in what is probably the oldest Protestant church building in our country between the State of Ohio and the farthest point of the Northwest. And perhaps, too, the claim might be hazarded that in respect to original and unchanged appearance there are very few church edifices—of any name or in any part of the earlier West—that can boast of greater age. For while other old church structures show enlargement and change, a new end or a new front or a tower or spire built in subsequent years, or other marks of alteration, this one in its entire structural form from foundation wall to its tin-topped belfry and from end to end, and in the plaster of its walls and ceiling, in its floors and its weather-worn exterior, stands without any change, the same to-day as when first built.”

Pontiac's Lookout , a cliff on the south shore, beyond the Grand Hotel and the West End, commands one of the finest views on the island. The name is a fitting recognition of Pontiac's place in the history of the region; although it is possible that he himself never looked out from the rock.

The view takes in a wide sweep. On the right we may look through the Straits to Lake Michigan; opposite is Mackinaw City; then the South Channel, with the smoke rising above Cheboygan in the far distance; Bois Blanc and Round Islands; and on the left, seen through the Straits, stretches Huron Beneath us decline the wooded island slopes to the curving shore; and beyond are the Grand Hotel and the town.

It is a noble prospect, and one to stir the imagination, to repeople Mackinac with its ancient denizens, to restore the wigwams to the shore, the 0031 14

THE SAINTE MARIE IN THE ICE.

upturned canoes, the smoke rising from the camp-fires, and the dusky groups of men and women with the children at play. We may see in fancy the bark canoes of Marquette and Joliet setting out on their ever-memorable expedition to the Mississippi, and we may watch the long procession of Chippewas and Hurons convoying the reclaimed relics of their beloved priest to his resting place at St. Ignace. Again, we may follow the peltry laden canoe of the couriers des bois, its crew with steady stroke keeping time to the Canadian boat-song, breaking now into shouts and cheers, as they leap out on the shore, glad to see white men once again, and after the long months of isolation among savages eager to meet the newcomers from Montreal and hear tidings from La Belle France and home. Or from the lookout we may see, rounding Bois Blanc, La Salle's Griffin, first vessel on the Great Lakes, and prototype of the mighty fleet of to-day; or the sails may be those of the Niagara and the Lawrence flying the Stars and Stripes, and fresh from their victory on Lake Erie, now come to meet humiliations and defeat in futile essay against this island stronghold. There is abundant material in the past of Mackinac to dream over; and the island and its surroundings are doubly attractive because thus invested with human interest.

Familiar features of the Straits as seen from Mackinac are the great Car Ferries which ply between the terminals of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway and the Michigan Central Railroad at Mackinaw City, and the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railway at St. Ignace, thus crossing the Straits and connecting the Upper and Lower Peninsulas. The distance is nine miles, and in winter this means nine miles of solid ice from 0032 15

THE NORTH WEST IN PORT. Photo by Rossiter.

two to four feet thick. This might appear to offer an insuperable obstacle to navigation, but the problem of overcoming it has been met by American genius and solved so successfully as to challenge the admiration of the world. The boats devised for the service are of prodigious strength and irresistible power as ice-crushers. The pioneer boat—Algoma—built in 1881, was superseded in 1885 by the larger, St. Ignace; and in 1895 came the Sainte Marie, the largest and most powerful ice-crusher in the world. She is 305 feet over all, and has a capacity of eighteen loaded freight or passenger cars. She is built rounding on the bottom and is deeper aft than forward. Her engines are of 4,500 horse-power, being the largest on the lakes, excepting those of the North Land and the North West. She has a propeller with diameter of 12 feet, and an auxiliary screw of 10 feet diameter under the prow. These are operated at a speed of from sixty-five to eighty revolutions a minute; and when driven by this tremendous power the boat is forced ahead, the bow climbs up on to the ice, the suction of the forward propeller draws the supporting water from under the ice, the boat crushes it down, the current from the forward screw tosses it one side, and the Sainte Marie moves steadily on her way with a maintained speed of eight miles an hour through ice two feet thick. In massiveness the construction rivals that of a warship; the boat is practically 0033 16

THE GRAND. Photo by Bell.

solid timber below the water line; and the hull is completely sheathed with a casing of riveted steel.

The fame of the Straits of Mackinac ice-crushers has gone abroad. Rear-Admiral Makaroff of the Russian Navy was commissioned to study the Sainte Marie in service; and the Czar has had built two boats after her plans, one for Vladivostock and the other for St. Petersburg on the Neva.

Light-houses seen from Mackinac village are: To the southeast—Bois Blanc Island fixed white light. East—Round Island white light with red flashes every 20 seconds. Southwest—Old Point Mackinaw (Mackinaw City) red flash every 10 seconds; and west of this—McGulpin's Point fixed white light.

Geography .—The general direction of the Straits of Mackinac is east and west. Mackinac village faces southeast. Opposite in the southeast lies Round Island; beyond that is Bois Blanc Island. Southwest is Mackinaw City, on the northern shore of the Lower Peninsula. West is St. Ignace, at the southern point of the Upper Peninsula.

PONTIAC'S LOOKOUT.

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MACKINAC. Photo by Rossiter.

Fort Mackinac , on the heights above the village, is one of the dominating features of the island landscapes. It is situated on an elevation 133 feet above the water, and commands the town and harbor and Straits. The parapets and old-time blockhouses have an air delightfully antiquated and picturesque. The fort piques curiosity and invites investigation. Thousands of visitors ascend the steep slope every year to make exploration of its quaint construction and arrangement. The cedar stockade with its loopholes for musketry fell to decay long ago; parapet and blockhouse have been dismantled of their guns, and no sentry challenges approach. With open gate and unbarred port, interposing not even a no-trespass warning, Fort Mackinac welcomes all comers to ramble through its bounds and ascend the parapets, whence the view is an inspiration.

The officer's quarters, the barracks, commissary's stores and other buildings, no longer used for military purposes, have lost their martial air; and some of the dwellings are occupied as summer homes. But the masonry of the fort is little changed. The stone-works have been cemented and solidified with the lapse of time; and the fort seems to have become a part of the hill on which it stands. In all material respects as an island stronghold, the fortification endures to-day as it was in those earlier years when it had part in the troubled conflicts of international strife.

The first Fort Michilimackinac, built by the French in 1673, was a palisaded defense on the north side of the Straits, at Pere Marquette's mission of St. Ignace du Michilimackinac, now St. Ignace. This was 0035 18

FORT HOLMES. Photo by Rossiter.

succeeded by another fort of the same name, a wooden fortification with log bastions, on the south shore, where now is Mackinaw City. When France yielded her Canadian possessions to England in 1760, the fort was occupied by British troops; and there in 1763 occurred the massacre of the garrison of Fort Michilimackinac, an incident of the Conspiracy of Pontiac.

Pontiac's War was an uprising of the Indians against the whites. The tribes inhabiting the territory ceded by France to England resented being given over to the British rule; and instigated by Pontiac, an Ottawa chief dwelling near Detroit, a plot was formed to massacre all the garrisons simultaneously and thus restore his land to the red man. June 4, 1763, was the date set for the attack; and on that day every post west of Fort Niagara, with the exception of Detroit and Fort Pitt, was taken and the garrison slaughtered or made prisoners.

At Fort Michilimackinac, manned by a force of ninety odd, the Indians had gathered in large numbers on the day set; and a crafty stratagem was devised to gain ingress to the fort. On the grounds outside the stockade they organized for a ball game, baggatiway, or lacrosse, in which the players, divided into two sides, seek to carry the ball beyond the opponent's goal. When the sport was at its height, officers and men watching the game, the ball was thrown, as if by accident, within the stockade; and the players, as if still in play, rushed in after it. Once inside they raised the war whoop, and quickly overpowered the garrison. Of the ninety-nine soldiers, seventy were killed. Among the survivors was Alexander Henry, the fur trader, whose narrative of the event is given on another page. Pontiac's 0036 19

THE PERRY CANNON. Photo by Rossiter.

conspiracy, although so successful in execution here, failed in its large purpose; and the following year Fort Michilimackinac was again occupied by British troops.

In 1780 the military post was transferred to the island as affording a more defensible position, and the present fortification was begun. The timbers were brought from the mainland; the stone was quarried on the island; and there may still be seen near Fort Holmes the limekiln used for making the lime. Of the fort at this period as an outpost of civilization, a British officer stationed here wrote: “The Island and Fort of Mackinac is of the first importance, as tending to promote our Indian connections and secure them in our interests; its geographical position is admirable; its influence extends and is felt among the Indian Tribes to New Orleans and the Pacific Ocean; vast tracts of country look to it for protection and supplies; and it gives security to the great trading establishments of the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies by supporting the Indians on the Mississippi, the only barrier which interposes between them and the enemy.”

While the conflict between England and the Colonies had in a measure influenced the removal to the island, the fort had no share in the events of the Revolutionary War. At the close of the war it came be cession into the control of the United States. Years of tranquility ensued, with little to break the serenity of garrison life at Mackinac. Then came 1812; and here, far removed from the theater of effective operations, were enacted incidents of war, which if they were barren of result yet had in them the elements which go to the conduct and winning of decisive campaigns.

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THE OLD MISSION CHURCH. Photo by Rossiter.

That it should fare hard with the garrison of Fort Mackinac was under the circumstances a foregone conclusion.

Lieut Porter Hanks was in command. His entire command comprised a force of 57 effective men, 5 men in hospital, and a drummer boy.

Against him was arrayed a British force of 306 regulars and Canadians, and 718 Indians, 1021 all told. They were under command of Capt. Charles Roberts, stationed at St. Joseph's Island. Capt. Roberts received intelligence of the declaration of war on July 15, and was directed to attack Fort Mackinac immediately. He sailed on the next day, the 16th, in the Northwest Fur Company's ship Caledonia, with an armament of two six-pounders, ten batteries and sixty canoes. Among the force of a thousand and odd must have been many who knew Mackinac well; indeed, as a former British post, fort and island must have been familiar in every detail 0038 21

THE MISSION HOUSE. Photo by Rossiter.

to the officers in command, and on this knowledge, no doubt, was based the plan of attack.

Coming to anchor off the northwest shore, at the point ever since known as the British Landing, the troops debarked in the early morning hours; before daybreak the artillery had been hauled into position, one of the guns on the heights in the rear of the fort commanding its weakest points; and the force of whites and Indians was disposed for the attack. Then under flag of truce the British commander sent an officer to demand of the Americans immediate surrender. This call to give up his fort was the first that Lieut. Hanks knew of the declaration of war. There was nothing else to be done; the garrison bowed to the inevitable, surrendered the fort, marched out with the honors of war, gave up their arms, and were sent away under parole to Detroit and other American posts.

This is the story of the affair as Lieut. Hanks reported it to Gen. Hull:

“I take the earliest opportunity to acquaint Your Excellency of the surrender of the garrison of Michilimackinac, under my command, to his Britannic Majesty's forces under the command of Capt. Charles Roberts, on the 17th ultimo, the particulars of which are as follows: On the 16th, I was informed by the Indian interpreter that he had discovered from an Indian that the several nations of Indians then at St. Joseph (a British garrison, distant about forty miles) intended to make an immediate attack on Michilimackinac.

“I was inclined, from the coolness I had discovered in some of the principal chiefs of the Ottawa and Chippewa nations, who had but a few days before professed the greatest friendship for the United States, to place confidence in this report.

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THE WEST END. Photo by Rossiter.

“I immediately called a meeting of the American gentlemen at that time on the island, in which it was thought proper to dispatch a confidential person to St. Joseph to watch the motions of the Indians.

“Captain Michael Dousman, of the militia, was thought the most suitable for this service. He embarked about sunset, and met the British forces within ten or fifteen miles of the island, by whom he was made prisoner and put on his parole of honor. He was landed on the island at daybreak, with positive directions to give me no intelligence whatever. He was also instructed to take the inhabitants of the village, indiscriminately, to a place on the west side of the island, where their persons and property should be protected by a British guard, but should they go to the fort, they would be subject to a general massacre by the savages, which would be inevitable if the garrison fired a gun. This information I received from Dr. Day, who was passing through the village when every person was flying for refuge to the enemy. I immediately, on being informed of the approach of the enemy, placed ammunition, etc., in the block houses; ordered every gun charged, and made every preparation for action. About 9 o'clock I could discover that the enemy were in possession of the heights that commanded the fort, and one piece of their artillery directed to the most defenseless part of the garrison. The Indians at this time were to be seen in great numbers in the edge of the woods.

“At half past 11 o'clock the enemy sent in a flag of truce, demanding a surrender of the fort and island to his Britannic Majesty's forces. This, sir, was the first information I had of the declaration of war; I, however, had anticipated it, and was as well prepared to meet such an event as I possibly could have been with the force under my command, amounting to 0040 23

THE LAKE VIEW. Photo by Rossiter.

fifty-seven effective men, including officers. Three American gentlemen, who were prisoners, were permitted to accompany the flag; from them I ascertained the strength of the enemy to be from nine hundred to one thousand strong, consisting of regular troops, Canadians and savages; that they had two pieces of artillery, and were provided with ladders and ropes for the purpose of scaling the works, if necessary. After I had obtained this information, I consulted my officers, and also the American gentlemen present, who were very intelligent men; the result of which was, that it was impossible for the garrison to hold out against such a superior force. In this opinion I fully concurred, from the conviction that it was the only measure that could prevent a general massacre. The fort and garrison were accordingly surrendered.”

The capture of Fort Mackinac had a depressing effect upon the United States troops in the Northwest, and was bitterly resented. In 1814, after Perry's victory on Lake Erie, the Americans planned an expedition to retake their own. A fleet of seven was vessels and a land force of 750 men set sail from Detroit, to destroy British ships on the upper lakes and to capture Fort Mackinac. Among the ships were the Lawrence, Niagara, Scorpion and Tigress, forever famous for their participation in the Battle of Lake Eric. There was this time not to be any stealthy night landing nor morning surprise. The island was well advised of the coming of the hostile fleet, and was prepared to repel the attack. Fort Mackinac was strongly garrisoned; on the heights above it had been constructed the new fortification of Fort George; earthworks and batteries lined and bluffs; and Canadian militiamen and Indian allies held all the strategic points. Mackinac was an American Malta.

The fleet came; a week was spent in fruitless maneuvering for position; 0041 24

FORT MACKINAC Photo

Round Island was attempted as a base, and straightway, under fire of Fort Mackinac, abandoned; and then the land force debarked at British Landing, bent on what was recognized to be a hopeless enterprise. So wrote Capt. Arthur Sinclair, the naval officer in command, in his report to the Secretary of the Navy; and of what followed he told the story:

“I arrived off Michilimackinac on the 26th of July; but owing to a tedious spell of bad weather, which prevented our reconnoitering or being able to procure a prisoner who could give us information of the enemy's Indian force, which, from several little skirmishes we had on an adjacent island, appeared to be very great, we did not attempt a landing until the 4th inst., and it was then made more with a view to ascertain positively the enemy's strength than with any possible hope of success; knowing at the same time, that I could effectually cover their landing and retreat to the ships, from the position I had taken within 300 yards of the beach. Col. Croghan would never have landed, even with his protection, being positive, as he was, that the Indian force alone on the island, with the advantages 0042 25

THE HARBOR

they had, were superior to him, could he have justified himself to his government, without having stronger proof than appearances, that he could not effect the object in view. Mackinac is, by nature, a perfect Gibraltar, being a high inaccessible rock on every side, except the west, from which to the height, you have near two miles to pass through a wood, so thick that our men were shot in every direction, and within a few yards of them, without being able to see the Indians who did it; and a height was scarcely gained before there was another within 50 or 100 yards commanding it, where breastworks were erected and cannon opened on them. Several of those were charged, and the enemy driven from them; but it was soon found the further our troops advanced the stronger the enemy became, and the weaker and more bewildered our forces were; several of the commanding officers were picked out and killed or wounded by the savages, without seeing any of them. The men were getting lost and falling into confusion, natural under such circumstances, which demanded an immediate retreat, or a total defeat and general massacre must 0043 26

LOOKING TOWARD BRITISH LANNDING. Photo by Rossiter.

have ensued. This was conducted in a masterly manner by Col. Croghan, who had lost the aid of that valuable and ever to be lamented officer, Major Holmes, who, with Captain Van Horn, was killed by the Indians.

“The enemy were driven from many of their strongholds; but such was the impenetrable thickness of the woods, that no advantage gained could be profited by. Our attack would have ben made immediately under the lower fort, that the enemy might not have been able to use his Indian force to such advantage as in the woods, having discovered by drawing a fire from him in several instances, that I had greatly the superiority of metal of him; but its site being about 120 feet above the water, I could not, when near enough to do him an injury, elevate sufficiently to batter it. Above this, nearly as high again, he has another strong fort, commanding every point on the island, and almost perpendicular on all sides.”

The fiercest part of the engagement was fought on the fields of the Dousman (now Earley) farm. Here the Americans in the open were exposed to a masked batter of four pieces and subjected to the fire of Indians and troops concealed in the woods. They retreated to their ships, witch a loss of 13 killed, 48 wounded and 2 missing. Among the dead was Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, in whose honor Fort George afterward received the name of Fort Holmes.

Balked of their purpose to capture Mackinac by assault, the Americans determined to reduce it by siege. The plan was to blockade the approaches and intercept supplies. “Those being the only two channels of communication by which Mackinac can possibly be supplied, and their provisions at this time being extremely short,” wrote Capt. Sinclair, “I think they will be starved into a surrender.”

At the outlet of Lake Simcoe the Americans came upon the British schooner Nancy, laden witch six months' rations for the garrison. They opened fire; and witch a shell blew up schooner and cargo. The crew, under command of Lieut. Worsley, of the British Navy, escaped from the wreck, and, the eluding capture, made their way in an open boat to Mackinac. The 0044 27

THE ISLAND HOUSE. Photo by Rossiter.

Tigress and the Scorpion were left to maintain the blockade, and the other vessels of the fleet repaired to Detroit.

Then followed the most daring exploit in the annals of Fort Mackinac. With starvation before the garrison if the blockade should remain unbroken, the leading spirits resolved upon an enterprise no less desperate than to attempt the capture of the enemy's ships. Under the leadership of Lieut. Worsley the company of volunteers—soldiers, sailors and Indians—left Mackinac in open boats, and made for Detour, where the Tigress and the Scorpion were reported to be cruising. So timing their progress as to reach their destination in the night, they discovered the Tigress alone and at anchor, rowed silently up to her in the darkness, clambered over the side, and inn hand to hand struggle overpowered the crew.

Two days afterwards the Scorpion returned to the bay; and at night wholly ignorant of the events which had converted the Tigress from a companion ship into an enemy, dropped anchor within two miles of her. At daybreak, still in guise of sister ship, the Tigress bore down upon the Scorpion and opened fire. Before the dumfounded Americans could realize the situation and rally for resistance, the ship had been taken; and the Mackinac blockade was raised.

It was the final incident of the war in these waters; and it is the last martial activity we have to chronicle in the history of Fort Mackinac. With the coming of peace the island was restored to the United States; and thenceforward, for a period of eighty years, the fort was occupied as a garrison post; until it was finally abandoned by the Government in 1895.

If the events in which the fort had part were not in themselves momentous, it is interesting to recall that they were typical of the historical 0045 28

THE OLD FUR COMPANY HEADQUARTERS. Photo by Rossiter.

transitions of the period. When the French standard was floated here at old Fort Michilimackinac, it was significantly of the coming of a new people to supplant the old race which had occupied the continent so long. When the Lilies of France gave way to the banner of Great Britain, the change signified that America was to be in custom and speech English and not French. And not less momentous was the change of flags which took place when in turn the Cross of St. George was supplanted by the Stars and Stripes, an emblem which had had its birth since the old fort was young.

The selection of Mackinac as a location for a fortification was determined by the french in 1673 because of its strategic importance, here at the converging of the great inland seas, where it controlled the avenues of the fur trade and the routes to the Northwest. It is to-day as it was then, the Key of the Lakes. Should hostile forces ever confront one another here in the lake regions of the continent, the name of Fort Mackinac, one may surmise, would be written large on the war maps; and the lake ports, east or west and north or south of the Straits of Mackinac would sleep more securely of nights for their confidence in this Michigan Gibraltar. With search-lights and disappearing dynamite guns, and with mines for the Straits' channels, Fort Mackinac would hold at bay even an American fleet commanded by American captains and manned by American Jackies.

0046 29

CHIMNEY ROCK. Photo by Rossiter.

One of the sights of New York City is the Waldorf-Astoria, largest and most costly hotel in the world. One of the sights of Mackinac Island is the old Headquarters of The American Fur Company . It was the fortune made in the Mackinac warehouse which built the colossal structure on Fifth Avenue.

When John Jacob Astor decided to go into the fur trade in 1807, his most formidable opposition was found here in Mackinac. Always an important fur trading post under the French regime, the island was destined to assume new importance with the British. When the success of the North West Company, whose headquarters was on Lake Superior, prompted rivalry, a new organization called the Mackinaw Company, was established with chief offices here. It sent its agents out through all the northwestern country to the Mississippi, and far to the south through the territory acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase; until the growing influence of the alien company with the Indians of the western country attracted the unfavorable attention of the Government. Astor had long dealt in furs, buying in Montreal and exporting to Europe, and had amassed large capital. When the embarked in the fur trade proper—that is, the 0047 30

THE DEVIL'S KITCHEN. Photo by Rossiter.

business of collecting first-hand from the Indians and trappers—he found himself shut out from almost the whole field within the American borders by this Mackinaw Company. Thereupon he organized the American Fur Company, with a million dollars capital; purchased a controlling interest in the Mackinaw Company; secured from Congress a law prohibiting British fur traders from doing business within American limits; and had the field to himself.

Such in outline is the story of the old fur trading headquarters of Mackinac Island. Here is Irving's description of the post, as one of Astor's agents saw it, when he came here to enlist recruits for the expedition to Astoria in the year 1810.

“This famous old French trading post continued to be a rallying point for a multifarious and motley population. The inhabitants were amphibious in their habits, most of them being, or having been, voyageurs or canoe men. It was the great place of arrival and departure of the southwest fur trade. Here the Mackinaw Company had established its principal post, from whence it communicated with the interior and with Montreal. Hence its various traders and trappers set out for their respective destinations about Lake Superior and its tributary waters, or for the Mississippi, the Arkansas, the Missouri, and the other regions of the west. Here, after the absences of a year or more, they returned with their peltries, and settled their accounts; the furs rendered in by them being transmitted, in canoes, 0048 31

LOVER'S LEAP. Photo by Rossiter.

from hence to Montreal. Mackinaw was, therefore, for a great part of the year, very scantily peopled; but at certain seasons the traders arrived from all points, with their crews of voyageurs, and the place swarmed like a hive.

“Mackinaw, at that time, was a mere village, stretching along a small bay, with a fine broad beach in front of its principal row of houses, and dominated by the old fort, which crowned an impending height. The beach was a kind of public promenade, where were displayed all the vagaries of a seaport on the arrival of a fleet from a long cruise. Here voyageurs 0049 32

THE SAINTE MARIE. Photo by Rossiter.

frolicked away their wages, fiddling and dancing in the booths and cabins, buying all kinds of knick-knacks, dressing themselves out finely, and parading up and down, like arrant braggarts and coxcombs. Sometimes they met with rival coxcombs in the young Indians from the opposite shore, who would appear on the beach painted and decorated in fantastic style, and would saunter up and down, to be gazed at and admired, perfectly satisfied that they eclipsed their pale-faced competitors.

“Now and then a chance party of ‘Northwesters’ appeared at Mackinaw from the rendezvous at Fort William. These held themselves up as the chivalry of the fur trade. They were men of iron; proof against cold weather, hard fare, and perils of all kinds. Some would wear the northwest button, and a formidable dirk, and assume something of a military air. They generally wore feathers in their hats, and affected the ‘brave.’ ‘ Je suis un homme du nord! ’—‘I am a man of the north,’ one of these swelling fellows would exclaim, sticking his arms akimbo and ruffling by the Southwesters, whom he regarded with great contempt, as men softened by mild climates and the luxurious fare of bread and bacon, and whom he stigmatized with the inglorious name of pork-eaters. The superiority assumed by these vainglorious swaggerers was, in general, tacitly admitted. Indeed, some of them had acquired notoriety for deeds of hardihood and courage; for the fur trade had its heroes, whose names resounded throughout the wilderness.

“Such was Mackinaw at the time of which we are treating. It now, doubtless, presents a totally different aspect. The fur companies no longer assemble there; the navigation of the lakes is carried on by steamboats and various shipping, and the race of traders, and trappers, and voyageurs, and Indian dandies, have vapored out their brief hour and disappeared.”

St. Ignace.

St. Ignace , on the north shore of the Straits, at the extremity of the Upper Peninsula. is the terminus of the Duluth. South Shore and Atlantic Railroad, which here connects by car-ferry with Mackinaw City, on the Lower Peninsula. The spot has historical interest for its association with the labors of the missionary and explorer, Pere Marquette. Here in 1671 he founded the mission of St. Ignatius du Michilimackinac, from here he set forth on his exploration to discover the Mississippi, here his body was brought for burial by his devoted followers, and here is the monument which marks his grave.

Jacques Marquette , a native of France and member of the Society of Jesus, came as a missionary to Canada in 1666; and two years later, arrived at Sault Ste. Marie, he re-established there the mission which had been founded in 1641 and afterwards abandoned. In 1671, coming here, he founded the mission of St. Ignace du Michilimackinac, named after St. Ignatius Loyola. and built a chapel; then followed the stockaded village, the St. Ignace of to-day.

In 1673 he realized his long cherished project of making search for the great river in the west, of which the Indians had brought reports. “It runs north and south,” he wrote, “and so far that the Illinois, who do not know what canoes are, have never yet heard of the mouth; they only know that there are very great nations below them, some of whom raise two crops of maize a year. This great river can hardly empty into Virginia and we rather believe its mouth is in California.” With Sieur Joliet and five Indians, in two birch bark canoes. they started in May. “I was the more enraptured,” his journal reads, “as I saw my designs on the point of being accomplished, and myself in the happy necessity of exposing my life for the salvation of all these nations, and particularly for the Illinois, who had, when I was at Lapointe du St. Esprit, very earnestly entreated me to carry the word of God to their country. We set out fully resolved to do and suffer all for so glorious an enterprise. The joy of being chosen for this expedition,” he exclaims, “roused our courage and sweetened the labor of paddling from morning till night.”

From the Straits of Mackinac they coasted along the shore of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and then by the Fox River and across Lake Winnebago, by portage, to the Wisconsin and down that stream until the canoes floated out upon a mightier flood, and “safely entered the Mississippi on the 17th day of June, with a joy I cannot express.”

They proceeded down the river, being everywhere kindly received by the natives. “I thank thee, Black-Gown,” said the sachem of the Illinois, with that fine figurative speech so characteristic of the Indian, “for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful nor the sun so bright as to-day. Never has our river been so calm, nor so 0051 34

PERE MARQUETTE ON THE MISSISSIPPI. From the painting in Montreal.

free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed. Never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to-day.” In reading Marquette's narrative, one is constantly impressed by this recognition the Indians appear everywhere to have made of the devoted missionary as an apostle of the Prince of Peace. So, meeting welcome everywhere, and erecting the symbols of religion, and imparting, as they could, the simple story of the Cross, they followed down the river to the mouth of the Arkansas, and until Marquette had satisfied himself that the Mississippi must flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Then retracing their course, they reached Green Bay in September, after having traveled more than 2,700 miles, and after the missionary explorer had won for himself a place among the discoverers of the continent.

In 1674 Marquette founded the mission of the Illinois. In the following winter, worn out by hardship and exposure and falling ill, he foresaw the end; and there came upon him a great longing to return to St. Ignace that he might die among his people. But it was not to be. Setting out in the spring of 1675, by way of the St. Joseph's River, and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, he had come so far as to the promontory of the Sleeping Bear, where he died, and was buried on the banks of the Michigan river ever since known as the Pere Marquette. The Indians were too deeply attached to their faithful missionary to leave his body in so unhonored a grave, writes Shea: “They resolved, in 1677, to transport his remains to Mackinaw; and, landing at the spot, opened the grave. The body was entire, though dried up; clearing the flesh from the bones, they inclosed them in a box of bark, and, depositing it in a canoe, proceeded towards 0052 35

PERE MARQUETTE. Statue by Trentanove in the Capitol at Washington.

0053 36

LOYOLA RENOUNCING THE WORLD. Altar-piece in St. Ignatius' Church.

their village in a long and silent convoy. Some Iroquois canoes which met them, learning the nature of the ceremony, joined the line. On appearing before Mackinaw, the two villages, headed by their missionaries, Pierson and Nouvel, came down to the shore, and verifying the identity of the body, landed it amid the chant of the ‘De Profundis.’ Borne then with the usual ceremonies to the church, it lay exposed till the next day, the 9th of June, when, after a mass of requiem, it was interred in a little vault in the middle of the church, ‘where,’ says Father Dablon, ‘he reposes as the guardian angel of our Ottawa missions.’”

In 1706 the mission was abandoned, the church was burned, and the site of church and grave was lost for 170 years, until in 1877 the church foundations were revealed, and the grave was identified. All that remained within it was removed for preservation to Marquette College in Milwaukee. In 0054 37 1882 the marble shaft was erected which marks the site of the grave. The inscription reads:

In Memoriam Revdi Ptris J. Marquette S. J. Qui obiit die 18 Maii MDCLXXV, xxxviii annos nat., et sepultus est in isto sepulchro A. D. MDCLXXVII. R. I. P. Lapis iste erectus est ab incolis opidi A. D. MDCCCLXXXII .

“In memory of Reverend Father J. Marquette, S. J., who died May 18, 1675, aged 38 years, and was buried in this grave A. D. 1677. Requiescat in pace. This stone was erected by the inhabitants of this town A. D. 1882.”

In St. Ignatius' Catholic Church are preserved some extremely interesting relics of Marquette and of the mission and the old Indian life. These are exhibited to visitors by the rector, Rev. Jos. P. Kunes.

The altar piece is a painting of St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, renouncing the world at Montserrat. This picture is reputed to be 300 years old; to have been brought here by Marquette himself, and when the chapel was burned in 1706 to have been preserved by the pious care of the Indians.

The picture of Marquette on the Mississippi is in Montreal. It was used as the device of the one-cent postage stamp in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition series.

CHIPPEWAS OF TO-DAY. Photo by Bell.

0055

THE ST. MARY'S FALLS CANAL AND LOCKS—LOOKING WEST. Steamship North West entering the Poe Lock. Photo by Bell.

Sault Ste. Marie.

The most interesting object here is the St. Mary's Falls Canal with its immense locks, the largest ship canal in the world. To appreciate the work we must note the natural conditions presented at the Sault Ste. Marie.

The level of Lake Huron is 22 feet below that of Lake Superior, there is therefore this amount of descent in the St. Mary's River connecting the two lakes; and of this fall 19 feet occurs here at the Sault, in the half-mile stretch of rapids known as the St. Mary's Falls. This was of course an insuperable barrier to navigation of the stream itself. The engineering problem presented was to receive a ship on the lower level at the foot of the falls, and lift it 19 feet to the level of the river above the falls.

When Michigan was admitted to the Union, one of the first public enterprises undertaken by the new State was to provide a ship canal for the Sault. In 1852 Congress granted 750,000 acres of lands, the proceeds of which were to go to building the canal. In 1855 the State canal was opened; it was 4,500 feet in length and had two locks. The demands of an increasing lake commence outgrew the capacity of the State lock, and the construction of a new one was undertaken by the Government, at a cost of nearly one million dollars. This was opened in 1881, and was named after Gen. Godfrey Weitzel, of the United States Army, the engineer in charge. The Weitzel Lock is 515 feet in the basin, 80 feet wide, and 39½ feet deep, and has a draft of 17 feet on the miter-sills. A second Government lock, taking the place of the old State lock, was opened in 1896. It is named the Poe Lock, after Gen. Orlando M. Poe, U. S., the constructing engineer. The length of basin between gates is 800 feet, width

WEITZEL LOCK AND ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. Photo by Bell.

0057 40

WHALEBACKS IN THE LOCK. Photo by Bell.

100 feet, depth over miter-sills (the allowable draft of vessels) 21 feet; and the lift is from 18 to 20 feet, according to the fluctuations of the upper and lower levels of the river. The Poe Lock can receive at one lockage four vessels each 350 feet long and 46 feet beam. The cost exceeded $4,700,000.

To fill the lock water is admitted to it through two culverts (8 feet square) extending from the canal above the upper gates to a point just above the lower gate. The top of the culverts is the floor of the lock, and this has, in the Weitzel Lock, 58 apertures, through which the water flows in. The lock is emptied by means of culverts, which extend beneath the lower gates and discharge into the stream below. To fill the Weitzel Lock requires 11 minutes; 8 minutes to empty it, and 2 minutes to open or close the gates. The locks are worked by hydraulic power.

The operation of lockage, or “locking through,” is very simple. When a vessel is to be taken up, the upper gates being closed, the lock is emptied until the water in it is on a level with the water of the canal outside where the vessel is waiting. Then the lower gates are opened; the vessel enters and the gates are closed behind her. The water is admitted from above through the culverts, and lifting the ship with it rises in the lock to the level of the water in the canal above the upper gates, which then are opened, and 0058

A STUDY OF STEAM AND SMOKE. Photo by Fanjoy.

0059 42

STEAMSHIP NORTH LAND ENTERING THE CANAL. Photo by Bell.

the vessel glides out into the canal. A vessel bound down enters the lock at the high level, the gates are closed behind her, the water sinks to the level of the canal below, the gates are opened and she passes out. Though all so simple in principle and operation, it is an impressive exhibition of tremendous and majestic power; and there is singular fascination in watching the huge ships, one after another in endless procession, deliberately and steadily lifted and lowered, as by a mysterious agency.

In the busy season there is always, above and below, a line of vessels awaiting their turn to pass the locks. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, 13,411 vessels were passed through in 6,258 lockages, an average of more than two at a time. The canal in that year was open 237 days, the closed season being from Dec. 10 to April 18. The 13,411 vessels carried 14,968,377 tons of freight—coal, flour, wheat, grain, iron, copper, silver, salt, lumber, stone—and 28,767 passengers. Of the lockages 1,660 were through the Weitzel Lock, and 4,598 through the Poe Lock. The average time spent by vessels in passing the locks was 36 minutes 31 seconds. There are no tolls, the locks are free. The marine post-office of the canal handled 82,179 pieces of mail.

The Canadian Lock, on the other bank of the river, is 900 feet long, 60 feet wide, and of 21-feet draft. There was a canal here as early as 1790, when the Northwest Fur Company built a lock 38 feet long, with a lift of 9 feet, for their canoes. The Canadian lock passed 4,750 vessels last year, and 11,883 passengers. The combined traffic of the Sault for that year. American and Canadian, was 18,161 vessels, 20,288,639 tons of freight, and 40,650 passengers. The tonnage of the St. Mary's Falls Canal is double that of the Suez Canal.

On the river banks above the locks is the stone building of the State Fish 0060 43

CHIPPEWA FISHERMEN NETTING WHITEFISH. Photo by Bell.

Hatchery, where some handsome specimens of trout may be seen in the ponds; and in season the process of hatching whitefish may be inspected. The Sault has always been famous for its whitefish; a familiar figure is the Chippewa netting fish in the swift waters of the rapids. Their right to the fishing is guaranteed to the tribe in perpetuity. The Sault Indians and half-breeds spend their lives on the water, and are exceedingly skillful in the management of their craft. Shooting the rapids with the native boatman is a conventional diversion with visitors. The boats put out from the bank near the fish hatchery, and the course extends over something less than a half-mile to a point below the locks. The experience is exhilarating, if not thrilling, and the records prove that it is a perfectly safe adventure.

At Fort Brady, which occupies a commanding situation on an elevation west of the locks, one may have an insight into garrison life. A visit to the fort should be timed for witnessing dress-parade, or the guard-mount at sunset. The fort has been occupied by United States troops since the year 1821. The Sault was a military post in very early times. The French had a fort here in 1750 to intercept the Lake Superior Indians on their way to the New York shores of Lake Ontario to receive presents from the English.

Sault St. Marie has historical interest as the oldest settlement in Michigan, and one of the oldest in the Northwest. Jesuit missionaries visited the tribes here in 1641, naming the rapids Saut du Gaston, the Falls of Gaston, in honor of the brother of the French King. In 1668 Dablon and Marquette established the mission of Ste. Marie du Sault. Three years later the Sault was the scene of one of the continent-claiming proclamations 0061 44

THE IROQUOIS. Photo by Bell.

to which the representatives of European monarchs were much given in those days. Sieur Daumont de Saint Lusson, a sub-delegate of the Intendant of New France, called a council here of the Indian tribes inhabiting the Northwest, and took formal possession of the entire territory from Montreal westward to the Pacific. “Having convoked the tribes,” he writes, “we have caused our commission to be read to them, and have had it interpreted, that they may not be ignorant of it. We have then caused a cross to be erected to produce here the fruits of Christianity, and near it a cedar pole, to which we have attached the arms of France, saying three times with a loud voice and public proclamation, that in the name of the most high, most powerful and most redoubtable monarch, Louis XIV, of name, most Christian King of France and Navarre, we take possession of said place, Sainte Marie du Sault, as also of the Lakes Huron and Superior, the Island of Caientation, and of all other lands, rivers, lakes and streams contiguous to and adjacent here, as well discovered as to be discovered, which are bounded on the one side by the seas of the North and West, and on the other side by the sea of the South, in its whole length or depth. At each of the said three proclamations we have taken up a sod of earth, crying (Vive le Roi!' and caused the same to be cried by the whole assembly, as well French as Indians, declaring to the said nations aforesaid and hereafter that from henceforth they were to be subjects of His Majesty's, subject to obey his laws and follow his customs, promising them all protection and succor on his part against the incursion and invasion of their enemies, declaring to all other potentates, sovereign princes, 0062 45 as well States as Republics, to them or their subjects, that they neither can nor shall upon or dwell in any place of this country, unless with the good pleasure of his said most Christian Majesty, and of him who shall govern the land in his name, under penalty of incurring his hatred and the efforts of his arms.”

It was a high sounding and impressive declaration of a claim to sovereignty which endured less than a hundred years; and Sieur de St. Lusson's document is interesting to-day chiefly as recalling a forgotten page of history. Of all who visit Sault Ste. Marie probably not one in ten, unless fresh from school, remembers that the King of France ever had dominion here in the Northwest. (Hotel: The Iroquois.)

CHARLEVOIX.

Charlevoix.

Charlevoix , eighteen miles from Petoskey, on the shore of Lake Michigan, is one of the ancient towns of the northern lake region. It was called after Pierre Francois Xavier Charlevoix, the French Jesuit historian and explorer, who in 1720 made an expedition through Lakes Huron and Michigan, and descended the Mississippi to its mouth; and so with Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, Hennepin and others of his race, wrote his name on the map of New France.

Plain Charlevoix is the official designation; but those who know the spot as a summer rest haven are wont to speak of it as Charlevoix-the-Beautiful. It is indeed lovely for situation, and the surroundings are a delight. Just back of the Lake Michigan beach is Round Lake, a natural basin half a mile in diameter and of great depth; and connected with the larger lake by Pine River, which has been converted by the Government at great expense into a deep-water channel, capable of admitting by a deep channel is Pine lake, fifteen miles in length and three miles wide. These waters, together with connecting bays and streams, afford unlimited opportunities for fly and deep-water fishing, as well as sailing and rowing—ranging from the safe surface of the inland lake and the quiet waters of the placid streams to the more hazardous expanse of Lake Michigan. Nowhere on Lake

THE CHICAGO AND WEST MICHIGAN STATION AT CHARLEVOIX.

0064 47

FROM STATION TO INN.

Michigan is there a more inviting rendezvous for private yachts, steam, sail and naphtha.

The town has shared the growing popularity of all this region as a summer resort. It has developed from its ancient bounds and character into a town of 2,500 inhabitants, with schools, churches, water-works, electric lights and a decidedly modern and up-to-date air. It has a Charlevoix Summer Home Association, whose “Resort” occupies a tract south of the river on the terraces overlooking Round and Pine Lakes.

The Chicago Resort, which is what its name indicates, the summer home of Chicago people, has numerous handsome cottages, and owns a considerable tract on the north side of the river, and similarly on the terraces overlooking the two lakes.

(The hotel at Charlevoix is The Inn, whose attractions are hinted in the illustrations.)

Between Charlevoix and Traverse City (a distance of sixty-five miles via the Chicago & West Michigan Railway) there are more good fishing waters convenient to railroad facilities than anywhere else perhaps in the world. Starting at Charlevoix and ending at Elk Rapids, there are a hundred miles of continuous lakes, big and little, all connected one with another by streams, excepting one portage of five miles between Ellsworth and East Jordan. All have game fish of some kind, the list including speckled trout, grayling, black bass, pickerel, etc. The railroad penetrates the center of this region, and for forty miles runs along the shores of the 0065 48 rivers, lakes and streams; its several stations bring the most remote places in this fishing wilderness within a few miles of one or another of the stopping places of the trains. This means that whether you make your headquarters at Traverse City, Charlevoix or Petoskey, it will be entirely practicable to go into the wildest regions and fish between breakfast and supper at any one of the above named places. First is Pine Lake, fifteen miles long and two to three miles side. South Arm, a narrower lake which empties into the former, is eight miles long. These have good steamboats which ply regularly their entire length between Charlevoix and Boyne City on Pine Lake, and East Jordan on South Arm. Jordan River, said to be the most famous trout stream in the world, empties into South Arm at East Jordan, and this river is navigable for small boats for a distance of twelve miles. Proceeding southward from Charlevoix, along the Chicago & West Michigan Railway, are Newman's Creek (trout), Twin Lakes (bass and pickerel), Orr Creek (trout). Then comes the Intermediate chain of lakes, in order as follows: Shoals, St. Claire, Hardy, White, Benway and Central. Flowing into or adjacent are Shoals' Creek, Eaton Lake, White and Mill Creeks. It is only a mile west of the railway from Twenty-Six Lake to another succession of small lakes and connecting or contiguous streams, in order going southwardly: Herkimer, Matchett's, Lime, Mud, etc.; and following on beyond is Mill Creek, which empties into White Lake, one of the Intermediate chain referred to above.

THE INN—CHARLEVOIX-THE-BEAUTIFUL.

Petoskey.

Petoskey is the center of the Little Traverse Bay district. It occupies an elevated position on the southeastern shore, with a waterfront of one and one-half miles, from which it looks across to the sister resorts of Harbor Point, Harbor Springs, Wequetonsing and Roaring Brook. On the north it is adjoined by Bay View; the two towns lie in an amphitheater of natural terraces, which rise in regular gradations to the wooded crest forming the sky line.

Petoskey takes its name from Ignatius Bedosega (or Petoskey), the former Indian proprietor of the town site. It was established in 1874, when the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad had been extended to this point. It is to-day a progressive modern city, well equipped with all the conveniences that go to make up city life. The park plots, shaded streets and handsome homes, and the general air of prosperity and comfort which are characteristic of Petoskey, unite to attract the visitor and entice him to make test of the reality of what is so fair in the seeming. Petoskey invites the health and pleasure tourist; very early in its history the town acquired fame for its pure and invigorating air, and the healing balm which insure immediate relief from the distressing malady of hay-fever. The cure of this disease is certain and speedy; Petoskey is the headquarters of the Western Hay Fever Association, and the harbor of refuge to which come hay fever sufferers from all over the country. One finds in Petoskey a happy combination of a thriving town, alert and active in its business interests, and the characteristics of a summer resort where every provision is made for the comfort and entertainment of the visitor.

Little Traverse Bay is celebrated for its beauty; and the terraced grades of the town give to all its homes views of the water with its animated pictures of wave and cloud, pleasure craft and shipping. The fishing is excellent; there is a fleet of sailboats; and carriage roads and bicycle paths thread the pine woods and skirt the shore.

Bay View takes its name from its situation on a succession of terraces rising one back of another from the shore, and giving the hundreds of cottages which make up the town an outlook over the bay, and the benefit of the cool breezes which temper the summer's heat. The resort is the property of the Michigan Camp Ground Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The annual camp meeting of the Association is held here in July and August. Prompted and guided by a purpose to make the weeks spent at a summer resort something more than a period of idleness. or profitless activity in playing gaines, Bay View has developed a series of institutions which make for higher culture. The Bay View Summer University has an academical department and a school of methods designed to provide teachers with all the advantages of a normal school. The Bay View Assembly has its lecturers and entertainments for which it calls upon the best talent of the country. The Bay View Reading Circle follows systematic courses of reading and study; it has State and local branches, and 0067

PETOSKEY AND LITTLE TRAVERSE BAY. Photo by Wilcox

0068 51 the membership runs into the thousands. Bay View is in effect a Michigan Chautauqua.

Harbor Point is a narrow tongue of land which puts out from the north shore of Little Traverse Bay, and separating it from Lake Michigan, encloses an admirably protected harbor. It is owned by the Harbor Point Association, whose cottages adorn the curving shores. Nearby on the main shore is

Harbor Springs , the site of the early Jesuit mission of L'Abre Croche (the crooked tree), whose records run back two hundred years. It takes its present name from the beautiful springs which are among the native attractions which have made it a favorite resort. Back from the bay the land rises in high bluffs, from which a noble prospect greets the eye, the view extending over harbor and bay and lake and the rising hills beyond Petoskey. A mile east of Harbor Springs is the Presbyterian Resort of

We-que-ton-sing , its name the Indian designation which was given to Little Traverse Bay. Adjoining We-que-ton-sing on the east is

Roaring Brook , with its stream dashing down from the heights and winding its way to the lake through a dense tangle of wilderness vegetation, which the wise forethought of the resort managers has preserved in its original condition. One may spend delightful hours exploring the maze of the primitive woods with their fallen cedars of prodigious size; or ascending the footway whose easy grades climb the hill, may enjoy from the summit a view not excelled in this whole Little Traverse Bay district, famous as it is for its landscape effects.

THE IMPERIAL HOTEL, PETOSKEY.

0069

ROARING BROOK.

Macatawa and Ottawa Beach.

These popular resorts are situated on the east shore of Lake Michigan, 95 miles from Chicago and 30 miles from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Their location, at the widest part of the great lake, gives them the benefit of the prevailing western breezes over the broad expanse of its waters, and secures a delightful summer climate. They are reached by the Chicago and West Michigan Railway; also by steamboat, from Chicago. The Holland and Chicago line operates a daily line of steamers, which land at the Macatawa, Ottawa and Holland docks.

Macatawa Park and Ottawa Beach are separated only by the narrow harbor channel which connects Lake Michigan and Macatawa Bay. A ferry steamer makes frequent trips between the two landings. Macatawa Bay, a body of water from one-half to two miles in width, extends inland from Lake Michigan for a distance of six miles, and gives ample opportunity for rowing and sailing. The city of Holland, an enterprising town containing 10,000 inhabitants, is located at the eastern end of the bay. The shores of the bay are lined with summer homes, fruit orchards and forests. Excursion steamers make regular trips between the resorts and Holland. An electric railway also furnishes hourly service between the points.

The bathing in Lake Michigan is one of the features. The pure water of the lake. the white sands, free from all rocks. and the gradual increase in the depth of the water and its warmth, make the bathing beaches at Ottawa and Macatawa very popular.

Macatawa Park comprises 300 acres of land. the greater part of which is covered by native forest, through which miles of pleasant walks have been made. The park is a succession of hills and valleys, which present picturesque and romantic scenery. Ottawa and Macatawa contain 30 cottages, which are made the summer homes of families from all parts of the country. The social features of the resorts is especially attractive.. The resorts are in the midst of a fine farming and fruit growing country. Holland City at the head of the bay, provides twenty miles of graded and graveled streets for bicyclists, and excellent carriage roads lead out from the town in all directions. Grand Rapids, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, is but twenty-five miles from Holland, with good roads to it for wheelmen, and direct railway service from Ottawa Beach and Holland.

(The hotels at the two resorts are Hotel Ottawa and Hotel Macatawa.)

The pretty story connected with the name of Macatawa runs thus: “The good chief Macatawa, of the Ottawas, selected for his tepee the base of an isolated mountain near the bay, and to the north of which the mysterious wind, which builds and unbuilds at its pleasure, had left a wide expanse of level sand. The chief fished in the waters and hunted in the forest, and dwelt in peace with his people. His fair daughter. Mattalena, had grown from child to woman. and now was eagerly sought by all the young braves of the tribe. To Wakazoo she 0071 54

AT MACATAWA.

showed favor, but knowing that the young man did not please her father, dare not show her preference. As she would have none of her father's choosing, he at last decided that the swiftest and most powerful canoe man among the young braves should have her. On the appointed day all the young braves assembled and were taken by the chief to the top of the hill, near his wigwam. The maiden was seated in her canoe on the bay at the foot of the hill, and at a given signal she raised her paddle and flew up the small inland lake. At the same signal the young warriors dashed down the hillside, each for his own canoe, and sped after her. On flew the pursuers and on sped the prize; first one and then another dropped from the race exhausted, till only two were left in the struggle, Wakazoo whom she loved, and Maksauba whom she hated with all an Indian's hearted. Slowly and steadily Maksauba gained on the maiden till witch only a few yards left in which to complete the race he was a good canoe length ahead. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the race was lost to her lover, but witch firm determination decided that death was preferable to the impending fate. On came her lover, never giving up the struggle. When Mattalena saw Makasauba with one hand extended to grasp her canoe, and knew that the race was over, with maddened dexterity she wheeled the bow of her boat, the stern striking that the Maksauba, and he was thrown into the water. He disappeared, although a powerful swimmer, and for some unknown cause never came to the surface. His body was never recovered, and there were for many moons vague whisperings that connected his evil life with his death. In the meantime 0072 55 Wakazoo had taken the now almost fainting maiden into his canoe, and in silent triumph returned to the waiting tribe. They were married and their descendants lived in the beautiful place many years.”

Not less pleasing, and much better authenticated, is the story of the circumstances which led to the preservation of the spot in its natural conditions for our enjoyment. It is told in one of the resort booklets: “Then came the white man, and the primeval forest rang with the sharp swish of the axe, tree after tree fell, clearing after clearing was formed, town and village appeared and the last of the Indians disappeared to return no more. One day a party of white people came from the town to camp on the shore of the great lake. The woodsman's axe still sounded on the border of the hills, but the gigantic forests upon the hills themselves were unharmed. The river which had been an outlet for the inland lake had been filled by the action of the waves, until now but a small shallow stream found its way sluggishly over the beach into the lake. The campers saw the wonderful beauty of the hills and forests, and were thankful that one spot had been spared in a state of nature for wearied man to rest. They went and came again, and the woodman's axe was in the forest on the hills, and they felt that the beauty of the place was to be gone forever. They formed themselves into a little company, and decided to try by all means to keep this spot of nature sacred. They succeeded, and bought the land, and to-day where the wind and waves formed the giant hills, and the wind carried the seeds for the trees and vegetation is our summer home beautiful Macatawa.”

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.

Lake Harbor.

Lake Harbor is on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan nearly midway between Muskegon and Grand Haven, and about opposite Milwaukee. It is reached by the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad direct to Lake Harbor Station. The tourist landing at Muskegon, whether by boat or rail, will find excellent facilities for reaching the hotel by a special Lake Harbor train service furnished by the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad to Lake Harbor Station. Thence by steamboat the full length of beautiful and picturesque Lake Harbor, where passengers who have crossed Lake Michigan arrive by 8:30—ample time for breakfast.

A LAKE HARBOR DRIVE.

0074 57

LAKE HARBOR HOTEL.

The Lake Harbor Hotel faces the picturesque channel connecting Lake Harbor with Lake Michigan. A stone can be thrown from the veranda into Lake Harbor, while Lake Michigan is only about forty rods distant in the opposite direction. The views are fine. The broad lawn rises gradually from the channel to the hotel, which is thirty feet above the water level. Bathing is one of the chief attractions of the place. There is a sandy beach and often an excellent surf. The water is very warm, and there is no undertow. There is a large and commodious bath house. The hotel has a large boat livery and a stream launch that may be chartered. Lake Harbor and the channel afford excellent opportunities for this pastime in which even small children may indulge with perfect safety. There is fine black bass fishing in Lake Harbor and also in Muskegon, Little Black, Blue and Wolf lakes in the vicinity.

Lake Harbor being on the east side of Lake Michigan, is on the side to ensure summer comfort. The prevailing winds are from the southwest, and pass for one hundred miles over the water. The result is a temperature from ten to fifteen degrees cooler than in Chicago and Milwaukee, or at the Wisconsin resorts, where the winds blow across the heated plains of the interior. People who formerly went to the sea shore or mountains are finding out that here in Michigan they can be more comfortable nearer home, and enjoy most of the attractions obtainable at those resorts and many more.

Pointe Aux Barques.

From the Resort Association Booklet .

The extreme northernmost point of the “Thumb” of Michigan, which jutting out into Lake Huron, marks the northern limits of Saginaw Bay, is of a character so unusual and remarkable that the earliest explores of these great western seas made mention of it. It is supposed that Father Claude Allouez, the Jesuit priest, who with a canoe party traversed the waters of Lake Huron in 1665, named it. It was the Pointe aux Barques to the venturesome voyageurs who noted it as they passed on their dangerous and laborious journeys; and it is still the Pointe aux Barques, now that civilization has driven out the red man, and has peopled the “Thumb” with a thrifty and progressive community. The rocky cape still stands a grim sentry, as it were, looking out upon the vast blue expanse of restless waters, which, in sunshine and in storm, dash upon its rock-bound base.

Dame nature has provided no more delightful retreat along the chain of great inland seas, to which the footsteps of the busy people of the great cities may tend during the warm months, when rest and recreation from

POINTE AUX BARQUES.

0076 59

THE SHORE AT POINTE AUX BARQUES.

the routine cares of life become a necessity. The Pointe aux Barques described by Colonel Anderson of the Government Survey of 1833, as a “rough, rocky, small caverned cape,” still furnished numberless nooks and grottoes where, in the cool environment, one may muse with luxurious contentment upon the uniquely picturesque surroundings. Here the cool and inviting breezes always blow, and beyond stretches the beach of white sand, dotted with merry children, and in the background are the pleasant groves which give certain promise of romantic paths and pleasant glades.

For more than a score of years the lighthouse on the reef has flashed nightly the beacon light of warning at regular intervals, and in thick weather the bass voice of the fog-horn has been heard for miles. Until 1896 the residence of the lighthouse keeper was alone and solitary. But early in that year the Pointe aux Barques Resort Association, having for its purpose the upbuilding of a family resort, was formed. It was believed that this spot was ideal for the location of summer homes. No place is more beautiful, the air and temperature are delightful, and the water not so cold as at other resorts farther north. To the south lies one of the most fertile and high cultivated farming section of the State which assures the cottagers of the wholesome products of the farm in their freshness. A delightful drive or walk to the beautiful little village of Port Austin puts the stores of the merchants at the command of the resorters. Within a few hours' ride of the centers of population of the State, it is easy of access; so good is the service that the afternoon papers of Detroit 0077 60 are delivered the same evening. The acreage and water front, controlled by the association, is of an extent which prevents the possibility of intrusion, and the association has secured the promise of the railroad that no rough day-excursionists will be landed at the Pointe. It is secure from the undesirable element which too frequently inflicts its presence at such places.

Unexpected success has followed the efforts of the association. It has many members and has made substantial improvements. The Pointe aux Barques Club, as the new clubhouse is designed, is of the old colonial style of architecture. It is located on solid rock, thirty feet above the level of the lake, overlooking the waters of Lake Huron, and only a short distance from the beach.

The Club is connected with Western Union Telegraph lines, which enables its guests to communicate with the world at large, and the government has made this its post-office, and twice a day the mails bring letters to the guests.

The season opens June 1, and the class of patronage is high, making it a most desirable retreat for the cultivated people of our large cities.

Those who take pleasure in rowing or sailing, will find the Pointe aux Barques a most delightful resort, with the waters of Saginaw Bay on the one side and that of Lake Huron on the other, always available for either the row or sail boat. Pointe aux Barques bathing is an enjoyment. The water is clear as crystal, and of a pleasant temperature, and one can hardly be persuaded to come out. The shore of Alaska Bay, which bends into the land from Lake Huron in a graceful curve, about two miles long and the same distance in breadth, has one of the finest strips of pure sand beach on the chain of Great Lakes.

Huron County, in which the Pointe aux Barques is located, boasts of having good country highways, and well it may, because nowhere can better highways be found by the enthusiastic wheelmen, who delight in a spin out into the country. During the summer months the gravel roads which stretch out for miles in either direction, with magnificent farms on either side, form a perfect panorama, in which the bicyclist revels.

Michigan, with a thousand miles of take coast, holds pre-eminence over all her sister States in the importance of her commercial fisheries. These lakes have an area of 97,000 square miles, and a total length of about 1,500 miles, with a varying depth.

It is in traversing a territory so bountifully remembered by nature in her many gifts of delightful, crystal fishing grounds, that the Pointe aux Barques appeals to the angler. Saginaw Bay, the waters of which teem with the finest and largest of the finny tribe, lies just to the west. Fishermen generally acknowledge this bay to be one of the finest fishing waters in America. From the Pointe aux Barques all the famous fishing points are most accessible. Here the exciting and delightful sport, trolling for lake trout, during the season can be enjoyed to the utmost. Bass and perch fishing is unexcelled.

There are several attractive summer places at a convenient distance from Pointe aux Barques, which afford the opportunity for pleasant excursions. 0078 61 Among them Port Austin, with its picturesque shore; Bay Port with its fine hotel and excellent fishing, nestled in the shelter of Heisterman and North Islands, is a desirable place for a day's outing, and of convenient distance from the Pointe; and Sand Beach with its mineral springs, the waters of which have developed marvelous curative properties, government breakwater and finest harbor of refuge on the chain of Great Lakes, upon which the government has spent millions of dollars, is only a short distance from the Pointe.

Each applicant desiring membership, who has been properly vouched for, upon payment of $50, receives two shares of non-assessable stock. The owner of the two shares of stock then has the privilege of selecting and purchasing any lot then owned by the association, the price of which may vary according to location, receiving full title to same, and protected by the laws of Michigan, subject only to the regulations of the association; all money received from the sale of stock and lots to be used for improvements and dividend, in which all members participate. These shares entitle the holder to a vote on each share in the selection of the Board of Directors, which, like a village board, makes the regulations which govern this community. They also secure for the member and his immediate family and guests, the substantial concessions in the rates at the Club House, as has been before shown by the schedule; and a half fare rate on all railroads in Michigan when going to and from Point aux Barques. The annual dues of ten dollars on each share to which land has been attached, which are payable in the spring of each year, aggregate a sum which enables the Board of Directors to provide for the members many services which in many places are found to be expensive and annoying to the individual. Upon application, Mr. H. F. Moeller, General Passenger Agent, Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad, Saginaw, Mich., will gladly furnish detailed information on this subject.

POINTE AUX BARQUES CLUB HOUSE.

Traverse City and Omena.

Omena Resort is on the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay, twenty miles north of Traverse City, from which it is reached by steamer, and where it has connection with the Grand Rapids & Indiana and the Chicago & West Michigan railways. Excursion boats also ply to Charlevoix, Bay View, Petoskey and other neighboring resorts.

Omena is an Ottawa word, signifying Beautiful Gift. The Indians were often endowed with an eye to see the poetry of nature, and with a felicity of expression which embodied this poetical recognition in their place-names; and it may not be altogether fanciful to believe that in this spot they recognized a Beautiful Gift from their Great Spirit to his children. Those who came after the red man and succeeded to his inheritance had in Omena a goodly legacy; and most appropriately was the name retained.

The situation is on a narrow tongue of land which extends a mile out into Grand Traverse Bay, and in the curve forms its own sheltered nook of Omena Bay. From a broad, hard beach the land rises in natural terraces to an elevation of 150 feet. The terraces afford ideal sites for summer homes; and from their ample grounds embowered amid trees, many cottages look out over the water. The elevated situation, with the broad expanse of the bay, insures cool airs all through the heated term. In addition to its natural attractions. Omena has a decided advantage in well-stocked markets, supplied from neighboring fruit farms and vegetable gardens; the cost of household living is as a rule cheaper than in the city.

The woods are intersected by winding carriage roads and bicycle paths: and the beach drives stretch away for miles with an ever animated water view. Pleasure craft are here in many forms, and to suit every taste. Fishing in tire bay is rewarded by generous strings of the Mackinaw trout and other varieties; there are numerous black bass waters, and neighboring streams afford good brook trout fishing. Omena was planned to be and essentially is a family resort. Of it Mr. F. H. Graves, the projector, says:

“Every man is king and every woman is queen of her own castle here. If she chooses to dream the lovely days away in the seclusion of her rustic palace, en déshabillé, it is her undisputed privilege. If she cares to mingle with the throng of gay society people from Chicago and the great cities of the South; if she loves the diversion of Terpsichore or the excitement of dashing through the shady drives or down the wave-washed beach on her wheel: if she wishes to feel the thrill of a big lake trout upon her hook; or listen to the musical laughter of sweet childhood; take a plunge into the limpid waters of the bay; or send the blood coursing through her veins behind the oars. it is her supreme right.”

(Hotels: Leelanaw Hotel; Omena Inn.)

0080 63

Traverse City , at the foot of the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay, is the central point of a region which is in growing popularity with visitors to the Michigan pine country. It is on the Boardman River, which here enters the bay as the outlet for a vast and richly stocked lumber district. Traverse City was settled to the song of the sawmill; its foundations were laid in sawdust; and it is to-day a humming, buzzing center of wood-working industries. Where “all the pins go to” we shall never know; but they come by the million—clothes-pins—from Traverse City, Michigan, as one may see for himself; and it is well worth while to inspect the ingenious mechanical devices which turn out the immense product of the factories here. Traverse City clothes-pins make secure the fluttering linen of a million back-yards; and a million pantries know the Traverse City wooden butter dish.

Apart from its commercial features, the town has many attractions for the tourists. When men began to see something in trees besides saw-logs, and something in rivers besides highways for rafts, the natural attractions of the spot appealed to them, and they recognized the beauty in its contours and terraces, and bay and river shores. Ample provision has been made for the summer health seeker and the pleasure tourist. The neighboring forests are threaded by good roads and bicycle paths; the bay gives never-failing scope for aquatic diversions: there are some fishing grounds where luck is reputed to give way to certainty; and all these, with the equable summer temperature and the ever-pure air attract numerous visitors. (Hotel: The Park Place.)

IN WASHINGTON PARK, CHICAGO.

0081

THE PLEASURE BEACH AT JACKSON PARK, CHICAGO.

Chicago.

We associate Chicago with sky-scraping buildings, congested street traffic the bustle and push of business, the din and clangor and steam and smoke of the greatest railroad center on earth. And yet there are Chicago who when they visit other cities are restless because they miss the stretch of prairie within city limits and the outlook over Lake Michigan's boundless expanse. There is only one Chicago; but Chicago itself is many sided. It combines with the characteristics of a vast commercial and industrial center, many of the qualities of a Northern Lake Resort. For there are residence districts on the Lake Michigan front, which in their advantage of situation and charm of surrounding hold out decided attractions to the pleasure tourist. This is in particular true of the park section made famous as the site of the World's Fair. The Jackson Park is today, with its lawn and knoll and lake and umbrageous drive and ramble, more lovely still than in the years of the “White City.” And this is only one of the pleasure grounds which make up the magnificent Chicago park system. Boulevards and avenues—among them the famous Midway—lead out from Jackson to other parks hardly less beautiful in landscape gardening and inviting shades.

The Jackson Park section is distinguished too for its residences, its hotels, its educational and art institutions, among them the Field Columbian Museum, with rapidly growing collections, which have already given it among the great museums of the world. But with all these varied attractions, aided by the forethought of the municipal government and by individual munificence, the Jackson Park district owes its peculiar character to the situation here on the shore of Lake Michigan; the water front is the dominating element; in the lake air and the marine view is the perpetual charm. Many travelers have discovered these attractions of Chicago as a halting place, for interrupting the summer trip to Northern resorts; and a growing number of tourists now count the city as one of the regular points on the annual itinerary.

To those who are fond of wheeling (experts or beginners), the section offers additional attractions. The long-distance rider can start from here and make a run of eighty miles through Chicago's famous drives without leaving the boulevard, while beginners by seeking a quiet part of Jackson or Washington Park can practice to their heart's without fear of collision or publicity. Coaching parties are quite a feature with the young folks. A drive on a tallyho, with a gay party, through Chicago's beautiful parks, stopping at some outlying summer garden for supper, and then home along the beach by moonlight, constitutes a trip long to be remembered. Moonlight excursions on the lake from the Chicago Beach pier are popular with those who are fond of the water. A beautiful summer evening with the soft fresh breeze floating from the lake, and the moon casting its rays across the water's surface, combined with the strains of the orchestra and laughter and song of the 0083 66 oarsman, constitute an hour once enjoyed, never forgotten. There are many summer gardens within easy reach, and the theater roof gardens furnish amusement for those who are inclined to such form of entertainments.

The Chicago Beach Hotel is located in the finest residence district of the city, on a small peninsula running out into Lake Michigan, and is almost entirely surrounded by water. It has an unique situation, being entirely surrounded by lake and parks, and still within ten minutes of the business center and activities of a city of one million five hundred thousand people. It stands on a beautiful peninsula with the blue-green waves of Lake Michigan rolling around two sides of it, and the lawns, groves and flower beds of Chicago's system of parks stretching for miles away on the other two sides. It is as delightfully rural and restful as if it were a thousand miles from any town, and yet it is within ten minutes' ride of all the rush, roar and excitement of a busy city.

The hotel grounds proper front for fifteen hundred feet on the lake, and the broad beach of snowy sand, strewn with shells and pebbles, is a perpetual delight to the troops of gayly dressed children, who are busy from morning till night with their tiny shovels and buckets, digging, wading, paddling, shell gathering and having a gay time generally in their own juvenile fashion. It only needs a little salt in the water to make a real ocean scene. The waves come rolling up within fifty steps of the verandas. Flocks of white-winged sea gulls float airily in the sunlight. Great steamers glide past with their stately motion, and countless diminutive yachts, with bright-hued pennons flying, skim and dart hither and thither, while the rippling of the waters mingles harmoniously with the laughter of the merry throng.

The district, while having thus all the benefits and pleasures of a seaside resort, is yet only ten minutes' distant from the theaters, roof gardens, large retail stores, museums and galleries of a great city, and, on the other hand, is also in close proximity to Jackson and Washington parks, of “World's Fair” fame.

Battle Creek.

Nothing is more important for a medical institution than a salubrious location. Pure air, pure water and a porous, well-drained soil are among the most essential features of a first-class location for a sanitarium. A happy combination of these essential elements, found at Battle Creek, Michigan, and at the particular point selected for this institution, was what led the founders of the establishment to plant it here at the inception of the enterprise, nearly thirty years ago, after a considerable time spent in looking about for the most eligible and advantageous site.

The aim of the managers of this institution has been to gather together in one place and under favorable conditions all the means, methods and 0084 67 appliances for the treatment of the sick which are recognized in rational medicine, and to utilize these means and methods in a conscientious and intelligent manner.

The Battle Creek Sanitarium differs from most sanitariums in that its central and fundamental idea is the thought that health-getting is not a matter of magic nor of pill-swallowing, nor, in most cases, one of climate, but rather a matter of training and education. The chronic invalid is sick, usually because he has neglected to supply the conditions necessary for health, or because, by long-continued violation of the laws of health in various unhygienic practices, he has developed evil tendencies and morbid activities in his various bodily organs. The cure of such a patient must largely consist in a course of systematic training by which he will be educated out of his evil ways into better ones—by which his abnormal vital functions will be trained to normal and healthful activity. This course of training necessarily includes such discipline and regimen as will influence every disordered function. It involves absolute control of the entire life of the invalid. All his habits of life must be systematically conformed to such rules and principles as will efficiently and curatively modify his disordered vital processes.

An effort is made to inspire every one of the two hundred nurses and medical attendants employed in the institution, with the thought that the place must be kept full of sturdy ideas about health and wholesome living, and that every room must be kept aglow with mental and moral sunshine through the agency of cheerful surroundings, kindly sympathy, and efficient and amiable service.

One of the latest additions to the therapeutic resources of the institution is the electric light or radiant heat bath, which was originated here, and which proves to be a wonderfully effective agent in certain classes of diseases.

The Battle Creek menu is not that of a fashionable hotel, but such as is prompted by good sense and a thorough knowledge of the needs of invalids, and the dietetic value of the various wholesome foods and food productions produced and obtainable in this part of the world. Great attention is given to the subject of medical dietetics. The experimental kitchen which has been in operation for the last ten years, constantly supplies new features for the bill of fare; and the diet kitchen, supplied with every facility to meet the wants of the most capricious appetite and the most obstinate stomach, serves the same purpose in relation to the diet prescriptions that the pharmacy or a drug store serves in relation to medicinal prescriptions.

The institution was organized in 1866 by a few persons interested in the advancement of sanitary reform and rational medicine. Two years later when the stockholders found the enterprise a pronounced success they were easily persuaded to relinquish all claims upon the earnings, and make the original stock an endowment, the earnings to be perpetually used for necessary improvements, the treatment of the sick poor, and the furtherance of the purposes for which the institution was organized. All the earnings of the institution have accordingly been thus used from its foundation to the present time, and will continue to be thus employed.

Alexander Henry.

Alexander Henry , a fur trader, was the first Englishman to adventure into this country after its cession by France to Great Britain; and he found the Indians so incensed at having been surrendered to the domination of England, so bitterly hostile to the English, that he himself was in daily and hourly peril of his life. He came to Fort Michilimackinac in 1971, after the French garrison had abandoned the post, and before the British sent to occupy it had arrived. Following a series of hairbreadth escapes, he was about to be put to death, when he was rescued by the opportune arrival of the troops. Two years later he was in the fort at the time of the massacre. The story of that event, omitting some of the blood-curdling details, we will let him relate in his own way: *

* “Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories, between 1760 and 1776.”

“When I reached Michilimackinac, I found several other traders who had arrived before me, from different parts of the country, and who, in general, declared the disposition of the Indians to be hostile to the English, and even apprehended some attack. M. Laurent Ducharme distinctly informed Major Ethrington that a plan was absolutely conceived for destroying him, his garrison, and all the English in the upper country; but the commandant, believing this and other reports to be without foundation, proceeding only from idle or ill-disposed persons, and of a tendency to do mischief, expressed much displeasure against M Ducharme, and threatened to send the next person who should bring a story of the same kind a prisoner to Detroit.

“The garrison at this time consisted of ninety privates, two subalterns, and the commandant, and the English merchants at the fort were four in number. Thus strong, few entertained anxiety concerning the Indians, who had no weapons but small arms.

“Meanwhile the Indians from every quarter were daily assembling in unusual numbers, but with every appearance of friendship, frequenting the forts and disposing of their peltries in such a manner as to dissipate almost any one's fears. For myself, on one occasion, I took the liberty of observing to Major Ethrington that, in my judgment, no confidence ought to be placed in them, and that I was informed no less than four hundred lay around the fort. In return, the Major only rallied me on my timidity; and it is to be confessed, that, if this officer neglected admonition on his part, so did I on mine. Shortly after my first arrival at Michilimackinac, in the preceding year, a Chippewa named Wáwátam began to come often to my house, betraying in his demeanor strong marks of personal regard. After this had continued for some time, he came on a certain day, bringing with him his whole family; and, at the same time, a large present, consisting of skins, sugar, and dried meat. He informed me that he had dreamed of adopting an Englishman as his son, brother and friend; that, 0086 69 from the moment in which he first beheld me, he had recognized me as the person whom the Great Spirit had been pleased to point out to him for a brother; that he hoped that I would not refuse his present, and that be should forever regard me as one of his family. I could do no otherwise than accept the present, and declare my willingness to have so good a man as this appeared to be for my friend and brother.

“Twelve months had now elapsed since the occurrence of this incident, and I had almost forgotten the person of my brother, when, on the second day of June, Wáwátam came again to my house, in a temper of mind visibly melancholy and thoughtful. He told me that he was very sorry to find me returned from the Sault; that he had intended to go to that place himself, immediately after his arrival at Michilimackinac; and that he wished me to go there along with him and his family the next morning. I answered that I could not think of going to the Sault so soon as the next morning, but would follow him there after the arrival of my clerks. Finding himself unable to prevail with me, he withdrew for that day; but early the next morning he came again, bringing with him his wife and a present of dried meat. At this interview he expressed a second time his apprehensions from the numerous Indians who were around the fort, and earnestly pressed me to consent to an immediate departure for the Sault. As a reason for this particular request, he assured me that all the Indians proposed to come in a body that day to the fort, to demand liquor of the commandant, and that he wished me to be gone before they should grow intoxicated. The Indian manner of speech is so extravagantly figurative, that it is only for a very perfect master to follow and comprehend it entirely. Had I been further advanced in this respect, I think that I should have gathered so much information from this, my friendly monitor, as would have put me into possession of the designs of the enemy, and enabled me to save others as well as myself; as it was, it unfortunately happened that I turned a deaf ear to everything, leaving Wáwátam and his wife, after long and patient, but ineffectual efforts, to depart alone, with dejected countenances, and not before they had each let fall some tears.

“In the course of the same day, I observed that the Indians came in great numbers into the fort, purchasing tomahawks. At night I turned in my mind the visits of Wáwátam; but, though they were calculated to excite uneasiness, nothing induced me to believe that serious mischief was at hand.

“The next day, being the 4th of June, was the King's birthday. A Chippewa came to tell me that his nation was going to play at bag'gat'iway, with the Sacs or Saäkies, another Indian nation, for a high wager. lie invited me to witness the sport, adding that the commandant was to be there, and would be on the side of the Chippewas. In consequence of this information, I went to the commandant, and expostulated with him a little, representing that the Indians might possibly have some sinister end in view; but the commandant only smiled at my suspicions.

“I did not go myself to see the match which was now to be played without the fort, because, there being a canoe prepared to depart on the 0087 70 following day for Montreal, I employed myself in writing letters to my friends; and even when a fellow-trader, Mr. Tracy, happened to call upon me, saying that another canoe had just arrived from Detroit, and proposing that I should go with him to the beach, to inquire the news, it so happened that I still remained, to finish my letters, promising to follow Mr. Tracy in the course of a few minutes. Mr. Tracy had not gone more than twenty paces from my door, when I heard an Indian war-cry, and a noise of general confusion. Going instantly to my window, I saw a crowd of Indians within the fort, furiously cutting down and scalping every Englishman they found. In particular, I witnessed the fate of Lieutenant Jemette.

“I had, in the room in which I was, a fowling-piece. loaded with swan shot. This I immediately seized, and held it for a few minutes, waiting to hear the drum beat to arms. In this dreadful interval I saw several of my countrymen fall, and more than one struggling between the knees of an Indian, who, holding him in this manner, scalped him while yet living.

“At length, disappointed in the hope of seeing resistance made to the enemy, and sensible, of course, that no effort of my own unassisted arm could avail against four hundred Indians, I thought only of seeking shelter. Amid the slaughter which was raging, I observed many of the Canadian inhabitants of the fort calmly looking on, neither opposing the Indians nor suffering injury; and, from this circumstance, I conceived a hope of finding security in their houses.

“Between the yard door of my own house and of M. Langlade, my next neighbor, there was only a low fence, over which I easily climbed. At my entrance I found the whole family at the windows, gazing at the scene of blood before them. I addressed myself immediately to M. Langlade; begging that he would put me into some place of safety until the heat of the affair should be over, an act of charity by which he might perhaps preserve me from the general massacre; but, while I uttered my petition, M. Langlade, who had looked for a moment at me, turned again to the window, shrugging his shoulders, and intimating that he could do nothing for me: ‘ Que voudriez—vous que j' en ferais ?’

“This was a moment for despair; but the next, a Pani woman, a slave of M. Langlade, beckoned me to follow her. She brought me to a door, which she opened, desiring me to enter, and telling me that it led to the garret, where I must go and conceal myself. I joyfully obeyed her directions; and she, having followed me up to the garret door, locked it after me, and with great presence of mind took away the key.

“This shelter obtained, if shelter I could hope to find it, I was naturally anxious to know what might still be passing without. Through an aperture, which afforded me a view of the area of the fort, I beheld, in shapes the foulest and most terrible, the ferocious triumphs of barbarian conquerors. I was shaken, not only with horror, but with fear. The sufferings which I witnessed, I seemed on the point of experiencing. No long time elapsed before, everyone being destroyed who could be found, there was a general cry of ‘All is finished!’ At the same instant I heard some of the Indians enter the house in which I was. The garret was separated 0088 71 from the room below only by a layer of single boards, at once the flooring of the one and the ceiling of the other. I could therefore hear everything that passed; and the Indians no sooner came in than they inquired whether or not any Englishmen were in the house. M. Langlade replied that ‘he could not say’; he ‘did not know of any’—answers in which he did not exceed the truth, for the Pani woman had not only hidden me by stealth, but kept my secret, and her own. M. Langlade was therefore, as I presume, as far from a wish to destroy me as he was careless about saving me, when he added to these answers, that ‘they might examine for themselves, and would soon be satisfied as to the object of their question.’ Saying this, he brought them to the garret door.

“The state of my mind will be imagined. Arrived at the door, some delay was occasioned by the absence of the key, and a few moments were thus allowed me in which to look around me for a hiding place. In one corner of the garret was a heap of those vessels of birch bark used in maple sugar making, as I have recently described.

“The door was unlocked, and opening, and the Indians ascending the stairs, before I had completely crept into a small opening, which presented itself at one end of the heap. An instant later four Indians entered the room, all armed with tomahawks, and all besmeared with blood upon every part of their bodies.

“The die appeared to be cast. I could scarcely breathe, but ‘I thought that the throbbing of my heart occasioned a noise loud enough to betray me. The Indians walked in every direction about the garret, and one of them approached me so closely that at a particular moment, had he put forth his hand he must have touched me. Still I remained undiscovered, a circumstance to which the dark color of my clothes, and the want of light in a room which had no window, and in the corner in which I was, must have contributed. In a word, after taking several turns in the room, during which they told M. Langlade how many they had killed, and how many scalps they had taken they returned downstairs, and I, with sensations not to be expressed, heard the door, which was the barrier between me and my fate, locked for the second time.

“There was a feather bed on the floor, and on this, exhausted as I was by the agitation of my mind, I threw myself down and fell asleep. In this state I remained till the dark of the evening, when I was awakened by a second opening of the door. The person that now entered was M. Langlade's wife, who was much surprised at finding me, but advised me not to be uneasy, observing that the Indians had killed most of the English, but that she hoped I might myself escape. A shower of rain having begun to fall, she had come to stop a hole in the roof. On her going away, I begged her to send me a little water to drink, which she did.

“As night was now advancing, I continued to lie on the bed, ruminating on my condition, but unable to discover a source from which I could hope for life. A flight to Detroit had no probable chance of success. The distance. from Michilimackinac was four hundred miles; I was without provisions; and the whole length of the road lay through Indian countries, countries of an enemy in arms, where the first man whom I should meet 0089 72 would kill me. To stay where I was, threatened nearly the same issue. As before, fatigue of mind, and not tranquility, suspended my cares, and procured me further sleep.

“The respite which sleep afforded me, during the night, was put to an end by the return of morning. I was again on the rack of apprehension. At sunrise I heard the family stirring, and, presently after, Indian voices, informing M. Langlade that they had not found my hapless self among the dead, and that they supposed me to be somewhere concealed. M. Langlade appeared, from what followed, to be, by this time, acquainted with the place of my retreat, of which no doubt he had been informed by his wife. The poor woman, as soon as the Indians mentioned me, declared to her husband in the French tongue, that he should no longer keep me in his house, but deliver me up to my pursuers; giving as a reason for this measure, that should the Indians discover his instrumentality in my concealment, they might avenge it on her children, and that it was better that I should die than they. M. Langlade resisted, at first, this sentence of his wife's, but soon suffered her to prevail, informing the Indians that he had been told I was in the house, that I had come there without his knowledge, and that he would put me into their hands. This was no sooner expressed than he began to ascend the stairs, the Indians following upon his heels.

“I now resigned myself to the fate with which I was menaced; and, regarding every attempt at concealment as vain, I arose from the bed and presented myself full in view to the Indians who were entering the room. They were all in a state of intoxication and entirely naked, except about the middle. One of them, named, Wenniway, whom I had previously known, and who was upward of six feet in height, had his entire face and body covered with charcoal and grease, only that a white spot of two inches in diameter encircled either eye. This man, walking up to me, seized me with one hand by the collar of the coat, while in the other he held a large carving knife, as if to plunge it into my breast; his eyes, meanwhile, were fixed steadfastly on mine. At length, after some seconds of the most anxious suspense, he dropped his arm, saying, ‘I won't kill you!’ To this he added, that he had been frequently engaged in wars against the English, and had brought away many scalps; that, on a certain occasion, he had lost a brother whose name was Musinigon, and that I should be called after him.”

In Skull Cave.

Thus preserved, Henry was held prisoner, his fate still uncertain, until on the fourth day Wáwátam appeared before the council, and claiming the white man as an adopted brother, took him out of the hands of his enemies and brought him over to his own lodge on the island. Here other adventures were in store for him, among them that of the refuge in the cavern, now known as Skull Cave. This is his own account:

“Several days had now passed, when, one morning, a continued alarm prevailed, and I saw Indians running in a confused manner toward the beach. In a short time I learned that two large canoes from Montreal were h: sight.

“All the Indian canoes were immediately manned, and those from Montreal were surrounded and seized as they turned a point. behind which the flotilla had been concealed. The goods were consigned to a Mr. Levy, and would have been saved if the canoe men had called them French property; but they were terrified and disguised nothing.

“In the canoes was a large proportion of liquor—a dangerous acquisition, and one which threatened disturbance among the Indians, even to the loss of their dearest friends. Wáwátam. always watchful of my safety, no sooner heard the noise of drunkenness which, in the evening, did not fail to begin, than he represented to me the danger of remaining in the village, and owned that he could not himself resist the temptation of joining his comrades in the debauch. That I might escape all mischief, he therefore requested that I would accompany him to the mountain, where I was to remain hidden till the liquor should be drank. We ascended the mountain accordingly. After walking more than half a mile. we came to large rock, at the base of which was an opening, dark within, and appearing to be the entrance of a cave. Here Wáwátam recommended that I should take up my lodging, and by all means remain till he returned.

“On going into the cave, of which the entrance was nearly ten feet wide, I found the further end to be rounded in its shape, like that of an oven, but with a further aperture, too small. however, to be explored. After thus looking around me, I broke small branches from the trees and spread them for a bed, then wrapped myself in my blanket and slept till day-break. On awaking, I felt myself incommoded by some object upon which I lay, and, removing it, found it to be a bone. This I supposed to be that of a deer, or some other animal, and what might very naturally be looked for in the place in which I was; but when daylight visited my chamber I discovered, with some feelings of horror, that I was lying on nothing less than a heap of human bones and skulls, which covered the floor!

“The day passed without the return of Wáwátam, and without food. As night approached, I found myself unable to meet its darkness in the charnel-house, 0091 74 which, nevertheless, I had viewed free from uneasiness during the day. I chose, therefore, an adjacent bush for this night's lodging, and slept under it as before; but in the morning I awoke hungry and dispirited and almost envying the dry bones, to the view of which I returned. As length the sound of a foot reached me, and my Indian friend appeared, making many apologies for his long absence, the cause of which was an unfortunate excess in the enjoyment of his liquor.

“This point being explained, I mentioned the extraordinary sight that had presented itself in the cave to which he had recommended my slumbers. He had never heard of its existence before, and, upon examining the cave together, we saw reason to believe that it had been anciently filled with human bodies.

“Wáwátam related to the other Indians the adventure of the bones. All of them expressed surprise at hearing it, and declared that they had never been aware of the contents of this cave before. After visiting it, which they immediately did, almost every one offered a different opinion as to its history. Some advanced, that at a period when the waters overflowed the land (an event which makes a distinguished figure in the history of their world), the inhabitants of this island had fled into the cave, and been there drowned; others, that those inhabitants. when the Hurons made war upon them (as tradition says they did), hid themselves in the cave, and, being discovered, were there massacred. For myself, I am disposed to believe that this cave was an ancient receptacle of the bones of prisoners sacrificed and devoured at war feasts. I have always observed that the Indians pay particular attention to the bones of sacrifices, preserving them unbroken, and depositing them in some place kept exclusively for that purpose.”

From his quasi captivity on Mackinac. Henry at length escaped, and after a long series of adventures, which he says, in the relation of them, were more like fiction than truth, he found his way eventually to Sault See. Marie. There he prospered as a fur trader, and took to himself an Indian wife: A nephew. Alexander Henry the second, shared his adventurous disposition, and following the uncle's example became trader, explorer, adventurer and author.

Books about Mackinac are many. The older ones are not readily accessible. Of those usually found in the shops may be mentioned: “Early Mackinac,” by Rev. Dr. Meade C. Williams, a concise and sympathetic review of the island's history. “Mackinac, formerly Michilimackinac,” by John R. Bailey, M.D., a valuable compendium. with materials drown from the original sources. Miss Woolson's “Anne” has much to do with the island; and Irving's “Astoria” pictures the American fur trade, of which Mackinac was once a center.

Channels.

The development of the commerce of the Great Lakes to its present vast proportions has been made possible by the deepening of the channels of the connecting rivers. The improvements were begun at an early date, as has already been told of the St. Mary's Falls Canal. In 1892 Congress authorized the execution of the plans of Gen. O. M. Poe, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, for a “ship channel 20 and 21 feet in depth, and a minimum width of 300 feet, in the shallows of the connecting waters of the Great Lakes between Chicago, Duluth and Buffalo.” The estimated cost was $3,340,000. Operations were begun in 1893, and the work is now practically completed. The total expenditure of the Government to date for improvement of navigation on the Great Lakes approximates $50,000,000. The most extensive work has been on the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers connecting Lakes Erie and Huron, and the St. Mary's River connecting Lakes Huron and Superior. These improvements are on the route of the Northern Steamship line from Buffalo to Duluth; indeed it is due to them that vessels of the North West and North Land type are possible. The most important improvements in the three rivers are at the Lime Kiln Crossing, the St. Clair Flats Canal, the Hay Lake Channel and the St. Mary's Falls Canal.

The Lime Kiln Crossing , in the lower Detroit River, between Boas Blanc Island and Amherstburg, was formerly the most dangerous point in the navigation of the lakes. There was here a jagged bottom of bedrock and bowlders only 13 feet below the surface. The work of improvement was begun in 1874, and by June, 1897, the engineers had secured a channel 20 feet deep and 440 feet wide. It was for the most part blasted out of solid rock. Tens of thousands of tons of rock have been brought to the surface and carried away on scows. The expenditure at the Crossing has been $1,500,000. The channel is lighted by gas buoys, which make it navigable by night. A 20-foot channel has also been secured throughout the river; and this it is proposed to increase to 600 feet.

The St. Clair Flats Canal is at the outlet of the St. Clair River into Lake St. Clair. The river had seven mouths or passes, through the Flats. All of these were shallow, the deepest, that of the South Pass, having only 9 feet of water over the bar. The draft of vessels on the Great Lakes has always been governed by the depth of water on the St. Clair Flats; and very early in the development of lake commerce attention was given to deepening the South Pass. By a project begun in 1866 and completed in 1871 the channel was dredged and diked, and converted into the St. Clair Flats Canal. The canal is a mile long and 20 feet deep.

The St. Mary's River has been improved at various points, the most important work being the St. Mary's Falls Canal, described in our chapter on Sault Ste. Marie. Only second to this is the opening of the Hay Lake 0093 76 Channel, through Hay Lake, an extension of the river. The lake formerly was impassable for commercial purposes by reason of its shoals and rapids. The project of improvement called for a channel 20 and 21 feet deep and 300 feet wide, at a cost of more than two and one-half millions. The new Hay Lake Channel was opened in 1894, and the work is now practically completed. The new route saves eleven miles between the two lakes, and practically all of the immense traffic of the river passes through it. A system of lighting by gas buoys makes the channel navigable by night.

Commerce has kept pace with each improvement of the waterways; indeed has anticipated it. “Immediately after the Weitzel Lock was opened to traffic,” says Lieut.-Col. G. J. Lydecker, the Government engineer in charge of the Great Lakes works, “an astonishing increase in commerce took place; a like increase in the size of the vessels engaged in it followed, and a corresponding increase in navigable depth and locking capacity became imperative.” This has been the rule following all the improvements, until to-day the Secretary of the Treasury can tell Congress: “Compared with the shipping tonnage employed in the foreign commerce of the United States, the activity of the lake shipping is far greater. The bulk of transactions in the lake-carrying interests is so large as to rank it among the great conveyers of the world.”

The Sand Beach Harbor of Refuge is an artificial harbor at Sand Beach on the west shore of Lake Huron, 60 miles north of the mouth of St. Clair River. The harbor was begun in 1872, and completed in 1885, at a cost of nearly $1,000,000. It is formed by a breakwater of cribwork 8,132 feet in length, which shelters a water area of 650 acres; and is the only safe refuge on the coast between the Detroit River and Tawas Bay, 115 miles north. In the years 1877 to 1897 it gave refuge to 25,007 vessels.

The Straits of Mackinac are 48 miles long; 26¼ miles wide at the eastern or Lake Huron entrance, and 12¾ miles wide at Lake Michigan. The narrowest part is between Pointe St. Ignace and Old Point Mackinac where they contract to 4½ miles.

Freighters.

The chief factors contributing to the development of lake commerce have been (1) the deepening of the channels already alluded to as making possible the employment of larger vessels, (2) the lighting of the channels permitting passage at night, (3) the supplanting of sailing vessels by steamships and of small craft by others of enormous size, and (4) improved facilities for loading and unloading cargoes. These are discussed in a report on “Statistics of Lake Commerce” made to the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department by Prof. George C. Tunell, of Chicago, in 1898. From that report most of the facts here given, sometimes in the original language of the report, have been drawn.

Local traffic on the Great Lakes is comparatively insignificant: Nearly the whole of the commerce is carried from one end of the lake system to the other. Most of the grain and flour moved. on Lake Superior is shipped from Duluth, West Superior and Ashland, at the extreme western end of the lake to Buffalo, at the extreme eastern end of Lake Erie, or a distance of approximately 1,000 miles. The average distance that the 16,239,061 tons of freight which passed through the St. Mary's Falls Canal in 1896 were carried was 836.4 miles.

Sail has given way to steam. Sailing vessels have practically disappeared from Lake Superior; only six passed through the locks in 1897. There are but few on the lower lakes. Wooden vessels have been superseded by those of steel. Steel is cheaper than wood; the steel ships are stronger and more buoyant and durable.

A marked feature of the vessels on the Great Lakes is their uniformly great size; this has increased with the improved channels. Between 1870 and 1897 the average size of the lake steamer doubled. One of the Bessemer Steamship Company's new propellers measures over all 475 feet, with 50-foot beam and 29-foot depth. (Of ocean steamships the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse is 648 feet over all; and the Oceanic, now building, will be 704 feet.) The lake craft have enormous carrying capacity. The record single cargo last year was one of 6,171 tons. carried by the Empire City, of Duluth; the greatest total of freight for the season was of 130,956 tons carried by the ore freighter Andrew Carnegie, of Cleveland.

The bulk of the traffic (more than 90 per cent.) consists of iron ore, grain and lumber carried east, and coal carried west. Of nearly 19,000,000 tons of freight which passed east through the St. Mary's Falls Canal in 1897, over 10,000,000 were of iron ore. Two-thirds of the ore consumed by the blast-furnaces of the United States comes from the Lake Superior region, and is carried during some portion of the journey from mine to furnace over the waters of the Great Lakes. It is the specialized mining and transportation facilities employed which enable the Lake Superior ore to compete at distant points. Steam shovels of prodigious power and 0095 78 capacity dig and load the ore on the cars which convey it to the ships. At one of the Mesabi mines three of these shovels in one day, working 14 hours each, have dug and raised from the natural bed of the mine, 10,700 tons, or 428 cars of ore; 25-ton ore cars have been loaded at a rate of 2½ minutes per car; and one shovel has loaded 5,825 tons, or 233 cars, in 10 hours. At the shipping ports, the ore trains are run out upon docks 57 feet high, whence the ore is spouted through iron chutes into the hold. Everything here is done on a gigantic scale, and almost entirely by machinery; and with a rapidity which is marvelous. At Two Harbors 3,028 tons of ore have been loaded in 70 minutes; vessels frequently load and depart with a cargo of 3,500 to 4,000 tons within two hours of the time they reach port.

Like provision has been made for coal transportation. To the vast extent of territory about the Great Lakes, especially to the country north and west of Lakes Michigan and Superior, lake transportation means cheap coal. Duluth gets its coal from Buffalo, a distance of 997 miles, at a freight charge of 20 cents per ton. To the lake carrier coal means a westbound cargo; without it nearly all the vessels carrying ore, grain, flour or lumber to the lower lake ports would be obliged to return “light.” During 1896 coal constituted 86 per cent. of the freight west-bound through the St. Mary's Falls Canal. Loading methods are expeditious. Hard coal is taken aboard from elevated pocket trestles; the propeller Zenith City recently took in at Buffalo a cargo of 5,127 tons in 4 hours. For soft coal there have been devised powerful car dumping machines, which lift up the car from the track and tip it over, and dump the coat through chutes into the hold. One machine on a Cleveland dock has a record of 5,176 tons of coal transhipped from car to boat in 10 hours and 30 minutes, at a cost of one-fourth of a cent per ton.

The elevator systems of lading wheat and grain are so familiar that we need not do more than allude to them as equally saving of time. With these developed facilities for handling in bulk the several products carried by the lake freighters, it has come to be true that instead of spending days in loading and unloading, as was once the case, but a few hours are now consumed in port. Vessels lose almost no time at all at the docks; it is almost literally true that they are constantly coming and going. For the iron-ore carriers 22 round trips in a season are considered a fair average. The mileage record for last year was made by the propeller Harlem, of Buffalo, which ran 49,853 miles. There were in the lakes in 1897, 2,869 vessels.

An engineering project now under consideration is for a deep waterway from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. One proposition is that the Government shall acquire the Erie Canal (which extends from Lake Erie to the Hudson River), and enlarge it to admit the passage of Lake shipping. The scheme is by no means a visionary one. If in the year 1825 the State of New York could open the Erie Canal, before the year 1925 we may look for the opening by the United States of a ship canal to connect these inland seas with the seaboard; and when this shall have been accomplished one may take ship at Duluth and go ashore at Liverpool.

Lights and Sirens.

There is something peculiarly and gratefully personal about a lighthouse at night; for as its light is flashed across the water to us and we lay our course by it, we feel that the warning or the welcome is directly to us, for the benefit of our own individual ship. By day, too, the beacons are as pleasing as they are conspicuous, for they give variety and picturesqueness to the marine view, and often relieve the monotony of a low shore line.

Of the 3,072 lights maintained by the United States at the close of the last fiscal year, 441 were on the Great Lakes; there were also 700 day beacons, buoys, fog signals and other aids to navigation; and to these must be added the several hundred lights belonging to Canada.

Lights are distinguished by their power, as of the first order, second order, etc.; by color, white or red; and by their character as fixed or steady lights, or revolving or flash lights. The flash is produced by the revolution of the lantern about the light, alternately eclipsing and revealing it. There are various combinations of white and red lights, and fixed and flashing. These several variations serve to identify them. The stations are further distinguished in the daytime by peculiarities of construction and painting; and in fogs by the fog bells or sirens. Thus, taking the lights of the Straits of Mackinac:

Spectacle Reef Light , which guides to the Straits of Mackinac from the eastward. flashes alternately red and white with a 30-seconds interval between flashes. The light is 86 feet above lake level, and is visible 17¼ miles. The station is a conical, gray, limestone tower; dome and railings black. with white houses. The fog siren gives blasts of 3 seconds with alternate silent intervals of 17 and 42 seconds.

Poe Reef Light Vessel , at the easterly entrance to the South Channel of the Straits of Mackinac, shows a fixed white light, 40 feet above the water and visible 13½ miles. The hull is red, with “Poe Reef” in white on each side. and “No. 62” in white on each bow. The fog siren, a 6-inch steam whistle, gives blasts of 5 seconds, with silent intervals of 10 seconds.

Bois Blanc Light , on the north end of Bois Blanc Island, is a fixed white light, 53 feet high, visible 13 miles. The station is a square tower on a yellow brick dwelling. It has no fog signal.

Round Island Light , opposite Mackinac Island. is a fixed white light varied by a red flash every 20 seconds, 53 feet high, visible 14¾ miles. The station is a square red-brick tower attached to a red-brick dwelling. The fog siren sounds blasts of 5 seconds with silent intervals of 55 seconds.

Old Mackinac Point Light , in Mackinaw City, flashes red every 10 seconds. The light is 62 feet high, and is visible 15¼ miles. The station is a cylindrical tower, with keeper's dwelling, of yellow brick, and black lantern. The fog whistle gives blasts of 5 seconds with alternate silent intervals of 17 and 33 seconds.

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McGulpin Point Light , on the south side of the Straits at the entrance to Lake Michigan, is a fixed white light, 102 feet high, visible 18½ miles. The station is an octagonal tower attached to the keeper's dwelling, both of yellow brick, with red roofs. There is no fog signal.

The mechanism of the revolving lights and of some of the fog signals is operated by clockwork. The lanterns are lighted from sunset to sunrise throughout the season. Some of the channels are lighted by gas-buoys, which burn continuously day and night for 80 days; on the sea coast some of these gas buoys burn for a year.

There are on the lakes six steam lighthouse tenders—Marigold, Amaranth, Lotus, Dahlia, Haze and Warrington—busy craft which carry oil and supplies to the stations, make repairs, and put out and remove the stakes and buoys at the opening and close of the season.

The navigation season usually runs from about April 15 to Dec. 15. In 1899 the opening on Lake Superior was on April 29.

The Great Lakes.

To know the Great Lakes one must have beheld Niagara. To comprehend Niagara one must have seen the Great Lakes. We look in awe upon the stupendous volume of water pouring over the Falls, to-day as yesterday, now as a hundred years ago, for a hundred years as for the centuries before. and for ages untold. unknown, beyond the grasp of human comprehension; and we marvel from what exhaustless source flows the eternal flood. When we have crossed Lake Erie and Lake Huron, glimpsed Lake Michigan, and entered upon the majestic expanse of Lake Superior, there is wonder at Niagara's source no longer.

The Great Lakes are the largest bodies of fresh water on the globe. In area there is. a progression from the 7,240 square miles of Ontario to the 10,000 miles of Erie. the 21,000 of Huron, the 22,400 of Michigan and the 31,200 of Superior, the largest lake in the world. Crowfoot a Blackfoot Indian chief, called Lake Superior “Brother to the Sea.” In the story of its early shipping is record of a storm-driven schooner, which was out of sight of land for fourteen days. The lake receives the waters of 200 rivers, and drains a territory of 53,000 square miles. It fills a basin 1,008 feet deep and 1,500 miles around the rim; the bottom is 406 feet below the sea level, the surface 602 feet above.

Lake Michigan is almost as deep, 1,000 feet. Lake Huron is 802 feet deep; Lake Erie 210 feet; Lake Ontario 506 feet. The lake levels are subject to fluctuations from one season to another: Lake Michigan, for example, in a period of recorded observation, has lowered 5 feet. The lunar tide of Lake Michigan ranges from 0.153 feet in the period of least variation to 0.245 feet in the spring tides. Lake Michigan is believed to be moving slowly westward, uncovering the eastern shore and encroaching upon the western shore.

On lnland Seas.

The route of the Northern steamships is from Buffalo to Duluth, a thousand miles on inland seas. The twin ships North West and North Land leave Buffalo each week during the season, on Tuesdays and Fridays, touch at Cleveland and Detroit Wednesdays and Saturdays, Mackinac Island and Sault Ste. Marie Thursdays and Sundays and arrive at Duluth Fridays and Mondays. Returning they sail from Duluth Saturdays and Tuesdays, Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island Sundays and Wednesdays, Detroit and Cleveland Mondays and Thursdays, and reach Buffalo Tuesdays and Fridays. Thus the round trip of 2,000 miles is made in a week. The ships are among the most modern and best appointed passenger steamers in the world. Each is 386 feet over all, 40 feet beam, and has accommodation for over 600 passengers. They carry no freight. The size and roominess are grateful; there is not the slightest suggestion of the cramped quarters of shipboard; nor are we subjected to that motion in a seaway which is so trying in small vessels. To build and equip such ships for the Great Lakes was a bold business enterprise which commands our admiration. That the sagacity of those who projected it has been abundantly vindicated is attested by the fact that the tourist finds it advisable to book his passage far ahead.

The ship sails from Buffalo (foot of Main Street) at 9:15 P.M. If opportunity affords, a visit to Niagara may well be made, for, as the outlet of the Great Lakes, the Falls properly come within the tour. One lasting impression of the lake trip will be of the immensity of the water system; and as has been remarked, this impression will be deepened by the overwhelming majesty of the Falls: With the railroads and the electric lines connection between Buffalo and Niagara Falls is constant, and the excursion may be made in a few hours.

Buffalo itself has interest not only as a beautiful and prosperous city, but as the chief lake port, to whose grain elevators are bound hundreds of the vessels we shall see on our trip; there are more than 10,000 arrivals and departures of vessels in a season. The elevators dominate the water front; shadowy and mysterious, they loom up about and above us like phantoms in the gloom as our ship leaves her pier, and passing out into Lake Erie lays her course for Cleveland. The lights seen as we put out from Buffalo are the Buffalo Light, fixed white, on the south pier of the harbor crib; Buffalo Breakwater light, fixed red, on the breakwater which protects the harbor; and Horseshoe Reef Light, fixed white with white flash every 90 seconds, to the north, near the entrance to Niagara River.

The early morning finds us approaching Cleveland. The solitary structure far out on the lake in front of the harbor is the intake of the Cleveland waterworks, whence the water is conveyed to the city through a tunnel 6,600 feet in length. The entrance to the harbor is between two immense breakwaters, with a light on each one; and then between the cribs built at the entrance of the Cuyahoga River. Cleveland occupies a 0099 82 sightly position on an elevated plateau and is embowered in a profusion of shade trees which have given it the name of the “Forest City.” A prominent object in the picture as we approach is the Garfield Monument, in Lake View Cemetery, 250 feet above the lake. The water front is lined with manufacturing plants; and there are extensive shipyards; Cleveland is the largest shipbuilding port on the Lakes; the North West and the North Land were built here.

Our ship fuels from elevated pockets, to which the coal cars are taken up on immense inclines to a height of 63 feet, and from which the coal descends in chutes through the hatches to the bunkers below. On an opposite railroad pier may be seen in operation one of the coal conveying machines alluded to in earlier pages as having simplified and expedited lake transportation. This is one of the McMyler coal dumping machines. A coal car detached from the train runs down by gravity to the foot of the machine. The machine lifts the car from the track, elevates it, turns it over and dumps it into a chute, through which the coal flows into the hold of the vessel lying alongside. Then the machine lowers the empty car and replaces it upon the rails, whence. by gravity, it passes on to an automatic switch and is shunted to another track. and the next car follows. The machine handles 416 tons of coal in an hour; it has a record of over 5,000 tons transhipped from cars to vessel in 10 hours 30 minutes.

Cleveland harbor we shall find crowded with shipping, and from here to Duluth we shall meet such a procession of freighters as we should find nowhere else though we circled the globe. The Great Lakes tour reveals not only the vastness of these inland seas but also the magnitude of their commerce which bears east and west the products of the forests, the mines and the grain fields.

One impressive characteristic of lake shipping is the uniformly large size of the vessels. We note, too, the absence of sailing craft, and miss the picturesqueness they would give. Another novel feature is the number of barges in tow. There is something peculiarly mechanical about these marine types. suggestive of freight trains; and they are almost as certain on their schedules. Says Gen. O. M. Poe: “Of large capacity and great power, regardless of wind or weather, steamers of the prevailing type bear their cargoes from ports a thousand miles apart with the precision of railroad trains, each of them transporting at once more than ten ordinary freight trains.”

Whalebacks .—One peculiar type of vessel native to the Great Lakes, and still almost confined to these waters. is the whaleback, which is so called from the shape of the model. It is a huge steel tank entirely decked over, and when loaded is so far submerged that the water swashes entirely over the deck. The pilot-house and other upper works are carried on pillars. The whaleback is an invention of Capt. Alexander McDougall, of West Superior, Wis., and is patented. Among the merits claimed for it is that its submergence secures increased buoyancy with minimum of wind and wave resistance. A tow of whalebacks is one of the most grotesque of marine spectacles. One Lake Superior whaleback having passed through 0100 83 the Welland Canal to the Atlantic has made a voyage to Europe and thence around the Horn to California. It is said that the whaleback passenger steamer Christopher Columbus, familiar to World's Fair visitors, will go to Europe in the Paris Exposition year.

When Ship Meets Ship .—The right side of a ship (looking toward the bow) is the “starboard”; the left side is “port.” The side on which one ship will pass another is signaled by blasts of the whistle.

One signal means that she will go to starboard (i.e., to the right), and the ships will pass each other on the port (left) sides.

Two signals mean that she will go to port, and the ships will pass each other on the starboard (or right) side.

To see a passing ship, go to the port (left) side of the vessel if the whistle blows once; to the starboard (right) side if it blows twice.

When the deck watch forward observes a vessel approaching on the starboard, he touches a button which rings an electric bell in the pilot-house; when he sees a vessel approaching on the port he touches the button twice. His signals are acknowledged by the pilot, being repeated on the electric bell, which we hear in the bow.

Side-lights at night are green on the starboard and red on the port. One way to remember this is to associate red, port, and red port wine.

Ship's time is divided into three watches, and one bell is rung for every half-hour of each watch. Thus 12:30 is i bell. I o'clock is 2 bells. 1:30 is 3 bells; and so on until 4 o'clock, which is 8 bells. Then from 4:30, I bell, to 8 o'clock, 8 bells; and to 12 o'clock 8 bells again.

The ship's log records the distance run. The taffrail log, so called because attached to the taffrail, or rail across the stern, consists of the log, the log-line and the register. The log is a metal cylinder fitted with curved blades, like those of a propeller, which, as it is dragged through the water, cause it to revolve. This in turn causes the line to revolve, and the revolutions, so many to the mile, are recorded by a registering apparatus, something like a bicycle cyclometer, on the taffrail.

Through Historic Waters .—Between Cleveland and the Detroit River we pass through the waters where was fought the Battle of Lake Erie, ten miles north of Put-in-Bay. In the Detroit River we shall see other points of historic interest in connection with the War of 1812; and a brief résumé may be given of the events of that conflict occuring on the line of our route. When the war began, General Hull. who was in command at Detroit, crossed to Sandwich, on the Canadian shore, hoisted the American flag and reported to Washington that he had taken Upper Canada. Shortly afterward he received news of the capture of Fort Mackinac by the British, and thereupon he withdrew front Canada, was followed to Detroit by the British and there incontinently surrendered. This gave Detroit and the control of the upper lakes to the British and their savage allies, who, enlisted under the command of the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, waged a campaign marked by the atrocities of Indian warfare, including the massacres of prisoners and the scalping of United States soldiers.

To regain the conquered American territory was the purpose of the campaign 0101 84 of 1813, undertaken by General William Henry Harrison by land, and Captain Oliver Hazard Perry on the water. Perry waited at Put-in-Bay for the British fleet, under Captain Barclay. They met on the morning of Sept. 10, at a point 10 miles north of the bay. The Americans had to vessels. the British 6. The Englishman had the advantage of more guns, and larger and of longer range than the American. These were used with terrible effect, and before the Americans could draw close enough to deliver effective fire the flagship Lawrence was reduced to a wreck, and drew helplessly out of the fight. From the Lawrence, taking his broad banner and pennant, Perry was rowed, through fifteen minutes' rain of lead, to the Niagara, upon which he raised his colors. Then at last coming into close quarters, the Americans broke through the enemy's line, raked his ships with their broadsides, and in eight minutes finished the fight. Barclay's flagship, the Detroit, was the first to strike her colors; three of the others followed; two ran away and were overhauled. Then Perry wrote on the back of an old letter in lead pencil the famous message to General Harrison: “We have met the enemy and they are ours; two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.”

The forces under Harrison proceeded to the Detroit River, where Fort Malden was abandoned at their approach. Harrison pursued the retreating British to the Thames River, and routed them there, Tecumseh falling in battle. The purpose of the campaign was accomplished—Michigan was restored to American control.

There are now no war vessels on the Great Lakes. The only Government vessels we encounter are lighthouse tenders, revenue cutters and the engineering craft. The Put-in-Bay Islands are summer resorts. They are famous for their bass fishing and their vineyards and wines.

The Detroit River entrance is marked by the Detroit River or Bar Point Light (conical brown tower with black lantern). Leaving this astern and passing the Bar Point Light Vessel, which marks a shoal, we are fairly in the river. The stream has much of the character of a strait; the name, indeed, which was given by the French, Détroit, means strait. The river here widens out into a broad expanse studded with islands. In his “New Discovery” Father Hennepin, who in 1679 was here with La Salle in the Griffin, the first sailing vessel on the lakes, wrote with that enthusiasm which is so refreshing and so charming in the old chronicles: “The islands are the finest in the world; the strait is finer than Niagara; the banks are vast meadows; and the prospect is terminated with some hills crowned with vineyards, trees bearing good fruit, groves and forests so well disposed that one would think that Nature alone could not have made, without the help of art, so charming a prospect.”

Following the Canadian Channel, we are soon abreast Bois Blanc Island on the left, a summer outing resort to which ferries ply from Detroit. On the right is the French-Canadian town of Amherstburg. Between the upper end of the island and the town the Lime-Kiln Crossing (page 75) is marked by two flat-bottomed scow light-vessels, lettered on the hulls “Lime-Kiln Crossing South” and “Lime-Kiln Crossing North.” Here we may see the dredges at work (one of them is named “Old Glory”), the steam drills 0102 85 and scoops and shovels, cranes, derricks, scows with immense masses of rock, and perhaps the divers in their diving dress. The ship slacks speed here to avoid making waves which would interfere with the dredges, and also as a measure of precaution for safe navigation of the channel. It may be that we shall be obliged to lay-to to await the passage of another vessel, for at this point the river is likely to be crowded.

Measured by its tonnage, the Detroit River is the most important water highway in the world. The tonnage is four times that of the Suez Canal. and more than the entrances and clearances of London and Liverpool combined. In the active part of the season there is one continuous procession of vessels—an average of one every four minutes. In May, 1899, 166 vessels passed Amherstburg in two days; 99 went by in 24 hours.

Just beyond Amherstburg on the right is Fort Malden; and on the left Grosse Island, a Detroiters' summering point. The Ballard Reef Light-Vessel marks another of the points in the Detroit where an immense sum has been expended by the Government to blast out a channel from the solid reef and boulders. Wyandotte, with shipyards and rolling mills, is seen on the left bank; Fighting Island is passed on the right; then come Grassy and Mud Islands on the left. Beyond Mud Island is Ecorse, and the manufacturing town of Delray. Fort Wayne, on the left bank, commands the river, and is the strongest fortification on the Great Lakes; the officers' quarters are in a grove of trees. On the opposite shore is the French-Canadian town of Sandwich, the oldest settlement in western Ontario. Here begin Detroit's nine miles of river front, lined throughout a large portion of its extent with shipyards, foundries, car shops and other manufacturing establishments, which with the geographical position, have made Detroit the chief city of Michigan. The river presents a scene of much animation; there is a bewildering multitude of commercial and pleasure craft, freighters and passenger steamboats, coming and going, and throngs on the docks. The “City of the Straits” stretches back from the river on a level plain; the sky-line is broken with the high business buildings; we may catch a glimpse of the City Hall; the skeleton frame-works lifting high in air are electric light towers. The handsome pavilion overlooking the water near our wharf is that of the Wayne Hotel. Opposite on the Canadian shore are Windsor and Walkerville.

The Marine Mail Service of Detroit is one of the most interesting institutions of the river. Mail is delivered to passing steamships while the vessels maintain their regular speed. When a vessel is sighted for which mail is held. the little postal steamboat goes out into the channel with the carrier aboard and his rowboat in tow. Maneuvering his boat with the skill of long experience, the carrier comes under the vessel's hull and puts a line aboard, by which he is held in position, while a bucket is lowered from the deck in which he deposits the mail. Then the rope is cast off and he drops astern, to be picked up by the steam tender. The service is arduous and full of hazard, and calls for skill and intrepidity of a very high order. Quick work is necessary when, as often happens, several vessels are to be served at once. On one day in April, 1898, 57 boats 0103 86 passed in a single hour, to which 336 pieces of mail were delivered, and 96 pieces collected from them. On Oct. 30 of the same year 1,428 pieces were delivered in the 24 hours. The total delivery for the season of 1898 aggregated 217,782 pieces.

Belle Island Park appears on our left as the high buildings of Detroit recede. It is an island of 700 acres, which was laid out after plans by the well-known landscape artist, Frederick Law Olmsted; and with its lagoons, meadows, bridges and roads and casinos, is counted one of the most beautiful parks in the world. It is connected with the city by a handsome bridge. Dertoiters are addicted to repeating the historical fact that the island pleasure park which has cost the city more than a million and a half was bought from the Indians by its first purchase for 8 barrels of rum, 3 rolls of tobacco, 6 pounds of vermilion and a belt of wampum.

Beyond the park on the left is seen the high tower of the city water works. Then come on the left Windmill Point, and on the right the Isle aux Peches, which tradition says was the home of Pontiac, the hero of Pontiac's Conspiracy (page 18). The large residence upon it was that of the late Hiram Walker, the founder of Walkerville. The shore on the left is very attractive, with fine residences all the way to Grosse Point, a fashionable summer home resort of wealthy Detroit people.

Passing the Grosse Point Light-Vessel, which marks the end of a dredged channel, the ship lays a course directly across Lake St. Clair. It is a veritable lake in miniature when its diminutive proportions are contrasted with Huron's. After the custom of the French and Spanish explorers who named their discoveries after the saints. La Salle gave the lake its name because he happened to enter it in the Griffin on the day in the calendar devoted to St. Clara, or, in the French form. Ste. Claire.

From the lake we pass to the river through the St Clair Flats Canal (page 75); and here we are subject to strict navigation rules. Vessels are forbidden to enter the canal two abreast to pass others going in the same direction, or to proceed in more than one line; or at greater speed than 8 miles an hour, while heavy draft vessels are required to slow down to 4 miles an hour. From the light on the lake end of the canal to that on the river end the length is one mile.

When we leave the canal and enter the St. Clair River we are among the famous St. Clair Flats, the Venice of America, where the houses are built on made land, the streets are canals, locomotion is by boat, and the daily life has an amphibious character. The route is through a long succession of summer cottages, camps, club houses, hotels, nondescript dwellings; and a church, to which the worshipers come in boats of a Sunday. This Flats country is a famous summer resort region; the waters abound in muscalonge, bass, pike-perch and pickerel and other fish; and extensive marshes of wild rice attract wild ducks. A number of fishing and shooting clubs have their headquarters here. Some of the most prominent points on the left hand as we ascend the river are: The Lake St. Clair Fishing and Shooting Club House, with the bell-shaped tower. Mervue Club House, three stories, two verandas. Rushmore Club House, the 0104 87 largest on the Flats. Star Island Hotel. Stansel's Point. Boydell's Island. Bedor's. Canadian Club House (on the left). Maple Leaf, on Herson Island. Then are passed in rapid succession the towns of Algonac, Baby's Point, Lambton, Cottrellville, Marine City, with its extensive shipyards and its salt walls; Sombra, opposite; China, St. Clair Springs, with its great hotel; Stag Island, with its pretty summer homes; and we approach Port Huron on the American side, with Sarnia on the Canadian

THE ST. CLAIR TUNNEL.

shore. The two are connected by a submarine railroad tunnel which is a triumph of engineering skill.

The tunnel proper is a continuous iron tube, 19 feet 10 inches in diameter, and 6,025 feet or more than a mile long. The length of the approaches, in addition to the tunnel proper, is 5,603 feet, making all told a little over two miles. It is reputed to be the greatest submarine tunnel in the world. It connects the Grand Trunk Railway System of Canada with the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway; its cost was $2,700,000.

Beyond Port Huron we pass Fort Gratiot, with its light (fixed white with white flash every minute), which marks the mouth of the St. Clair River; and the ship enters Lake Huron.

On the trip west we cross the lake by night; but on the return voyage we may see in the early morning on the distant Michigan shore the houses and shipping of Sand Beach Harbor of Refuge (page 76). After the night on Huron we welcome the solitary light-house on Spectacle Reef (page 79) which tells us that we are at the eastern approach to the Straits of Mackinac. This Spectacle Reef fog siren was in eruption, as they say of the geysers in the Yellowstone Park, 327 hours last season; and the statistician of the Standard has computed that in that time it must have sounded its warning whistle 39,240 times. Beyond Spectacle Reef we lay

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Bois Blanc Island on our left, and then rounding Round Island see before us the bold white bluffs and green slopes of Mackinac.

The route from Mackinac Island to Sault Ste. Marie is by the Detour Passage, marked by the Detour Light (whose station is a white skeleton iron tower, with a white dwelling), into the St. Mary's River (page 75)The navigation of the river is most cautions; there is one succession of islands and crooks and turns of the channel, and the sailing regulations are very strictly enforced by a special marine police, who, from the banks, watch passing vessels and note their speed. In certain parts of the river vessels are forbidden to proceed at a greater speed than 9 miles per hour; to pass other vessels moving in the same direction or to approach them nearer than a quarter-mile; or to go faster than at half-speed when meeting and passing other vessels. The steamer's route is through the Hay Lake Channel, already described. In the 62 miles of the river from Huron to Superior there are more than too lights and signals; long reaches of the channel are marked by perpetually burning gas buoys. At some points where the channel narrows and the rest of the river is shoal, the passage of the steamship, displacing the water from the channel, deepens the flow on either side, and submerges the channel buoys. At certain turns in the course, as at the Black Hole, below Sailor's Encampment, a white ball signal is elevated on the shore, to give warning that a vessel is in the Hole; or if she have a tow, a red ball is shown; so that we have here a block-signal system of navigation. The scenery of the St. Mary's is justly famed; and the approach to Sault Ste. Marie is a picture that will long live in memory.

Locking through the St. Mary's Falls Canal, the vessel is shortly thereafter ploughing the waters of Lake Superior. The next morning brings us to Duluth, “Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas.”

Duluth and West Superior are twin cities. Duluth is on a bill, West Superior on a flat. As the chief outlet of the vast volume of Lake Superior the volume of their output is something prodigious—of grain 50 million bushels a year, of ore 5 million tons, of coal received 2 million tons. There are enormous elevators and ore and coal docks. Nearly 5,000 vessels clear from the port in a season. Everything is on a tremendous scale. Duluth was laid out on a plan to comport with its coming greatness. The City Hall, High School, Board of Trade, churches and theater—these are all large, handsome and substantial stone structures, not elsewhere surpassed. The day we have here may be well spent in sight seeing. The incline railway takes one to the summit of a hill 500 feet high, whence there is a commanding view of the two cities and the lake. One remarkable feature of the scene is Minnesota Point, a curving spit of sand 7 miles in length and 500 feet wide, extending across the end of the lake toward the Wisconsin side, and forming a safe harbor for shipping. The opportunity should be improved of seeing the operations of loading and unloading vessels; and a visit may be made to the West Superior shipyards. This is the home of the whaleback, and we shall be sure to find some of them on the stocks or in the drydock.

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