Pioneers, Friends, and Citizens of Michigan:

It is with cheer and good-will we meet this evening, and in behalf of the Pioneer Society I give to all a cordial welcome. With advancing age it is ofttimes a pleasure to review the former scenes in the history of our beautiful State, and to gather from those who were actual participants in those scenes such facts and reminiscences as they are able to present. Especially are we encouraged when we notice with what interest our efforts to collect these facts and reminiscences for preservation, ere it be too late, are appreciated by the people of the State. Here, to-night, we are met by an intelligent assembly, composed of such persons as are ready to assist, as they may be able, in making this annual meeting a very pleasant and profitable one; and among them we see the sons and daughters of song, who have come to cheer us with admirable music music which thrills us with delight as we sit in this beautiful temple dedicated to the worship of the true and only God.

It is an appropriate custom, banded down to us from the earliest age, frequently to celebrate the scenes of former times, and to set apart certain days 3 0018 2 to gatherings in memory of the past; and thus we have met to take a retrospective view of the primitive days in Michigan—days when the wild, primeval forest stretched unbroken for miles around, while the habitations of the white man were, “like angels' visits, few and far between.” I will ask your indulgence for a brief moment while I refer you to the unhospitable shores of Massachusetts, where the feeble band on Plymouth Rock faced midwinter in the year 1620, having as neighbors not only fierce wild beasts, but the more hostile savages as well, while the remoteness of human succor, and the slenderness of the ties which stretched in invisible lines across the wild waste of Atlantic waters, rendered their condition still more unpleasant. They met cruel disappointment and wasting sickness, yet like the lofty pine, storm-topped, they struck root at length, even in the stony soil of bleak New England, and laid deep the firm foundations of a great and glorious commonwealth. We can most truly say that among the genuine stock of New England and the Middle States the people of Michigan claim a large share of their ancestry.

As we examine the first records of Michigan, we find that a treaty * was made with twelve tribes of Indians by General Anthony Wayne, December 2, 1795, by which there was obtained a piece of land, bounded on the north by Lake St. Clair, on the south by the River Raisin, and extending six miles in width west from Detroit river. A few years later, on the first day of July, 1805, Governor William Hull having arrived at Detroit, the government of the Territory of Michigan began its existence. On the seventeenth of November, 1807, at the village of Detroit, a treaty was negotiated by Governor Hull, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, with the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandotte and Pottawattomie nations of Indians. embracing nearly half of the Lower Peninsula. This unbroken wilderness was surveyed in the year 1812 by Joseph Fletcher, and by proclamation of the President, dated March 15, 1820, it was offered in market on the first Monday in July following. This survey began at the bay where the outlet of the Maumee river enters Lake Erie, and ran directly north one hundred and eighteen miles; thence east by north eighty miles to near White Rock, Lake Huron. This land now contains two hundred and eight townships and several large cities, while highly cultivated farms are found in all sections.

During the year 1819 [Sept. 24th], Governor Cass made a treaty at Saginaw with the Chippewa Indians, in which lands were obtained in Michigan embracing about six millions of acres.

As we review the early days of Michigan, we find that but a small part of the interior was settled by those who cleared the forest or plowed the 0019 3 ground previous to the year 1824. Then a few remote settlements began north and west from Detroit and Monroe. In the year 1825 the Erie Canal was opened to Buffalo, and then the enterprising families from New York and other Eastern States led the way, for ten or twenty successive years, to Michigan. Men in search of lands and new homes came into almost every township and county.

Among the sweetest of the cherished memories of the past are some associated with the year 1829. At that time, now fifty-six years ago, the primitive settlement at Tecumseh had fairly begun. A stripling of a boy, eighteen years of age, on foot and alone, a stranger to everyone in the territory, became a resident of Lenawee county. That boy is now the speaker who addresses this large and intelligent assembly of Michigan Pioneers this evening. Long shall I remember that time with cheerful satisfaction.

Another olden time remembrance is brought to mind each succeeding year, as the calendar brings to us the invigorating month of October, when pumpkins, squashes, potatoes and rutabagas are being gathered for winter. On a mild, pleasant, autumnal evening in 1829 a stranger on horseback called at a small dwelling in Tecumseh and requested entertainment for the night. He was cordially received, for we were all pleased to take the hand of the pioneers' friend—Hon. Lewis Cass, Governor of the Territory. Quite a pleasant scene was enacted the next day at the house of our late esteemed friend, Musgrove Evans, where the Governor dined with a few pioneer friends. In the afternoon a number of forest choppers escorted the General to a small school-house, sixteen feet square, the largest public hall in the county, where a preliminary meeting was organized by appointing Daniel Pittman chairman, Dr. M. A. Patterson secretary. Governor Cass made a short address, showing the importance of organizing and appointing officers for a regiment of soldiers. I was pleased on that day to know that my name was not omitted from the warriors' roll. I still have the commission given me. bearing date October 25, 1829. Of that first military organization fifty-six years ago, including officers and privates, only four are now left. The first signs of war in Lenawee county were at midnight in the month of May, 1832. The drums beat the “long roll,” and, forming our ranks, we marched two days through the wilderness to Niles. On the outskirts of Coldwater prairie a midnight battle was fought; powder was used freely, and the limbs and bark of the neighboring forest trees were roughly dealt with, but the Black Hawk tribe retreated. Thus we see the importance of the military arm of our service. With discipline and undaunted bravery it maintained our rights near the Ohio line, and among chickens and potatoes on the disputed lands near Toledo in the year 1835; also in Mexico in 1847; 0020 4 and again in the war of the Rebellion from 1861 until 1865, when the United States was deluged with blood and every house was one of mourning.

The records of the public land sales at the office in Kalamazoo for the year 1836 show that there were nearly two millions of money received at one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. For one single day there was received eighty-seven thousand dollars in exchange for the fertile land of Michigan. And this, notwithstanding the Surveyor-General's report for the year 1815 says that the land was unfit for cultivation and not worth the expense of surveying.

Our State now shows admirable farms, with beautiful homes and an enterprising population, not surpassed anywhere. From humble beginnings and by timely perseverance and well directed enterprise they have won wealth for themselves and fame for the State. It is with cherished satisfaction that we look back to the primitive wilderness homes forty or fifty years ago, when our fathers or brothers first came to the forest domain, erected the log house, and marked out the roads. In the place where the Indian camp fires were built, the war songs were sung, and the councils of the braves were held, now may he seen, near the crystal lakes and beautiful rivers, large and enterprising villages, magnificent cities, and fertile farms, all teeming with an intelligent population. Our picturesque and useful inland lakes are found in nearly every county, and number 5,173.

Nor should we omit to mention the iron railway which in all parts of our country is provided with beautiful and sumptuous accommodations and where trains of palace cars are passing over the country night and day, with a speed of thirty-five miles an hour. On the four bordering lakes we have the unexcelled palace steamers, which sail round our coast, 1,684 miles. And the telegraph wires that span our State may be measured by the hundreds of miles. Here also are asylums built, commensurate with the growth of the State, for all classes of unfortunate citizens. Our school system, from the primary department to the university, is regarded as nearly perfect. In conclusion, we well may say that the mining, salt, and lumber interests, with the, inexhaustible beds of lime rock and plaster deposits, and the untold millions accumulated from the farms, have combined to make Michigan one of the chief States of America.

A large share of our honored and historic pioneers have left us to be here no more; it is with sadness we review the record of the departed. and we are reminded that in a few more years there will be no one here to recount the early history of this State. Very excellent and well written historical papers have been received for publication in the volumes of Pioneer Collection, 0021 5 of which there are now six volumes of about seven hundred pages each printed and ready for sale. We would respectfully say to the few remaining pioneers, that we hope to learn of them and of others any facts regarding the first settlement of their respective localities; so that the same may be printed in the State Pioneer Collections. The State Pioneer Society was organized under a special charter April 22, 1874, in the old copitol, now a thing of the past. The object is the collecting and preserving historical, biographical, and other information in relation to the State of Michigan. Any person forty years of age and twenty-five years a resident of the State is eligible to membership in this Society on the payment of one dollar. Officers of this Society render their services gratuitously and are most happy when most successful in regaining from oblivion the early history of their cherished State. In closing this brief outline let me say, one generation soon follows another, and the shades of night pass over historic men and memorable women. Who are more worthy of historic record than they who transformed the wilderness into a beautiful and a civilized State, with fertile plantations on all sides and thousands of attractive and happy homes, rich in every variety of plant, grain, fruit and vegetable? We would respectfully say to all here and to the generous thousands who visit this Country and State that “here is peace,” and we bespeak for all good-will and plenty in the State of Michigan.

Lansing , June 17, 1885.

To the Pioneers of the State of Michigan:

The Committee of Historians of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan have reason to congratulate its membership and citizens of our beautiful peninsula upon the success that has crowned the efforts and aims of this society in securing from the first settlers of our Territory and State, authentic and reliable material which shall furnish for the historian of the future information upon which reliance can be placed. Historians generally give prominence to eminent men who have attracted attention by their ability and statesmanship, leading and directing the public mind and institutions of our country; prominence to those who have led our armies to battle and to victory; prominence to those who have figured largely in political 0032 16 revolutions. But the object and aim of this society is to give the material for full, accurate and graphic descriptions of the actual condition of the first settlers; the men who first cleared our forests, many of whom without public notoriety, have laid the foundations of the prosperity and blessings we now enjoy; the hardships they endured, the wonderful development of resources through their agency, the broad views entertained in laying the foundations for our schools and educational institutions which they not only founded and fostered, the progress made in Christian civilization which has attracted the attention and admiration of not only our sister States, but has elicited complimentary commendations from the government and institutions of the old world.

The able report made in June, 1884, reviewing the transactions and achievements of this society previous to that time, in collecting, examining and arranging papers for the Pioneer Collections and superintending the publication of the first four volumes, obviates the necessity of further reference thereto.

During the past two years this society has received and published histories of the Michigan State Agricultural College, by T. C. Abbot; of Hillsdale College, by John C. Patterson; of Michigan Female College, by Mrs. Eliza C. Smith; manuscripts from pioneers of the early history and settlement of Allegan county, Alpena county, Branch county, Calhoun county, Ingham county, Ionia county, Kalamazoo county, Kent county, Mackinac county, Macomb county, Monroe county, Ottawa county, St. Clair county, St. Joseph county, Saginaw county, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.

History of the Black Hawk war, by Henry Little.

Poems referring to early life in Michigan, by Wm. Lambie,, E. N. Wilcox, Mrs. Emma Tuttle, Rev. R. C. Crawford, W. E. Ransom, and Dr. W. Campbell.

Memorial discourses on the life and services of Erastus O. Haven, D. D., LL. D., former President of our university.

Memorial discourses on the life and services of Rev. Geo. P. Williams, Professor for so many years of our university.

Autobiography and perfect likeness of Hon. J. W. Begote, ex-Governor of Michigan.

Autobiography of Geo. H. Greene, our worthy corresponding secretary, and Wm. A. Burt, one of our commissioners of internal improvement and surveyor of the upper peninsula.

Time would fail me to enumerate the valuable articles contributed to this society during the past two years, fraught with great interest relating to the 0033 17 early settlement of the different towns in the lower and tipper peninsulas, that constitute the 5th and 6th volumes of Pioneer Collections and the compilation for the 7th volume, now ready and prepared for the press, which your committee commend to your favorable notice, feeling assured that you will not only be agreeably entertained in their perusal but that you will derive valuable information that can be gained from no other source.

Your committee take pleasure in announcing the fact, that by correspondence with friends in Germany we have procured a negative, taken late in life, of the late Chancellor Tappan—the first chancellor of our University, to whom the citizens of our State are so largely indebted for his instrumentality in laying the foundation and superstructure of our university, which has challenged the admiration of the civilized world. Our committee is also assured that we shall soon be presented with a manuscript of a Philanthropic poem which the Chancellor had devoted many years of the latter part of his eventful life in composing, but never issued to the public. That in addition to the eulogy by Prof. Frieze, now in the possession of the society, we shall be favored, in time for the forthcoming volume, from the pen of Mrs. Bruno, the daughter of the Chancellor residing in Germany, his history subsequent to his resignation of the Chancellorship which will be highly prized, especially by the graduates of the University by whom he is remembered with great affection and gratitude.

While the services of the officers of this society are appreciated and highly prized by those who have examined the published volumes and have been interested in the proceedings of this society, it is nevertheless to be regretted that a very small proportion of our citizens appear to have any correct knowledge of the aims and purposes this society has in view—but because they have not had their attention attracted thereto, they, rather, suppose the object is to procure a soft place for a number of old gentlemen with a salary and little to do, that they have an annual jubilee and feast, and all at the expense of the State. When, if they would seek correct information, they would find that the officers pay an annual fee of membership, but not one dollar, from the organization of this society to the present time, has been appropriated or used in payment for salaries or services. But we are mindful of the fact that the original pioneers are fast passing away, that in the next decade nearly all, if not all, will have gone to their rest and the sources of information with them. On the contrary, the officers of this society have voluntarily contributed their time and services and will feel amply 3 0034 18 compensated, believing as time passes the result of their labor will be more and better appreciated and highly prized by future generations.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

M. SHOEMAKER, Chairman .

TALCOTT E. WING.

DR. O. C. COMSTOCK.

M. H. GOODRICH.

WITTER J. BAXTER, Committee of Historians .

Harriet A. Tenney , Secretary .

When the blue skies are bending o'er us in the balmy days of June, The wheat fields waving in the wind, and the roses bright with bloom, Those who subdued the wilderness and laid the forests low Are come to talk of work and joy in the days of long ago. They, veterans of the sylvan woods, the bravest and the best, Who out the towering forests hewed the sweet homes of the west, Rejoicing altogether, with our Michigan advancing, Meeting in mutual gladness, when the tribes go up to Lansing. Flinging their banners to the breeze where so much wealth is seen, The fruit of skill and labor that rewards the Wolverine. From every county of the State we are glad to see them coming, Good, brave, and honest workingmen and kind and lovely women. From the fertile borders of the west, where the yellow peaches grow, And the rolling waves of Michigan in grand expansion flow, Where schooner, sloop, and steamer sail in beautiful array. By shore and bank and crowded port and far off, quiet bay. 'Round the northern gates and limpid lakes of clear, cool Mackinaw, Past the salt of earth, the men of worth. and the pines of Saginaw. Down Huron fair and Lake St. Clair, till Detroit comes in view, And then fades away like a summer day o'er Erie's waters blue. It's better than reading a romance to see what has been done, To many thousand happy homes the wild woods have been won; This great State of wealth and learning, where such rich harvests grow Was only a wild and savage wilderness sixty years ago. Here the red man twanged his battle bow and roamed the forest free, He was careful of his elbow-grease and always spared the tree. The war whoop of the hostile tribes rings no more o'er wooded hill, The tomahawks are buried low, the red braves are sleeping still. 'Round the beautiful peninsula fresh seas for ages rolled, But there were no fields of grain, no flocks were in the fold. bene golden There's beauty and ficence, all that earth can give to man, Rich fields, with wealth and learning, in our beautiful Michigan; 0137 121 Long trains, rolling in abundance, to the city of the straits, Hamlets, towns, and splendid cities, by streams and crystal lakes. Marquette and the pictured rocks, and where St. Mary's waters flow, Clear down the rail by the Jackson jail to the vineyards of Monroe. On the Hoosier and Ohio line the railroad bells are ringing, From shore to shore, aye, more and more, new wealth and pleasure bringing. Matchless lakes and shoals of fish, herds of deer and towering pines, Plaster, coal, and salt and silver, iron hills and copper mines. Clear streams and healthy breezes on silver strand and blooming shore, With all this world can give us till we need her wealth no more. But we long for still a better state, where none grow old and gray, Unfading flowers and immortal bowers in realms of endless day.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Society of Michigan Pioneers:

In response to a resolution of your society, and of the Historical Society of the State, I appear before you to present a brief article upon the location of the State capitol at Lansing, which, for purpose of a title, I will designate,

“SHADOWY REMEMBRANCES OF 1847, AND FAREWELL TO THE OLD STATE CAPITOL”.

From the usages of this Society, this article must necessarily be more noted for its brevity than for the historic matter it may contain.

In my humble efforts to discharge the duty assigned me I shall make no effort to lionize myself, or to make a hero of any particular person, for indeed there was no such hero. Each, as I believe, in his action upon the subject, discharged his simple duty; and if on returning home he failed to receive the applause of his constituents, he had what is worth far more,—The approbation of his own judgment and an approving conscience.

Honored by my friends with a seat in the Legislature of 1847, I timildy took my seat in the old capitol in Detroit, a tyro at the business of legislation; but I soon had the consolation of learning that I was surrounded by plenty of others of the same sort. My first surprise was to find the Legislature, 16 0138 122 with few exceptions, a body of plain men. Finding this out, I began to breathe more freely, but through all the early days of the session my fears of violating some parliamentary rule and being brought to order by some of the few old stagers of the house, kept me in a state of needless consternation. But there was one redeeming circumstance. I had not come there expecting to enjoy a holiday visit. I found work before me, which made me feel at home, for, thank God. I had been taught to work when I was very young. At an early period in our Territorial history, Detroit had been made the capital, and when our first State constitution [1835] was adopted, Article 12, Section 9, of that instrument read as follows:

“The seat of government for this State shall be at Detroit, or at such other place or places as may be prescribed by law, until the year 1847, when it shall be permanently located by the Legislature.”

In considering this passage of our organic law, I had been led to attach a peculiar importance to the word “permanently,” and my convictions were that no location upon the extreme borders of the State could be permanent after the interior of the State had become settled. But when the Legislature of '47 was first organized the man who could have supposed it possible to wrest the capitol from Detroit and set it down in the midst of a dense forest on the banks of Grand river would have been considered a fit subject for a lunatic asylum. The fact was that we who represented the interior of the State felt the incubus of our disadvantages and our poverty. We decided to work together, and we “builded better than we knew.” The result may be pointed to for all time to come as an evidence of what united action may accomplish, even under the most desponding circumstances. A brief glance at the strength of the State at that early period may be interesting at this point.

Our Legislative Manual contains the census of 1845, upon which the Legislature was apportioned. It shows the entire population of the State to have been 304,273. * Of this number 184,637, being over three-fifths. were contained in the two southern tiers of counties, and 119,636 in all the rest of the State. Only four counties of the State could boast a population of twenty thousand each. These were: Wayne, 32,267; Oakland, 30,288; Washtenaw, 26,979, and Lenawee, 23,011. There were eight other counties with a population of 10,000 or upwards. This county of Ingham, against her population of 33,676 in 1880, then had but 5,267. Kent county in the intervening thirty-five years, from 1845 to 1880. has increased from 6,153 to 73,253; Shiawassee from 3,829 to 27,059. My adopted county of Tuscola, which at that time had no existence except as a wolfish appendage of Saginaw,

* See appendix

But to return to the dim ages of 1847. At that time our Legislature consisted of twenty-two Senators and sixty-five Representatives, or members of the House. They were not then, as now, elected by single districts. There were seven Senate districts in the State. Thirteen of the twenty-two Senators lived in the two southern tiers of counties, against but nine in all the north. Of the sixty-five Representatives, thirty-seven lived in the two southern tiers of counties; while all the remainder of the State had but twenty-eight. This analysis goes conclusively to show that, had the question been decided solely upon sectional issues, we of the interior would have been defeated by an overwhelming majority.

In the body to which I had the honor to belong, the first * official mention of the capitol question, as shown by the journals, appeared in the fact that on the 6th of January the House went into committee of the whole, with Major Britton [Britain] of Berrien, in the chair, and that when the committee arose, they reported back a series of resolutions, one of which was: “That so much of the Governor's message as relates to the location of the seat of government be referred to a select committee, to consist of seven members.” The journals next show that on the day following the Speaker announced the appointment, as such committee, of George B. Throop, of Wayne, Harvey Chubb, of Washtenaw, Alexander M. Arzeno, of Monroe, Patrick Marantette, of St. Joseph, John D. Pierce, of Calhoun, Enos Goodrich, of Genesee, and Alexander F. Bell, of Ionia. At the call of the chairman, Mr. Throop, the committee met at an early period. A very slight consultation

* See appendix

Report number 2, of Messrs. Pierce and Marantette, took a comprehensive view of Detroit and the Central Railroad, but seemed to lose sight of all that lay north of it. It was nevertheless an able report, and one of their objections to locating at Detroit is certainly worthy of reproduction, where it is stated that, “In case of war with England, no position can be found more exposed to a sudden attack. It would then be within the reach and be at the mercy of an enemy's guns.” The claim of Ann Arbor was dismissed on account of its being too far east and having already had the university. Jackson was also rejected, for it also was east of the center, and had its full share of public patronage in the penitentiary. In conclusion, the claims of Marshall were presented in glowing terms and well selected argument.

Last, and perhaps least, your humble speaker submitted his solitary 0141 125 report, from which we will produce two or three short sentences. I stated that “according to the most authentic geographical information the entire State of Michigan comprises an area of no less than sixty-six thousand square miles. By a careful examination of the State maps it will be seen that only six thousand six hundred square miles of this area are found south of the line of the Central Railroad, as it is usually styled, and that no less. than fifty-nine thousand four hundred square miles of the same lie north of the route of said road. Thus it will be seen that all that part of our State lying south of the Central Railroad comprises but just a tenth part of its geographical surface.” Then drawing toward the conclusion, I proceeded:

“The undersigned would further suggest, that in addition to reasons already alluded to, he is of firm conviction that the location of the capitol in the manner above alluded to would result in important benefits to the State, by giving impetus to immigration in a direction towards that part of the State where most of our State lands are located; thereby facilitating the sale of said lands, and accomplishing the two-fold purpose of replenishing our treasury and populating our wilds.” I argued generally in favor of the north woods, citing the example of the State of Ohio, in locating her capitol in the wilderness and summed up by enjoining the location “at some suitable point farther north than the Central Railroad, the selection of which point I would submit to the good judgment of the Legislative body.”

And now the select committee of seven, having amicably agreed to disagree, reported the whole subject back to the Legislature, without recommendation.

About this stage of the proceedings an organization was quietly, and, I might say, secretly formed, known and designated by its members as the “Northern Rangers.” It generally comprised the members of both houses living north of the Central Railroad, but with what exceptions I am not now prepared to say. The place of our meeting was generally one of the large rooms of Wales's Hotel, on the present site of the Biddle House. We had no stated periods, but met on call. We had good leaders and organizers—prominent among the number were our speaker, George W. Peck, and Senators Fenton, Bush, and Parsons. It was the best organization of the kind I ever saw. We soon became well drilled and disciplined. Laying aside all sectional jealousies, we resolved generally to unite in support of all points that might be proposed north of the line of the Central Railroad. As northern men, we “nailed our colors to the mast,” and left the developments to time and circumstances. At an early period there appeared upon the arena a quiet and unassuming character, whose action had more to 0142 126 do in directing public opinion than most people might imagine. The Honorable James Seymour, then of Genesee county, had built mills in the wilderness of Ingham county, at what, I believe, is now called North Lansing. He submitted to our committee a proposal to furnish capitol grounds free—and, to show the central location of his point he accompanied his proposal with a map, on which were drawn red lines, to prominent points, with distances given. In Mr. Throop's report his allusion to Mr. Seymour's “map and red lines” was generally looked upon as a burlesque, but in my opinion that “map and red lines” did more in attracting attention to Lansing than any or all speeches in the halls of legislation.

And now I will not weary you by detailing the progress of the bill through the tedious forms of legislation. Those who feel interested in the formal and technical details of motions to amend, to strike out, to insert, and to recommit, with all the paraphernalia of legislative formality, are respectfully referred to the journals. From these you will learn that Mr. Throop, the chairman of the select committee, submitted his report on February 4, and that the report of Messrs. Pierce and Marantette was also submitted on the same day; also that on the day following, being February 5, Mr. Goodrich submitted his report on the same subject. The subject was now fairly before the House, and it may be cited as an example of fast legislation, that the bill was considered and brought to its final passage in the House on Saturday, February 13. To the surprise of both friends and opponents, the vote stood forty-eight for and but seventeen against. The bill then passed to the Senate, in which body a long and spirited fight ensued. It did not take a great while to demonstrate the fact that there was strength enough in the Senate to pass the bill, but the Opposition died hard. A running fight was kept up for many days, culminating frequently upon points of the most insignificant technicality—even narrowing down to grammatical criticism and fault finding with our choice of words. The old adage that “drowning men will catch at straws” never had a better illustration than the opposition to this bill given in the Senate. The fact was, they had got the idea that if they could only insert the slightest amendment, so as to cause it to be sent back to the House, we would defeat it. For myself I never took this view of the subject—on the contrary I always believed that with our thorough organization we had ample strength to handle the question to the last day of the session, in spite of a few possible deserters. Still we deemed it most prudent not to have it come back. We saw no good that could result from fighting the battle over, and we therefore enjoined it upon our senatorial friends to pass the bill as they received it, without the dotting of 0143 127 an “i” or the crossing of a “t.” They did so after a long struggle, in which the protracted discussion gave some show of countenance to the current rumor that senatorial speculations in city lots had aided to prolong the struggle. But to the honor of the Senate, I now desire to bear public testimony, that neither at that day nor at any subsequent period have I found any substantial reason to credit such reports. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of twelve against eight, on the 9th of March, and received the Governor's signature and became a law on the 16th day of the same month. [1847.]

It provided for the location of the capitol “in the township of Lansing in the county of Ingham.” A supplementary bill was then passed providing for the appointment of commissioners by the Governor, to designate the exact site, pursuant to which he appointed, March 22, as such commissioners: James L. Glen, of Cass; Benjamin F. H. Witherell, of Wayne, and Alonzo Ferris, of Genesee. Mr. Witherell resigned and David Smart was appointed in his stead April 2, 1847. These commissioners stuck the capitol stake on the school section in the township of Lansing, which was then a solid woods and at the commencement of the discussion had been subject to private entry at four dollars an acre. And here comes a piece of history that is worthy to be written in letters of gold. Abiel Silver was then Commissioner of the State Land office. When the bill to locate the capitol had passed the House and was struggling through the Senate, the commissioner received repeated applications to purchase these lands. In view of modern political methods, the great wonder is that some confidential friend or kinsman of the commissioner had not at this crisis stepped in and bought the land. Never did mortal man have a finer opportunity to enrich himself by an abuse of official privilege than was then offered to Mr. Silver. But, rising above dishonor, he entitled himself to the gratitude of Michigan for all time to come, by withdrawing the land from market. The lands were laid off in city lots, and after reserving ample grounds for capitol purposes the remainder were thrown upon the market. I wish it were in my power to tell you to a dollar how much was saved to the school fund by this one noble act of a public officer. To do this would require more research than my opportunities have afforded.—But for the first eight years, from 1847 to 1854 inclusive, the receipts amounted to $102,978.

On the 17th day of March, after a session of seventy-three days, the Legislature of 1847 concluded its labors, and as the old capitol clock indicated the hour of twelve, our speaker arose from his seat and pronounced the House of Representatives dissolved, in terms so brief, so pointed and yet so affecting that I feel constrained to give you his own words, as follows:

“ Gentlemen of the House —Your labors are closed, but before I perform the last duty of the chair, and dissolve forever the official relation which has so long united us, accept my warmest thanks for the kindness and courtesy I have at all times officially and personally received from the members of this House. If my attempts to meet worthily, the responsibilities resulting from this relation have deserved the approbation you have been pleased tonight to bestow upon them, I am largely indebted for my success to the continued co-operation of the members of the House, and the efficient services of its able clerk. If they have failed to deserve it, the failure cannot I trust be traced to any fault of inattention. In discharging the duties of the chair, I have ever endeavored to act unbiased by political or personal prejudice—and although we have often differed in opinion and action, I assure you that on my part every feeling inconsistent with the warmest regard for each and all of you, has vanished with the hour of its birth. We part, I trust, friends—and whatever my future lot—whether in public or private life—through every vicissitude of life, I shall look back to our association here with mingled gratitude and praise.

“And now farewell—you have all my fervent wishes for your future welfare and happiness, and may your return to your respective homes and friends be as joyful as this, our parting is sad—once more I bid you one and all an affectionate adieu.”

And now there was a hustling and bustling; a gathering up of journals, and a hasty shaking of hands, and it seemed as if the portraits of General Cass and Stevens T. Mason glanced down upon us from the walls with a tinge of sadness in their looks.

And now, venerable old Capitol, with thy moss grown roof, thy dingy walls and historic memories, we bid thee a long,—a last farewell. How little does the Michigan of to-day know how much she owes to thee! It was within thy antique walls that our noblest principles received their impetus, and our proudest and grandest institutions had their birth. Our first and best State constitution was conceived and brought forth within thy walls,—an instrument which in its clear headed simplicity far surpasses the complicated and unwieldly constitution which hampers the courts and entagles the legislatures of later years. It was that old constitution whose first sentence declares: “All political power is inherent in the people.”

It was that which published to the world that “Every person has a right to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of his own conscience.” And last but by no means least, it was within thy venerable walls that the soit of Michigan was dedicated to freedom, in the language of Article XI, which 0145 129 declares that “Neither slavery or involuntary servitude shall ever be introduced into this State, except for the punishment of crimes of which the party shall have been duly convicted.”

Here, too, was originated that proudest and grandest of all our institutions of learning, the State University, and here it received the fostering care of the State, “while yet the evil days come not,” when through a combination of quack doctors and quack legislators, it was prostituted to the dissemination of homeopathic nostrums and mustard seed pills.

It was fifty years last November since, a youthful wanderer, far away from my home in the Empire State, I stepped off the quivering deck of one of Lake Erie's staunchest steamboats, and first set foot on the soil of Michigan in a muddy street of Detroit. Happy to exchange the seething and sickening breath of the steam engine for the free air of this then far western Territory, I strolled back into the suburbs of the embryo “City of the Straits,” where I first gazed upon the corinthian columns of the old State capitol. Little did I then think how grandly and nobly it was destined to be connected with the history of Michigan, and still less that my own history was ever to constitute a connecting link between it and Michigan's future greatness. But farewell, old capitol,—thy walls have crumbled to dust, and the men whose voices once echoed within thy walls have mostly shared thy fate, and the few that remain are destined soon to follow.

“Sic transit Gloria Mundi.”

Let us now turn our thoughts to the wilderness which then enshrouded the spot where we have this day assembled and contemplate the sombre silence which then brooded over the sullen waters of Grand river, whose dense overhanging forests excluded the rays of the noonday sun. The startled fawn gazed from the banks upon the wild fowl floating down the current, the bald eagle screamed from the overhanging buttonwood, and the wolf from the distant jungle gave response with a funereal howl. Here and there through the neighboring townships might have been seen half cut roadways, encumbered and obstructed by giant stumps and massive logs. Here and there might be seen a small clearing, with its shake-roofed cottage of logs to cheer the wayfaring traveler from the distance, but how often to disappoint him when he found it alone and tenantless. Looking in at the window he might see the rough floor made of unpolished split logs, the sodden ashes in the open fireplace, the pole bedstead in the corner, and the cross-legged table in the floor. Turning his sad feet from the deserted window and elbowing his way among stumps and through mingled fire weeds and thistles, he explores the spot which was lately the emigrant's 17 0146 130 home. Frightening the robin from her nest in the chinks of the log stable and the blue jay from the well-sweep, he sacrilegiously stumbles upon a grave with roughly split slabs at the head and foot. Perhaps its proportions indicate that the master or the mistress of the household reposes beneath, or perhaps they are suggestive of budding infancy or blooming youth. And would you learn the history, go away beyond the waters of Lake Erie, where the decimated and disconsolate family have sought solace among former friends in their early home. Malarial fever, want of markets, want of mills, want of society and sympathizing friends, want of everything has driven them from the spot they had selected for their future home.

“They quit the scenes where strong temptations try, And, since 'tis hard to combat, learn to fly.”

But all were not gone. There were a few stout hearts and strong hands that remained,—and when the almost incredible news reached them that the State capitol was coming to their very doors, and they began to hear in the distance the scream of the locomotive and click of the telegraph, they took new courage and toiled on. Their friends who had deserted came back from the east, and the thousands followed, until “the wilderness literally became a fruitful field, and the desert literally blossomed as the rose.” And now need you ask me why I toiled and voted for a capitol in the woods, when all these things had been foreshadowed to me while yet we sat in the old State capitol at Detroit? It was to galvanize life into the very heart of our wild and languishing State, at a time when we had no money to appropriate and I felt that the capitol was a “boom” worth untold millions. In this I have not been disappointed.

To the President and Members of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan:

Having received a communication from your Corresponding Secretary in March last, with an earnest solicitation of the Committee of Historians and 0147 131 the Executive Committee, then in session, that I, with the aid of my brother, B. O. Williams, furnish a paper for the next annual meeting of your society, to be held in June, on “The Removal of the Capitol from Detroit to Lansing,” showing all the inside workings of that movement, as I understood them; how it was done; the competing points; their disappointments, and how the school section was saved to the State, etc. I seek to comply.

I beg to state that this communication reached me during a very severe illness, from which I am but just recovering, and I have not until now (the 10th of June) been able to promise such an undertaking; and what I may now say will be mostly from recollection, as I am not able to get out to examine legal documents. In giving what is termed in the foregoing communication “The inside workings of that movement,” it wilt be necessary, in justice to myself and those coöperating with me in that movement, to go back a little and show the status of affairs at that time; as, also, certain events that caused me to take so conspicuous a part in the matter.

It will be remembered that Michigan was not admitted into the Union until 1837, although the State had in convention, two years previously, adopted a State constitution and established a State government, and put it in operation, and became a State in fact, though not a State in the Union. Under this constitution, Detroit was declared the seat of government (unless the Legislature should otherwise order) until 1847, when the Legislature should decide upon a permanent location. As the year 1847 drew near, the census of 1845 had been taken and published, showing the population of the State to be 296,489, of which 253,061 were in the three southern tiers of counties, while the next three tiers of counties (extending to the north line of Midland) contained but 42,490, leaving less than a thousand for all the rest of the State. Saginaw * county at that time numbered only 920, and Bay county but 104.

We at the north saw this great disparity in the population between these counties, yet knew that great undeveloped wealth lay in the northern portion of the lower peninsula, in its salt springs, plaster beds, its magnificent forests of pine, oak and maple, and other valuable timber; saying nothing of the upper peninsula, with its extensive fisheries, copper mines and inexhaustible beds of rich iron ores, equaling in quality and richness any in the world; besides an area of rich agricultural lands, by far larger than were embraced in the three southern tiers of counties herein named; together with large navigable rivers and bays, ensuring commercial advantages not surpassed by any other portion of the State. As 0148 132 apropos to this subject, I cannot refrain from quoting a paragraph from the Memoirs of De Tocqueville, of his tour through northern Michigan in 1831; “The wilderness was before us just as, six thousand years ago, it showed itself to the fathers of mankind. These are not more or less probable speculations of philosophy; the facts are as certain as if they had already taken place. In a few years these impenetrable forests will have been fallen; the sons of civilization and industry will break the silence of the Saginaw; its echoes will cease; the banks will be imprisoned by quays; its current, which now flows on unnoticed and tranquil through a nameless waste, will be stemmed by the prows of vessels More than one hundred miles sever this solitude from the great European settlements; and we were perhaps the last travelers allowed to see its primitive grandeur, so strong is the impetus that urges the white man to the entire conquest of the new world.” This change has already long since taken place, proving the correctness of his predictions.

We at the north knowing all this, and seeing the great disparity in the population between these two divisions of counties, were naturally induced to urge a postponement of this capitol question for ten years longer. This sentiment was received with favor, and soon became quite general and was strongly favored by the citizens of Detroit, who were quite willing that the capitol should remain there another ten years. And it seemed to be conceded all over the State that no change would be made at that time. In selecting Shiawassee county by myself and brother, B. O., in 1829, for our future and permanent home, we had an eye not only to a business (the Indian fur trade in connection with the American Fur Company) but, also, to a central and desirable location for a county seat; as, also, for the capitol of the State, when it should be established (“counting chickens” rather early for backwoods boys; one a minor and the other barely twenty-one, without a dollar except what they hoped to make by their own efforts). I had traversed the State in 1829 by Indian trails from Pontiac to Grand Rapids, thence south to Gull Prairie, where we found the first settlement, or road, thence through Kalamazoo, Round and White Pigeon prairies to South Bend, on the St. Joseph river, thence east through the counties of St. Joseph, Branch, and Lenawee, to Saline, Ypsilanti, and back to Pontiac. This, with similar excursions made in company with my brother (though of less extent), gave us a very good and general knowledge of the State; and before making our first purchases in 1831 I had assisted in the U. S. survey of several counties lying west and north of Shiawassee, which, with our business from 1831 to 1833, gave us a very thorough knowledge of the State. 0149 133 We then purchased the land where Owosso now stands; which, it will be seen by reference to a map of the State, was on the line of the Michigan Northern Railroad, one of the three roads established by the State under the “General Improvement Act,” and is eighty-seven miles from the south line of the State, eighty-four miles to the north line of Bay county, ninety to Port Huron, and one hundred and eight to Grand Haven—showing it to be central to this portion of the State, all of which seemed to favor a possible future location of the capitol at Owosso.

In 1844 it was ascertained that Shiawassee county was largely in debt, caused, as was supposed, by the mismanagement of its treasurer, who had held the office yearly from the organization of the county and had become rich and popular with a certain class of voters, who, it was claimed, he had aided with the county funds, and it had become most difficult to remove him. I was prevailed upon by my friends to accept the nomination for a single term, although I had great aversion to office of any kind. I was elected, and on entering upon the duties of my office soon discovered the “holes in the skimmer,” showing an apparent balance due the county, from the treasurer, of about $16,000, a statement of which was submitted to the Auditor General, and approved by him.

In 1846 a State Senator was to be elected from this district; consisting of Oakland, Lapeer, Genesee, Saginaw and Shiawassee counties. * The nomination in the democratic party was conceded to Shiawassee county, and the universal sentiment of the district was that I should take the nomination, which, as the parties then stood, was equivalent to an election. If there was to be no action on the capitol question I certainly did not want the nomination (my friends believing there would be no change of the capitol under ten years), and as Mr. Andrew Parsons of Corunna, a young and warm friend of mine, whom I had fostered and assisted to many official positions in the county, greatly desired the nomination, and as my services as treasurer were urged as a necessity, I consented to take the re-nomination for the treasurership and give over the senatorship to Parsons. He was elected, but before surrendering my claim to the nomination for senator I had a full understanding with him, that, in the event of an effort to change the capitol, he would stand by Owosso in its efforts to secure the location.

Hon. Horatio Seymour * of New York (afterwards Governor), a shrewd politician, owned the south part of section 9, town of Lansing, in Ingham county, on which he had built a log house and small saw-mill, which was also quite central to the counties before named. And I never had a doubt but that he made that location with a view to the capitol of the State.

* See appendix

It was decided to introduce a bill (as a substitute) in the Senate, fixing the location of the capitol in the township of Caledonia, in which the village of Corunna was situated, as also a part of the village of Owosso. A test vote was taken on this bill in the Senate, resulting in a majority of two for the bill Parsons voting against it. The Senate at that time consisted of twenty-three members, but soon after the first vote one of our Senators (Mr. E. B. Witherbee of Flint), died suddenly, leaving but twenty-two. The citizens of Corunna, aided by some citizens of Detroit, opposed this bill bitterly, and threatened to disown Parsons if he voted for our bill, and insisted won inserting section 28 of Caledonia, being the section on which Corunna was located.

Here we stuck for about three weeks, having a tie vote on every test question. Mr. Parsons would not say positively how he would vote on the bill, on its final passage, but hoped we could get along without him. I don't think the stick with him was so much on account of Corunna's influence as that of Governor Seymour.

A day had been fixed for taking the vote. I spent an hour with Parsons at his room the evening prior. He seemed greatly troubled; I could get nothing definite from him, but he said he hoped I would be satisfied with the result. The next day came, and he was not in his seat. I went to his room about 11 o'clock A. M. He was very sick and vomiting. He said he could not possibly go to the capitol that day. He appeared as if under the operation of an emetic. The vote was taken, resulting in a majority of one 0151 135 against us. I called at his room again about four P. M. and found him up and dressing, and said he felt better and was glad the thing was over and that his Corunna friends had gone home.

There was still a good deal of quiet figuring going on. In passing the door of Hon. Charles P. Bush's room. as I left Parsons, I heard a remark respecting a school section, which led me to suspect a move was on foot to purchase the school section in Lansing. I hastened back to my room at the National Hotel, where I found Judge A. N. Hart and Mr. E. C. Kimberly in waiting for me. I made known to them my suspicions and we soon decided to, at once, acquaint Governor Greenly of our suspicions, and advise him to lose no time in dispatching a messenger to the Commissioner of the Land office, then at Marshall, I think. He did so; and instructed the commissioner to withhold the school section of Lansing from sale, and, I was afterward informed, that very soon thereafter an application was made by some of the Seymour parties to purchase that section. There were no telegraphs in those days.

I should have before stated that I had the full and constant assistance of Hon. A. N. Hart in my efforts, and who had promised his support to the Seymour bill when Owosso should have withdrawn from the contest; and, also, that we at Owosso had secured titles at a nominal price to about 1,600 acres of land in and adjacent to Owosso; one-half of which was to be donated to the State in case the capitol should be located there, besides four forty-acre lots within the present limits of the city, from which the State was to select one for the capitol buildings. I am not aware that any other competing point had been thus liberal.

The principal competing points were Detroit, Lansing, Owosso, Lyons, Jackson, and several others, mostly along the line of the Central Railroad. As to who suffered the greatest disappointment, I am unable to say. I felt that I had done my duty to my constituents and to this part of the State, and upon learning that I had been instrumental in saving the school section to the State, I considered myself well paid for all the efforts I had made. And I have since been informed that the school fund has realized over a hundred thousand dollars from that section.

This seems to cover the principal parts of the matter in which I was directly a participant, and also the points upon which your committee desired information.

The paper which I had the honor to submit on the Lake Superior country, at the last meeting of this society, brought us down to the winter of 1847. For the decade following I was employed on the west coast of America, so that you must look to others to fill the gap in the history of that country. In the memorable year 1857,—memorable for one of the worst panics that ever swept over the country. I returned to the copper mines, or rather to the Upper Peninsula. During that decade much progress had been made all along the south shore of Lake Superior. At the Sault Ste. Marie a road had supplanted the old Indian trail and wagon road, only to make way in the year 1855 for the ship canal. But the completion of the canal seemed to be fatal to the growth and prosperity of the place. The golden harvest reaped from the trans-shipment of merchandise and minerals across the portage, as well as that derived from the money expended in canal construction, ceased to enrich the inhabitants and furnish them employment. The natural resources of the town were exceedingly limited. The old industries o fishing and trapping had been neglected, and one of them, the fur trade. was destined never to revive. Consequently a large majority of the inhabitants emigrated, many of them in time becoming leading pioneers in the iron and copper fields further west. In short, the Sault fell from its ideal and boasted commerce, as the metropolis of Lake Superior, to a very dull village, with grass-grown streets and rotting wharves and warehouses. The troops stationed at Fort Brady had been withdrawn to Mexico with no promise of return. But few of the Anglo-Saxons remained, and the pleasantly situated village of the Falls was given up to lounging Indians and contented Frenchmen, who could laugh and grow fat on a diet of fish and potatoes; cheering their evenings with the violin and dancing.

Attracted by the salubrious climate and excellent fishing, tourists from the south enlivened the dull aspect every summer by their cheerful presence and full purses. I may here remark in passing, that within the last ten years, 0153 137 the Sault has taken a new lease of life and is now a flourishing town. The agricultural resources of Chippewa county, of which the Sault is the county seat, have proved unexpectedly great. The lumbering interests, too, are of importance.

Between 1847 and 1857 the iron mines had been opened and developed to a considerable extent and the lake port and metropolis of that region, Marquette, had sprung into being with a Promise of a great future,—now being realized. (The first steam railroad on the lake was built during this period, reaching from Marquette to the mines, for the ore traffic.)

Down to the end of the season of 1847, exploring and mining for copper had been the great absorbing pursuits engaging the attention of the pioneers. Explorations, as has been stated in my first paper, had been made in all the regions bordering the lake, but regular mining had been confined to Keweenaw Point, of which the famous “Cliff” was the chief exponent. But in 1847–8 the Ontonagon district came to the front as a producer of mass copper, the foremost mine being the celebrated Minnesota. This mine was discovered by Mr. Samuel O. Knapp, who opened at a point where the so-called “Ancient Miners” had worked in pre-historic ages. One pit, opened by Mr. Knapp, is thus described by Professor Foster: “When he had penetrated to the depth of eighteen feet he came to a mass of native copper, ten feet long, three feet wide, and nearly two feet thick, and weighing over six tons. On digging round the mass, it was found to rest on billets of oak, supported by sleepers of the same material. The wood, from its long exposure to moisture, was dark-colored and had lost its consistency. It opposed no more resistance to a knife blade than so much peat. The earth was so firmly packed as to support the mass of copper. The ancient miners had evidently raised it about five feet and then abandoned the work as too laborious. The number of ancient (stone) hammers he took from this and other excavations exceeded ten cart loads. They were of green stone and porphry boulders. Selecting a stone of the desired size and form, the ancient miner cut a groove, arched it so that it might be secured by a withe and thus wielded as a sledge hammer.”

After this discovery the Ontonagon district speedily assumed such importance as to over-shadow the older Keweenaw district. The country was rapidly filled with enterprising people, and much eastern capital sought investment therein. The village of Ontonagon, on the lake shore, at the mouth of the river of the same name, grew apace and became, for a time, the leading town on the lake. The mines, situated in the interior, fourteen miles up the river, were reached first by the river in flat boats, but as the 18 0154 138 river was shallow and difficult to navigate, a plank road was built direct to the mines. Rockland and other flourishing villages sprang up near the mines as adjuncts and trading places for the mine people. The success of the Minnesota, Rockland, and National mines, all on the same lode and joining each other, caused new efforts to be made in mines opened interior to the Minnesota, and upon which work for a time, between 1847 and 1849, had been suspended, or only feebly sustained. Indeed, there was a general revival of business and settlement in the country. The people were distinguished for intelligence, business capacity, and great hardihood. As pioneers they battled with the vigorous climate bravely, and with bold and dauntless courage attacked the dense forests, subdued them, and planted flourishing towns and villages, which possessed many of the advantages and characteristics of American settlements in more favored climes. They built a harbor at the mouth of the river without governmental aid and invited the commerce of the lakes to enter their safe and convenient port in the river. Mr. Cash and other far-sighted individuals cleared fields for agriculture. The soit of some parts of the county, owing to a proper admixture of clay, invited the farmer to enter upon a profitable industry. Lands in mining regions are generally thin and poor and unproductive. But where farm crops can be raised to advantage, the farmer always finds in mining regions quick sales with large profits.

Our Ontonagon people were industrious, prosperous, and somewhat proud, if not boastful, of their preeminence. Their prosperity continued for several years, but the final giving out of the mineral in their great mines checked growth and enterprise—indeed. caused a woeful depression in business, with much poverty and distress. Many of the people, in fact, were compelled to seek more inviting fields, abandoning their cherished homes and cherished associations. But such is life in mining regions. The business being largely speculative, and the mines liable to impoverishment, there is always an element of uncertainty in it. The farm of broad acres, if properly cultivated and fed, will last for ages.

Leaving these people to go on working hopefully in their busy hive, we transfer our thoughts to that other and older hive on Keweenaw Point, some seventy or eighty miles northeast.

Here we find in 1860 the Cliff mine, grown to large dimensions, feeding a large village of miners and laborers, with broad, cultivated fields, open to the sun, and yielding grass, oats, potatoes and other root crops abundantly. A church or two, a school-house overflowing with children, nestle under the picturesque cliffs. A firm, macadamized road has been built to Eagle river. 0155 139 Great masses of copper just hoisted from the deep mines astonished us on account of their purity and size. Masses of from four to eight tons weight, loaded on great groaning trucks, and hauled by from four to six yoke of oxen, go forward slowly down the smooth road to the shipping docks at Eagle river. To crown all the Cliff has become dividend paying, and its fortunate shareholders are becoming rich.

At several points in Keweenaw county, at this time, were several mines of great promise, some of them destined to become paying mines in the future; while others, less fortunate or less rich in mineral, seemed fated to exist for years only as they were fed by assessments derived from the stockholders. Profitable fruitage never came. Thus, while these two busy mining firms, located at opposite extremes of the copper range, occupied themselves industriously, if not always profitably, in their own affairs, a newer field began to attract attention. What is now known as the Portage Lake district was an area lying about midway between the Keweenaw and Ontonagon mines. Although Portage lake, dividing the trap range, had been navigated by the bark canoe and Mackinaw boats of explorers from the first settlement of the country, and some mining had been done as early as 1846 near its shores, yet no fissure veins, bearing mass copper, had been discovered, and, owing to the formation and peculiar deposits of copper in stamp lodes, never had been found. It was the common belief, without any just foundation, that stamp lodes would never pay. Mass veins, fissure veins, thus far, only had been remunerative, consequently fissure veins were the sine qua non ; everybody blindly searched for them. Mining elsewhere was deemed a waste of energy and money. The proud owners of successful mines based on fissure veins viewed the stamp lodes of Portage with incredulity, if not contempt.

But there was one man in the district, living with his family in a log hut, among the Indians, at the mouth of Portage river, subsisting on fish and potatoes, trading in furs in winter, exploring on the range in summer; this man, with limited education and scanty knowledge of geology and mineralogy—having been a tin-peddler in New York State and a peddler of essences and nostrums in the West—this man, full of pioneer energy and courage, was an enthusiast. He believed in the value of the mineral resources of his beloved Portage. His waking thoughts, his midnight dreams, were all of this hidden wealth. He believed in it; he talked of nothing else. The burden of his song was ever: Portage, Portage! So it came to pass that when he visited the other districts, he was considered, what would be called in modern parlance, a crank: But this man never flinched, never bated one jot or tittle of his high faith in his own district. When opposed, he talked rapidly, in 0156 140 language less choice than forcible, the while spitting tobacco juice with the vehemence of a small geyser. He went back to the woods and there, solitary and alone, like Old Mortality in a grave-yard, hunted for and found what afterwards proved to be some of the richest copper deposits in the world. This man was Ransom Shelden, late of Houghton. He was justly called the father of the Portage Lake district. He was a true pioneer. He suffered incalculable hardships, was successful, became wealthy and lived long enough to see all his fond hopes and predictions realized in the growth and eminent position attained by his district as a copper producing region, with a reputation co-extensive with the civilized world. This old pioneer is now at rest; his remains are entombed in Forest Hill cemetery, Houghton, and a polished granite shaft, marking the spot, now looks down upon the busy scene of his early labors. He was greatly aided in his enterprises by his brother-in-law, Mr. C. C. Douglass, a prominent pioneer, now gone to his rest.

Aside from its great mineral wealth, the Portage Lake district enjoyed one advantage not possessed by the other districts. Portage Lake offered a water-way, navigable to the largest ships, the depth being sixty feet. This singular lake, narrow, deep, winding, and branching, occupied troughs cut through the solid rocky range, perhaps, by glaciers, thus opening to the mines, as effectually as an artificial channel could, on a grand scale, a waterway of incalculable advantage. But the outlet to this lake was Portage river, a small, crooked stream, five miles long. This, in its natural state, barred the entrance of large craft to the lake. In 1859, the mining companies, aided by Shelden and Douglass, organized the Portage River Improvement Company, raised the necessary funds, and proceeded to widen and deepen the river by dredging, building a breakwater at the mouth of the dredged channel, where it entered Lake Superior. The work was done by contract; W. W. Williams, of New York, was the contractor, and John H. Forster the engineer. In June, 1860, the work was so far advanced that the engineer was enabled to pilot a small propeller from Detroit, named. I think, “Detroit,” up to the wharves of Houghton and Hancock. Great was the rejoicing of the inhabitants; fierce and loud the shrieking of stamp mills whistles, as the boat hove in sight. It was a gala day at Portage; a new era was inaugurated. Mr. S. L. Smith, now of Lansing, made the speech of welcome.

Previous to this all steamers from the lower lakes came to anchor in the roadstead off the mouth of Portage river. Freight was discharged into scows, which were towed into the river and up to the mines by small tugs. During the season of storms, several days were sometimes required to discharge 0157 141 a steamer, for, if a storm arose, the steamer was obliged to cut and run for L'Anse for shelter, returning after the storm had subsided. The cost, delay, and damage occasioned by this transfer was enormous and became intolerable to business men. Hence came the Portage River Improvement. Passengers were subject to like detentions. There were no means of communicating with the entry only by small boat or tug. On land a dense wilderness of trees and swamps intervened. The date of the arrival or departure of steamers from the lower lakes was uncertain. So the Houghton man had to go at a venture; when he arrived at the entry there was often no boat, or one had just departed. He was in for several days' waiting. His only shelter was a log house, his food of the roughest kind, his bed a pair of blankets spread on a floor, in the midst of filth and vermin. The mosquitoes and black flies tormented him day and night. His only amusement was playing cards and drinking bad whiskey with his unfortunate fellow travelers.

Meantime, Houghton and its new rival, Hancock, were growing apace. On one day a tract would be cleared of trees and on the next day a house would be begun thereon. Adjustment of town plats came later. These villages were essentially mining camps. Saloons and places of amusement were most common. The good citizen had to be content with a log cabin, or shingle palace, the material for which came wet from the green log. Society was in a rude, primitive state. The population was composed of Cornishmen, Irish, and Germans. A few of the leading men, merchants and mine managers, were of American origin. The saloons were open night and day, including Sunday. There was much drinking, much blasphemy, much fighting. The Cornishman hated the Irishman. They were inveterate enemies; their feuds were endless. At times the opposing factions would muster in force, attacking with clubs and stones. There were many broken heads, crippled legs, with occasional manslaughter. The law officers were powerless and the peaceful citizen could only hide himself in his house till the storm blew over. It was much worse in every way in winter, when the people were completely isolated, with no possibility of aid or protection from outside communities. Then the roughs, maddened with whisky, ruled the roost; they indulged in strikes, in the agreeable pastime of beating and maiming friend or foe, with threatened arson and downright murder. During the first two years of the war on the Union, in winter, Portage was a veritable pandemonium, where all the bad passions of embruted and lawless human nature had full swing. The steady citizen and mine managers had a hard time of it. They carried arms and were ever in jeopardy 0158 142 of life and property. For better protection, in 1862–3 secret societies were formed, muskets were procured from the State, and squads of mine officers were nightly drilled in private upper rooms. But the facts leaked out and the roughs were intimidated. No actual conflict took place between these drilled men and outsiders.

When the war on the Union became a dead certainty the new and struggling mine industries of Portage Lake seemed destined to destruction. It was predicted that the mines must close down because there would be no market for copper. Short-sighted fear! The demand for copper soon became imperative; the ordnance department wanted all and more than could be produced. The production was thereby greatly stimulated; the mines were pushed to their utmost capacity, and general prosperity came rolling in. Mine dividends came as a new and encouraging feature, and before the war was over copper had gone up in price from 17 cents to 50 cents per pound. With all these factors at work, it would be strange if our mining towns did not prosper. Hancock, from a mere hamlet in 1860, soon out-ranked Houghton in population and business; the country was filled up with people who were not miners. This new element had a conservative influence in the community, checking lawlessness. The church and the school-house, everywhere seen, had their proper influence too.

Soon after the war began it became apparent that there would be a dearth of miners. It came, and the demand for mining men could not be supplied. Wages ran up in consequence to an unheard of price; common miners, who had been receiving thirty or forty dollars per month, now thought one hundred dollars too little. To meet requirements as to labor, the mining companies joined hands and raised a fund of $90,000 and sent paid agents to Sweden and Norway to procure miners. Several hundred men, under written contract to work for the companies, at good wages, for a specified time, i. e., until they should have paid the expense of bringing them to the country, were brought over and distributed, pro rata, over the mines. But quite a number, more than a majority, of these contract men, refused to work or reimburse their passage money. They were not slaves, they said, their importation was a fraud; it was true they desired to come to America, but now they were here they would not work; the companies might whistle. They were given up as a bad lot; but as the country had to fill its quota under the draft, these scalawags were induced to enlist with a bounty of $300 each offered. They filled the places of better men and were thus of some service. But that costly experiment of importing labor from Europe, at company expense, was never repeated.

The mines of the Portage district are based on stamp lodes, or belts. That is to say, the copper found in the vein stone is, as a rule, fine, like bird shot, or buckshot, not massive, and so intimately blended with the rock that large stamp mills are required for the treatment of the output of these mines. Hence tram-roads, extensive hoisting machinery and great stamp mills are the peculiar characteristics of the Portage mines. Herein they differ from the mass producing mines of other districts. At first grave doubts were entertained as to the success of stamp copper mines. But, all doubts have been set at rest. More than that, we now see purely stamp lodes, giving the richest outpouring of wealth of any copper mines under the sun. The Calumet and Hecla mines have no rivals. Thus, step by step, did the pioneer of Lake Superior have to feel his way. Almost every condition of his mining field was new and untried. The magnificent mining machinery and copper smelting works now operating in our northern mines, is, much of it, the creation of native genius, under the spur of necessity. In the mines, as elsewhere. the American citizen possessed the happy faculty of adapting himself to circumstances, or of bending circumstances to his own use. He had a firm grasp and soon came to manage great mines successfully, although his previous pursuits had been of a widely different character.

This busy community, with so many wants and necessities, so dependent on other sections for bread and meat, clothing and mine supplies, was, down to the year 1864, totally isolated during the winter season. There were no roads out of the country. The mails were hauled through the woods, from Green Bay, on dog trains. The latest news from the seat of war came by dog express. The local roads were poor and a wagon could be hauled only a few miles in any direction from the chief centers. Foot paths and bridle trails were the only avenues through the forests for long distances. Snow-shoeing was the common thing for the foot passenger to do in winter. The deep snows rendered only well beaten and often-traveled roads at all useful, so that pleasure sleighing parties were confined to the village or beaten and worked tracks on the lake. The turnouts, somehow, were disagreeable. The common way to pass was for each teamster to plunge into the snow and break a road for his horse, leading him through the frozen flood. With six feet of snow and the thermometer 30° below zero, or worse still, 40° above and the snow saturated with its melting self, one can imagine, not describe, the beauties of such a bath.

This isolation, so far as supplies were involved, had to be provided against with great care and circumspection, in the fall, before the close of navigation; 0160 144 A heavy cash capital was used as a purchasing power. A failure in the supply of flour, pork, powder, steel or any other necessity, occasioned by the wreckage of even one vessel, was a calamity without remedy. Such a failure might involve a suspension of mining, starvation, or emigration of a portion of the able-bodied men to regions of plenty beyond the wilderness. Such fresh meats as were to be had during winter were imported in the last vessels of the season, in a frozen condition, remaining frozen till used. Before spring—frozen beef carcasses were about as choice eating as the frozen elephants found in the ice drifts of northern Siberia. But in the climate of Lake Superior digestion is always good, especially in winter.

The society which our lake pioneers made for themselves was altogether enjoyable. They were shut out from the gay world; they had to depend upon themselves. Those were not white kid glove days; claw-hammer coats were not known. The ladies were educated and refined; they were plainly dressed in calico, or plain silks, while the gentlemen wore business suits, often belted at the waist with a red scarf, their undergarments being red or blue flannel; feet encased in moccasins or shoe packs. Health and comfort were the first considerations. Card parties and dancing parties were always in order. Concerts and lectures were also in vogue. There being few if any public halls, entertainments were held at private houses. Friendships were sincere and charity abounded. These pioneers were generous and their great benevolence reached out cheerfully to the poor and needy, in remotest corners.

Down to the year 1865, the upper peninsula had no resident judge. The district or circuit judge resided in Detroit and only visited the upper peninsula in the summer. He was attended by a number of lawyers from Detroit and other towns, who acted as attorneys and advocates in the business which came before this perambulating court. The court and retinue, while attending to business, were benefited by the salubrious air of the lake, went a fishing, dined out, in short, enjoyed a luxurious vacation. They gathered in most of the shekels to be had in the law practice of that country. This system was unpopular, for it prevented the settlement in the country of good lawyers, or impoverished those who had cast their lot in with us. and the great commercial and mining interests had to go half the year without counsel. In criminal cases it was still worse, for a man arrested in October, for supposed crime, remained in jail, a county charge, until the following June. If the prisoner was innocent, the hardship of the case was aggravated. Therefore at the session of the Legislature of 1864–5, the people of the 0161 145 upper peninsula, instructed their senator and representatives to bring in a bill for a new district, with a resident judge. This bill became a law and Judge Clarence E. Eddy was elected at the spring election. The law was beneficent; under it, resident lawyers were encouraged and others were invited to practice; to bring their families and settle down as citizens and interested neighbors.

It was a long time before the lawmakers of the lower peninsula could rise to the sublime height of viewing the upper peninsula as equally a part of the commonwealth of Michigan, and not an out-of-the-way province too near the north pole to be of any political or social importance.

Just twenty years ago bills for a mining school and branch State prison in the upper peninsula were introduced and advocated in vain. To-day, by acts of the present Legislature, the people of Lake Superior are enabled to rejoice in the consummation of hopes long deferred. Twenty years ago the writer of this paper represented the thirty-second, or the then Lake Superior district, on the floor of the Senate; to-day he is happy in being numbered as one of the board of control of the Michigan College of Mines.

The pioneer history of the upper peninsula of Michigan naturally divides itself into two portions,—the settlement and development of the so-called copper region, and that of the iron region; the settlement of the former preceded that of the latter by a few years and naturally received your first consideration. A year ago Col. John H. Forster addressed you on this subject. I may not be able to describe the settlement of the iron region in the same interesting and satisfactory manner, but I obey your request, and crave your indulgence if, in describing the events which cover the scene and the period of my life ever since boyhood, there should appear to be too much personal narrative in respect to occurrences, “all of which I saw and part of which I was.”

It is an interesting historical fact that at the time Michigan was admitted 19 0162 146 into the Union as a State, the reception of the upper peninsula as a compensation for the enforced cession to Ohio of the tract on the southern boundary (which occasioned what is known as the Toledo war), was regarded with intense dissatisfaction by the inhabitants of the Territory. The State Gazetteer of that day spoke of the upper peninsula as “A wild and comparatively Scandinavian tract,—20,000 square miles of howling wilderness on the shores of Lake Superior,—and in one of the Toledo war songs of the same period, the poet says:

“But now the song they sing to us Is—trade away that land, For that poor, frozen country, Beyond Lake Michigan.”

The first territorial convention refused to ratify the Enabling Act of Congress of January 26, 1837, which imposed the upper peninsula upon the new State; and had they continued of the same mind, these annals would have fallen in the lines of some other Pioneer Society than that of Michigan. But Governor Mason, and a few others who agreed with him, persuaded the people to call a new convention and consent to the Enabling Act, as passed, mainly because the State would then obtain a share of the U.S. surplus revenue, and five per cent, on certain public land sales which amounted in the aggregate to some $600,000. This trifling inducement of $600,000 did the business. Michigan was persuaded to put her pride in her pocket, to accept her boundaries, and to take the despised upper peninsula to her bosom.

The existence of valuable copper mines along Lake Superior had long been known. The narratives of the Jesuit Fathers during the seventeenth century make frequent mention of them, and they have also been noticed by several travelers in the last century. The copper of Lake Superior occurs in the form of metallic copper, which can be hammered, sharpened and hardened, and hundreds of years before our period, extensive mining developments had been made at many points along the range by rude races whose metallurgical knowledge did not extend to the smelting of iron from its ores. With their stone hammers they beat out pieces of copper for arrow heads and knives from the rocky veins, which they softened by building fires over or against them, but the iron ores were no more interesting or valuable to them than any of the other rocks of the country. Thus it happened that there was no antecedent knowledge of the iron deposits of the upper peninsula derived from Indian traditions or the observation of early travelers. The first knowledge of them was obtained from the U.S. government surveyors in 1844. In the summer of that year the late Dr. 0163 147 Douglass Houghton, whose memory is deeply reverenced throughout the region, where were his latest labors and where he lost his life, was engaged in the linear survey of this portion of the upper peninsula. The late Mr. William A. Burt, deputy surveyor under him, was running the township lines in Marquette county, and on the 18th of September encamped, with his party, at the east end of Teal Lake. Mr. Jacob Houghton was a member of that party, and gives the following account of the first discovery of Lake Superior iron ore:

“On the morning of the 19th of September, 1844, we started to run the line south between ranges 26 and 27. As soon as we reached the hill to the south of the lake, the compassman began to notice the fluctuation in the variation of the magnetic needle. We were of course using the solar compass, of which Mr. Burr was the inventor, and I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman, when viewing the changes of the variation, the needle not actually traversing alike in any two places. He kept changing his position to take observations, all the time saying: ‘How would they survey this country without my compass?’ ‘What could be done here without my compass?’ It was the full and complete realization of what he had foreseen when struggling through the first stages of his invention. At length the compassman called for us all to ‘come and see a variation which will beat them all.’ As we looked at the instrument, to our astonishment, the north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees to the south of west. Mr. Butt called out, ‘Boys, look around and see what you can find!’ We all left the line, some going to the east, some going to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore, mostly gathered from out-crops. This was along the first mile from Teal Lake. We carried out all the specimens we could conveniently. Hon. J. N. Mellen, of Romeo, Michigan, who was one of the party, has still in his possession one of the specimens found that day.”

These ores to-day make nearly one-third of all the iron produced in the United States. This was eleven years before the building of the first canal at Sault Ste. Marie. The transportation of the iron ore to the coal fields of Ohio and Pennsylvania would then have been impracticable, and had not yet occurred to anybody. Thus it happened that the first attempt to utilize these deposits were by making blooms from the ore in forges with charcoal. The first of these forges was built by the Jackson Iron Company on the Carp river, three miles east of Negaunee, in 1847. This company was organized at Jackson, Michigan, in June, 1845, for the purpose of exploring the mineral regions on the south shore of Lake Superior, and dispatched an expedition to Lake Superior, under the charge of Mr. P.M. Everett, during the 0164 148 summer of that year. They located a War Department permit on section 1, town 47 N., range 27 W., which they subsequently purchased of the United States government. This was the first iron location to be developed, and it became an exceedingly valuable and productive mine. The following extract of a letter from Mr. Everett, written after his return to Jackson in the autumn of 1845, may be of interest:

“I took four men with me from Jackson, and hired a guide at the Sault. where I bought a boat and coasted up the lake to Copper Harbor, which is over three hundred miles from Sault Ste. Marie. There are no white men on Lake Superior except those who go there for mining purposes. We incurred many dangers and hardships; we made several locations, one of which we called Iron at the time. It is a mountain of solid iron ore, one hundred and fifty feet high. The ore looks as bright as a bar of iron just broken. Since coming home we have had some of it smelted, and find that it produces iron and something resembling gold; some say it is gold and copper. Our location is one mile square, and we shall send a company of men up in the spring to begin operations. Our company is called the Jackson mining company.”

In the following year, 1846, another expedition was fitted our by the Jackson Iron Company, in charge of Mr. A. V. Berry, to make further explorations. The following extract from a letter from Mr. Berry describes his experience, and its conclusion relates a fate which has befallen many another pioneer. He says: “I found our location much beyond what I had anticipated. After spending twelve days in the woods exploring the surrounding country, including what was afterwards known as the Cleveland location, and building what was called a house, we returned to the mouth of the Carp with three hundred pounds of ore on our backs. We there divided—one party was left to keep possession of the location and another went farther up the lake to use the remaining permits, while I returned to the Sault with the ore. On arriving at Jackson we endeavored on two occasions to smelt the ore which I had brought down, in our common cupola furnaces, but failed entirely. In August of the same year Mr. Olds of Coo Cush Prairie, who owned a forge, succeeded in making a fine bar of iron from our ore in a blacksmith's fire—the first iron ever made from Lake Superior ore. In the winter of 1846–7 we began to get up at Jackson a bellows and other machinery for constructing a forge at the Carp; and in the summer of 1847 a company of men commenced building the same and continued until March, 1848, when a freshet carried away the dam. The association was then (1848) merged into an incorporated company—by some means the pioneers in the enterprise are now all out.”

The first iron made in the first forge was on the 10th of February, 1848; by forgeman Ariel N. Barney, who also established the first hotel in the village of Marquette, and was one of its first justices of the peace. The forge was a primitive affair. The power was supplied by the Carp river across which a dam eighteen feet high was built. There were eight fires, from each of which a lump was taken every six hours, placed under the hammer, and forged into blooms, four inches square and two feet long, the daily product being about three tons. It required two six-horse teams to draw this product to the lake shore, over a wretched road. The Jackson forge was finally abandoned in 1854, after having steadily lost money for its owners and several successive lessees. The next forge to be built was that of the Marquette Iron Company. Its building was the beginning of the city of Marquette. In the winter of 1848 the late Robert J. Graveraet, who had acquired some iron lands and leases, visited Worcester, Mass., and in connection with Mr. Edward Clark, enlisted Mr. Amos R. Harlow in the enterprise. Mr. Harlow, who was the owner of a machine shop, constructed and purchased the necessary machinery for the projected works, and in the spring of 1849 shipped the whole to Lake Superior, following with his family a few months later. That spring, where is now Marquette, there was no sign of a human habitation, save one or two Indian huts and a small log warehouse belonging to the Jackson Iron Company.

Your narrator, then a boy of nineteen, had landed on the beach a few weeks before Mr. Harlow's arrival. I had made one ineffectual attempt, shortly after the first excitement over the discoveries of copper in 1845, to go up to Lake Superior, which had gained a great hold on the imagination of the boys of that day. I got as far as the Sault, and endeavored, without success, to get passage by the little schooner “Merchant,” which was the only craft just then going up the lake. I had no money, and they would not let me work my way. Had I got passage, it is safe to say, some one else would be giving you this narrative to-day. The schooner was never heard of afterwards; she went to the bottom, with all on board. The second time I had better luck. I joined a party, under the lead of the late Robert J. Graveraet, which set out from Mackinac in April, 1849, on the old steamer, “Tecumseh,” with the intention of claiming and developing all the iron mountains which had then been, or should subsequently be, discovered in that region. At Sault Ste. Marie, we succeeded in crowding our large Mackinac barge up the rapids, and after eight days' rowing, towing, poling and sailing, we landed at what was then called Indian town, near the present site of the freight station of the Detroit, Mackinac & Marquette Railroad in the city of Marquette. The next morning we started for the much-talked-of 0166 150 iron hills. At the Cleveland mountain we found Capt. Samuel Moody and John H. Mann, who had spent the previous summer and winter there. I well remember how astonished I was the next morning, when Captain Moody asked me to go with him to dig some potatoes for breakfast. He had half an acre on the summit of the hill, since known as the Marquette Company's Mountain, partially cleared and planted with potatoes. This was in the month of May, and the winter's snow had preserved them. He opened one or two hills and filled his pail with large and perfectly sound potatoes. He then said: “I may as well pull up a few parsnips and carrots for dinner, to save coming up again;” and sure enough he bad them in abundance. From this time till the 10th of July we kept possession of all the iron mountains then known west of the Jackson, fighting mosquitoes at night and black flies through the day. On the 10th of July we returned to the lake shore.

Mr. Harlow had arrived with mechanics, goods, lots of money, and what was better than all, we got a glimpse of some female faces. At one o'clock of that day we commenced clearing the site of the present city of Marquette. We began by chopping off the trees and brush at the point of the rocks just south of the Cleveland ore docks. We cut the trees close to the ground and threw them bodily over the bank onto the lake shore; then, under the direction of Captain Moody, we began the construction of a dock, which we thought would stand like the pyramids. We did this by carrying these whole trees into the water and piling them in tiers crosswise, until the pile was even with the surface of the water. Then we wheeled sand and gravel upon it, and by the end of the second day had completed the structure upon which we looked with no little pride. The eastward, or outer, end was solid rock and all inside that was solid dirt, brush and leaves. We thought it would last as long as the adjacent beach itself. On the third day we continued to improve it by corduroying the surface, and by night of that day it was, in our eyes, a thing of beauty to behold. Our chagrin may be imagined when, on rising the next morning, we found that a gentle sea had come in during the night and wafted our dock to parts unknown. The sand of the beach was as clean and smooth as if it had never been disturbed by the hand of man. It was a long time before anyone had the hardihood to attempt the building of another dock. The propellers would come to anchor sometimes as far as two miles from shore, and freight and passengers were landed in small boats. Cattle and horses were pitched overboard and made to swim ashore.

The boiler for the Marquette forge was plugged, heaved overboard three miles out, and towed ashore. Your narrator has a vivid recollection of that boiler, which he took a contract to fill, after it was placed, for a dollar and 0167 151 a half. It required nearly four days' hard work with two pails and a yoke. This was the first steam boiler introduced into Marquette county. During the ensuing winter and spring (of 1850) the original Jackson Company had exhausted both its capital and credit, the Marquette Company's forge was now finished, and the Marquette Company entered upon the process of exhausting theirs. Their forge was burned early in 1853. These early developments in Marquette county were never stimulated or encouraged, by any return upon any capital invested, in any single instance until 1863. It was all a work of faith and perseverance, founded upon intuitions which were sound and sure, but which it took twenty years to realize. Meanwhile man after man and company after company cast all they had into the gulf which time only could fill. Those days were days of hardships to the early settlers.

Marquette, in 1851–3, consisted of a few houses, a stumpy road winding along the lake shore; a forge which burned up after impoverishing its first owners; a trail westward, just passable for wagons, leading to another forge (still more unfortunate in that it did not burn), and to the developed iron hills beyond, with two or three hundred people uncertain of the future, they had fallen into the march of the century and were building better than they knew.

Among the privations of those days which did not involve actual suffering was the great uncertainty and infrequency of the mails. During the earlier years of the settlement of Lake Superior copper and iron regions, the government provided no mail transportation except a monthly mail to such military post as Copper Harbor and Sault Ste. Marie. During the season of navigation the steamers and sail vessels usually carried a mail to such parts as they entered. But this was without compensation, and it was often the case that the postmaster at Sault Ste. Marie forgot, or for some other reason, failed to put it on; then great was the disappointment at all the lake ports on the arrival of a mail less craft. You who have always lived in a country provided with frequent and regular mails can but feebly appreciate what it is to live for months in a distant part of the country where few or no mail facilities are enjoyed. It is a subject almost as important to most people as food and raiment. The most ignorant or the illiterate, and the poorest of the poor have letters written for them, and to themselves, and enjoy receiving letters from far-off friends with intense delight. From 1848 to 1854 Marquette county was one of the isolated places that the government did not think it worth while to provide with winter mail facilities, and keenly was this deprivation felt by the people then living there. By hook or by crook the people managed to get a mail once in a 0168 152 while,—but I have known intervals of three or four months at a time when no mail, or letter, paper or news of any kind was received by anyone in the county. Then when a mail did arrive all work was suspended,—even the cooking and the washing,—until the letters could be read or devoured. In those years I had more or less (personally) to do with the getting or the carrying of the mails,—sometimes with dogs, sometimes with Indians, and sometimes on my own back I brought in the mail-bags. Often traveling through the woods, and over deep snow on snow-shoes, hundreds—I might almost say thousands of miles, and I would not like to do it again. Neither would I like to have another person so punished. In this connection I will tell you of an incident that happened to me some years later.

In all counties where wood-chopping or charcoal burning is carried on, you will find the Canadian Frenchman. So they came to Marquette in great numbers; many of them could not read and write, but still the sweet consolation they derived from receiving letters from friends in Canada or New York State was unmistakable. Many of them actually thought that I went to Montreal or Quebec or New York State to get their letters; they couldn't how else I could appear with them there. Thus it was that I was made the subject of many a legend, among the Frenchmen and their families, during the years that followed, wherein dogs, sledges, snow-shoes, woods, wolves and other animals of the forest went to make up the hodge-podge. Even in later years, when the government did provide for a mail, there would always be certain months when its transportation would be impossible, owing to the depth and softness of the snow. This would occur in March and April, and sometimes, the first half of May. It was during one of those years that I was postmaster at Marquette. One night a steamer arrived (the first boat of the season), bringing the accumulated mail of two months or more, and it was very large. I had taken it to my office and was distributing it as expeditiously as possible, by lamp or candlelight. My postoffice was very small, in the rear end of a store, with only room enough for a small table, a chair and a place for a mail bag, twenty-four alphabetical mail boxes on my right, and forty-eight 8x10 boxes to rent. I was standing, emptying the mail from the bags, onto the table, then distributing the letters and papers into the proper boxes, so as to be ready for the eager crowd that would come for mail after six o'clock in the morning. Then it was that I heard steps approaching through the store towards the postoffice. I looked, to behold Michael Belloin, a tall and very powerful Frenchman. It was apparent that he had been buying some of the wet goods on the steamer, for he staggered towards me, saying: “You got any lotto for Micho, Monsieur Pete?” I answered, “The mail is not yet open, you will have to 0169 153 come in the morning,” whereupon, he said, “I guess I will come into your little poss offis and sit on dat little chair, and see you put dose paper and dose lette in that box.” Suiting the action to the word, he undertook to enter the narrow door, when I exclaimed, “There isn't room for you, it is against the law, you cannot come in? “Oh, ho, what you spose I care for de law or you neder. I will come in anyhow. You can't stop me.” As he lifted one foot to step over a mail bag at the door I gave him a quick push which caused him to fall backwards to the floor, and very much enraged him. Arising he paced backward and forward across the store floor, outside of my office, grating his teeth and clenching his fists, calling me all manner of names in French, and uttering all sorts of imprecations and epithets. At last, finding that I did not pay any attention to him, he stopped in front of the little door and delivered himself about thus: “You want to preten you don stan French. Mon dieu, you can't talk good Linguish; you're jus a half a breed, half French and half Injin. I know wat you want; you want me to strike you, then you bring me on de justis offis to-morrow morning and make me pay five dollar! Aha! you can't fool Frenchman lika dat. You come on to de street if you want me to strike you. If I strike you I won't leave two greas spot on you. If I strike you, you'll tink it is a French horse kick you! You see dat spit down dere? The sun he come, he dry it up, dat's jus like you. If I strike you you can't fine yourself no more. You wouldn't know where you gone to. I come to your poss offis to quire for some lette, and I hax you jus so polite I can, if you got any lette for Micho, and you say get out. Ain't you shame yourself; don't you sorry you treat me dat way? I'll goin to tell you something make you sorry you say so cross to me. I rink I'll make you face come red. Some Frenchmen been come here good many year ago, he ben tole me dat you use to carry de mail on your back, and a pack on your back, a hax in your hand, snow-shoe on your feet, and sometime tree poor little dog on a train, draw de mail tru de woods, and your tree little dog was so poor you could see right true him, coz you was so dam poor you didn have money to buy provision for dat dog. Now you got to be the poss offis master, and you fink you are de biggest big bug on dis town. And when I come to your poss offis, jus so polite I can, and hax you you got any lette for Mieho? you say ‘get out dar’ like one dam dog! I like to know if dats de way to treat a gentleman. I gues you didn't tot dat I know I could tell you all dat! You think now you're biggest big bug on this whole town.”

But better times were in store for us. A ship canal at Sault Ste. Marie and a railroad to the mines were in the near future. The shipping or 20 0170 154 exportation of iron ore in either large or small quantities had not entered into the ideas or plans of the earliest settlers in the country; their only thought was to manufacture either bar or bloom iron which could bear the cost of many handlings—particularly the very costly transportation over the portage, at Sault Ste. Marie. The realization of the ship canal project at the Sault transformed the existing dream of a railroad from Marquette to the iron mountains into a certainty. In August, 1852, Congress passed an act granting to the State of Michigan 750,000 acres of land, to be located within the State, for the purpose of aiding in the construction and completion of a ship canal around the falls of Ste. Marie. This was largely due to the persevering efforts of Mr. John Burr, of Detroit. At this juncture Mr. Charles T. Harvey rendered valuable service in inducing the right men to go in and furnish the capital to carry out what was universally considered to be a work of enormous magnitude, surrounded by unfavorable circumstances, and in the way of whose successful termination and inauguration almost insuperable obstacles lay. The names of the men who backed Mr. Harvey with capital and encouragement in the construction of the canal deserve to be enrolled in the archives of this association, and I am proud to mention them here for that purpose. They were: John F. Seymour, Erastus Corning, James F. Joy, J. W. Brooks, J. V. L. Pruyn, Joseph P. Fairbanks, and John M. Forbes. These names are well known and have been recognized in very many large and honest enterprises in different quarters of the United States during the past forty years. The land was selected about one-third in the upper and two-thirds in the lower peninsula. The total cost of the construction of the canal was $1,000,000. Mr. John Bunt, of Detroit, who had rendered important services in various ways during the construction of the canal, was, at its completion, appointed its first superintendent.

Many other persons, all of whose names I cannot recall, were personally instrumental in promoting the building of the canal, among these should be mentioned: Judge Wm. A. Burt, the father of Mr. John Burr; Captain Canfield, of the United States Topographical Corps; Mr. J. W. Brooks, Dr. Morgan L. Hewitt, and the late Heman B. Ely. The canal proved equal to all expectations in its workings for several years, but later on the vast increase of commerce made it necessary to use larger lake craft, drawing a greater depth of water than this canal would accommodate, and the State of Michigan was induced to spend some part of the earnings of the canal on its enlargement, but all that was done in this way was so manifestly inadequate that Congress was again successfully appealed to and asked to make a cash 0171 155 appropriation on the score of its being a great national work on the national frontier. The general government has made repeated appropriations which have been expended under the skillful direction of General Weitzel and General O. M. Poe, until the locks are now the largest and most perfect and durable structures of the kind in the world. I might say in closing my reference to the canal that the State of Michigan, under the advice of Governor Jerome, very wisely transferred its title and interest, with the care and, management of the canal, to the United States. Congress has by public act accepted the trust and has since made this great national highway free to the commerce of the world.

The first railroad projected and completed in all the vast domain known as the upper peninsula was the Iron Mountain Railroad, from Marquette to the iron mines, whose first terminus was on the present site of the city of Ishpeming. In 1852 the late Mr. Heman B. Ely caused a preliminary survey to be made for this road. At that time there was no general railroad law, and at the request of the people of the district, Mr. Ely accepted the office of representative in the State Legislature in order that he might procure the enactment of such a law. The original general Railroad Act, which was passed by the Legislature and approved February 5, 1855, was drawn, introduced and its passage advocated by Hon. Heman B. Ely. This accomplished, Mr. Ely at once organized a railroad company and commenced the construction in the early spring of 1855. His brothers, George H. and Samuel P. Ely, had given him material aid up to 1855, when he prosecuted the work as an individual enterprise, now joined with other friends, among whom were Jos. S. Fay, Lewis H. Morgan, Edward Parsons, and John Burr, in the organization of the Iron Mountain Railroad Company. The starting and carrying on of an enterprise of such magnitude at that early day, so far from a base of supplies, together with a scarcity of labor and the many other difficulties, was a work requiring more pluck, skill and capital than the canal which I have just described to you. The grades were heavy—rock cutting very extensive, bottomless swamps to cross, with fills numerous and difficult to make. And to add to the numberless obstacles and annoyances, the severe winters of those days came with deep snows and extreme frosts, while the summer season brought overwhelming swarms of black flies, gnats and mosquitoes. The road was not fully completed and equipped for business until the year 1857.

Mr. H. B. Ely, to whose clear foresight and indefatigable energy the origin and success of this railroad enterprise was almost wholly due, and to whom the general interest of the Lake Superior country, as well as the State of Michigan at large, became in many ways greatly indebted, died 0172 156 in Marquette, in October, 1856, half a year before the work he had so zealously labored upon was fully completed. Mr. Heman B. Ely was a man of prophetic insight, who saw even at that early day the future growth and greatness of the iron region. All the development and prosperity of the present day is but the realization of his confident expectations and predictions. All the impediments and obstructions in the pathway to triumphant success counted for nothing. He was the friend of the poor and the champion of the unfortunate. He was no respecter of persons, but courteous and just to all. His courage and determination were appreciated and admired; he was always dignified, but never haughty. He was the first man in Marquette county to erect the liberty pole, the first possessor of a flag—the stars and stripes,—and the first to deliver a Fourth of July oration.

Our first celebration of Independence Day was conducted by him, July 4, 1855, and on that day he spread a bounteous repast before every man. woman and child in Marquette county. Everyone was invited, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition. The St. Mary canal had been completed, and the large steamers from the lower lakes had successfully passed through to Lake Superior, and appeared in our harbor only a few days before this celebration; so Mr. Ely called upon all the people to come to the feast which he had provided in honor of the two great events. The day was celebrated with patriotic ardor, with music and dancing. The roar of the improvised cannon mingled with the hurrahs of the multitude, and the air was filled with enthusiasm; altogether it was a great day for Marquette and one long to be remembered. Dr. J. J. St. Clair, the supervisor of the town, was made president of the day, and opened the celebration at the grand stand with an appropriate address. Mr. George S. King, who was the superintendent of the Sunday schools in procession for the day, delivered a suitable address to his part of the audience. I had the honor of reading the Declaration of Independence. The grand oration of the day was delivered by Mr. Heman B. Ely. It was eloquent and instructive, and filled with promise of the future, not only for the country and nation at large, but for our own particular portion of it. It was admired and praised by all who heard it save one—an Irishman named O'Brien, who had partaken more freely than necessary of the liquid refreshments; he was heard describing the occasion to a group of his friends who had failed to reach the spot in time to see and hear for themselves. Said he: “There was Docther St. Clair; he was prisident of the day, and he made a tolerably dacent spaach, good enough for any other day, but not at all suitable to the Fourth of July. Then there was Misther King—he made a little talk, good enough for the childers, but no account for a Fourth of July spaach, and thin Mr. 0173 157 Ealy, he got up, and he talked about rivers and harbors and railroads and tilegraphs and statueboats, canawls, and sich like; for any other day I would have called it a very fine spaach, but for a Fourth of July spaach it was no spaach at all, at all. But I'll tell you who did make a good spaach; it was Mr. Pate White; he got up and talked like a book; he talked about liberty, and equality, and the rights of man, and he was down on King George and the parliament, and he made the best spaach of thim all.”

Let me here make brief mention of another Lake Superior pioneer of great singleness of purpose and devotion to his labors in the care of souls: the late Bishop Baraga, who died at Marquette. This venerable prelate was a truly apostolic man, who counted neither honor, ease, nor life itself dear, so that he might faithfully follow in the footsteps of his divine Master. He first reduced the Chippewa language to writing and gave it a grammar and a dictionary. Born of noble family and inheriting wealth, he devoted himself and all that he had to the work of teaching the gospel to the Indians of the peninsula, while it was still an unbroken wilderness. His long journeys up and down the lake were often performed on foot and in great peril; and to the last hour of his life he lived in great simplicity.

Hon. James P. Pendill, who was the proprietor of the McComber Mine and of the Union or Pendill Mine in Marquette county, died on the ninth of March last. He was born at Batavia, N. Y.; was seventy-three years old, and had resided in the State of Michigan about fifty years, over thirty of which he had spent in Marquette county. Mr. Pendill was the first mayor of the city of Negaunee, and for, several years the mayor of Marquette, and once represented his county in the State Legislature. He was an honest man, the noblest work of God. I crave a memorial page for him in your annals for the current year.

But to revert to the railroad; after the death of Mr. H. B. Ely, his brother, Mr. Samuel P. Ely, formerly of Rochester, New York, removed to Marquette to finish his, brother's uncompleted work. The death of Mr. H. B. Ely seemed like a heavy blow to all the material interests of the iron region, but it brought to the State the brother above named, who for sixteen years was more largely identified with railroads and leading mining enterprises than any other person residing in the upper peninsula. The Iron Mountain Railroad became, by successive extensions and consolidations, first the Bay de Noquet & Marquette railroad, then the Marquette & Ontonagon, and subsequently the Marquette, Houghton & Ontonagon railroad. Under this last consolidation the line was extended to L'Anse, docks built, and another ore port established there, and later on a road reached Houghton, and the copper and iron districts were at last United. Another outlet for 0174 158 the shipment of Lake Superior iron ores was afforded by the completion, in 1864, of the Peninsula railroad from Negaunee to Escanaba. This latter became a part of the through line of the Northwestern railway from Negaunee to Chicago. Escanaba, the Lake Michigan terminus of the Peninsula railroad, was founded and somewhat built up during the construction of the railway.

It was first known as Sand Point, but in 1864 was organized into a town and given its present name. The Detroit, Mackinac & Marquette railroad was completed, in the early part of 1881, from Marquette to St. Ignace, and extensive ore docks were built at the latter port. This line made still another outlet for Lake Superior iron ore, and constituted a railroad connection between the two peninsulas of Michigan.

Upon the completion of the facilities for transportation, the Jackson Iron Company and the Cleveland Iron Mining Company, who were the successors of the unfortunate corporations which built the Jackson and Marquette forge, began to develop their iron location and to ship their iron ore to furnaces in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In this they were immediately followed by the Lake Superior Iron Company, which had been organized by the late Heman B. Ely and his brothers, and Mr. John Butt and his brothers, to develop the iron location immediately west of the Cleveland mine. As far back as 1850, five tons of ore had been taken from the Jackson mine to Newcastle, Pa., by Mr. A. L. Crawford. He was the proprietor of large iron works there, and he converted this ore into blooms and merchant bars to test its qualities. In 1852, about seventy tons of Jackson ore were taken to Sharon, and there made into pig iron, in the old clay furnace. These experiments had been satisfactory. But the business was a new one; its practicability was admitted only by a select few, and it had to make its development by a slow process of experiment and conviction. The ore shipments of 1858, the year after the completion of the railroad from Marquette to the three mines which have just been mentioned, were only 25,067 tons. The Jackson mine was situated at what is now Negaunee, and the Cleveland and Lake Superior mines are within the present city limits of Ishpeming.

Negaunee was founded in 1857, and Ishpeming in 1858. Some one might he interested to know how these places acquired their names. The pioneer furnace for making pig iron from charcoal with the Jackson ore, was building in 1857 near the Jackson mine. A town was growing up around the mine and furnace, and it was decided to give it an Indian name which should be as nearly as possible a translation of the word “pioneer,” inasmuch as the town included the first mine opened and the first furnace built. A council was held with the Ojibwa Indians of the vicinity and the name 0175 159 Negaunee was chosen, which signifies in Ojibwa, “I take the lead.” In the following year the settlers of the growing town about the Cleveland and Lake Superior mines, which are situated upon the dividing ridge between the waters which flow into Lake Superior, and those which flow into Lake Michigan, thought fit to give their town the Indian translation of “on the summit.” This proved rather difficult to get in one Ojibwa word. Mr. S. P. Ely was chairman of the committee and came to your narrator for consultation with him as a Chippewa expert. Mr. Ely finally put the decision upon me, and I selected Ishpeming, which is a general term in Ojibwa for any remarkable elevation, and is sometimes applied to Heaven itself. If any one hereafter has any fault to find with the name, I am content to take the responsibility of it. The inhabitants are pleased with it, and I am happy to say that they conspicuously display the moral elevation which the name of their town suggests.

It is worthy to remark that the founders of towns throughout the upper peninsula have been careful to honor the names of the Jesuit Fathers, who were the first explorers of that region, and to preserve Indian names wherever they were euphonious and descriptive. Marquette, Duluth * , Allouez and Mesnard have been held in remembrance on the scene of their labors two hundred years ago, and the language of the race which preceded us has been preserved, not only in Negaunee and Ishpeming, but in Michigamme, which signifies big water; Escanaba, which is flat rock, so-called by the Chippewas because that river flows over a flat stratum of limestone near its mouth; Menominee, which is rice field; Pequanning, a bend of the shore; Munising, the great bay; Agogebic, smooth rock; Pewable, iron.

But to revert to the point from which we digressed in making a brief statement concerning the Jackson, Cleveland and Lake Superior mines. For several years these were the only mines opened, and they, are still called the “three old mines.” They have been continuously productive for more than twenty-five years and two of them show more ore in sight than ar any other period in their history. Up to the close of last season the Jackson mine had shipped in the aggregate 2,446,421 tons of ore; the Cleveland, 3,024,972. and the Lake Superior mine, 3,368,560 tons. The total manufacture and shipment of pig iron during the same period up to the close of 1884, was nearly one million and one hundred thousand gross tons.

The first mining superintendent in the iron region was Captain Henry Merry, who opened the Jackson mine, and has ever since remained in charge of it. These old companies have not been prone to change their superintendents. Captain F. P. Mills remained in charge of the Cleveland 0176 160 mine for twenty-two years, and Captain G. D. Johnson, who opened the Lake Superior mine, remained in charge of it for eighteen years. All the three were men of unusual energy and capacity, and made their mark in the successful development of a kind of mining in which there was no former experience. If the time at our command and the proper restrictions of an occasion devoted to strictly pioneer history admitted, it would be interesting to trace in detail the subsequent large development of iron mining on Lake Superior.

But the limitations, both of time and our subject, will allow only mention of some of the more noted of the later mines, and such a brief survey of the later important developments of the business as may serve to connect its beginnings, which have been described to you, with the present enlargement. The Lake Angeline, * the Barnum, and the New York mines were opened soon after at Ishpeming, and a few years later the Champion mine, which has become distinguished as a large producer. In 1872, a branch from the Marquette & Ontonagon Railroad was completed to the now well known Republic mine, which was opened in that year. This location was discovered as far back as 1852, by the veteran explorer, Mr. S.C. Smith, and it had been known as the Smith Mountain for twenty years before it had been reached with railroad facilities. The Michigamme and various other mines were opened at the same time, along the extension of the iron range westward. Active explorations for iron ore on the Menominee range commenced about this time, and many promising deposits were discovered, which began to be developed in 1877, after the completion of a branch of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad gave them an outlet at Escanaba. The Menominee range has proved to be of very great productive capacity, and has been developed with great rapidity.

Among many other well-known mines, the Chapin has become conspicuous as a very large producer. I do not intend to burden you with statistics. but it may interest you to compare the shipments of the three “old mines” in 1858, which were 25,067 tons, with the total shipments in 1884, of both the Marquette and the Menominee iron ranges, from the ports of Marquette. Escanaba, L'Anse and St. Ignace. Seventy-two mines on the Marquette range had shipped 19,502,069 tons, and twelve mines on the Menominee range had shipped 3,452,174 tons, making a total of 22,954,243 tons.

But I must not detain you longer. Time fails us to relate the hardships and privations of those early days, while we were contending with stubborn nature in a wilderness which was all unbroken and slowly gaining houses, roads, churches, schools, an organized society and a developed industry.

These beginnings were arduous and uncertain. One and another wrought 0177 161 their lives into them and ceased from their labors, dying in the faith of what they had not seen. But large results, with still greater promise of the future, have been reached in the lifetime of the generation which began the work. Our canoes and Mackinac boats have changed to steamers of 2,000 tons and more, and our little landing places have been replaced by docks, where these large vessels can be loaded in half a day. Three lines of railroad carrying 10,000 tons a day of that ore which was first borne painfully on men's backs, from the mines to Lake Superior, supplying the needful material of a staple industry to many a forge and furnace and many a thousand men, along and beyond all the lower lakes, over the whole region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. In the progress of our age and country we have stood in our appointed place, and have done what we could. We are content if, in some small degree, we have deserved well of the Republic.

The story of Tonguish, so familier in Wayne county when the writer was a boy, seems now to be remembered by only a few, or, if remembered, to be classed, it may be, among legendary tales that have little truth for their foundation; and the absence of any mention. of it in the literature of the locality would seem to justify such a classification. But the children of the persons who participated in those exciting events still live to repeat the story of their fathers and to verify it by their faith in their fathers' veracity.

It is believed that none of the actors are now living. The writer of this, as a boy, was personally acquainted with several of them, and with others who were knowing to the facts, and he lived from infancy to manhood in the immediate vicinity of the graves of Tonguish and his son. The story deals only with facts, and relates a scrap of the history of pioneer life in Wayne 21 0178 162 county. As told here it is but fragmentary, and is related more to arouse an interest in the subject than as a completed history. It is hoped that some person whose facilities for getting the information are better than the writer's will gather all the facts and embody them in an article for the use of this Society.

The story runs as follows:

After the peace of 1815 [1814] the Pottawattomie Indians were disaffected and troublesome. Whether from any specific grievance or from their natural habits of lawlessness, they frequently committed little depredations on the sparse settlers along the river Rouge, west of Detroit. They manifested no desire to engage in open hostilities, but were indifferent to the rights of the whites, where they conflicted with their own wants or caprices. Tonguish was their chief and also their leader in these acts of lawlessness. In his relations with the whites he was arrogant and imperious. Followed by his band he entered the houses of settlers and demanded of the occupants such articles as his need or caprice indicated, and by intimidation secured his plunder. He generally planned to execute these little forays at such times as the men were supposed to be absent from home. At such times his object could be gained without danger to himself by simply over-awing the women. When the men were at home the Indians frequently came off second best. One or two incidents will illustrate the manner in which our hardy pioneers repelled these acts of lawlessness, even when confronted with superior force.

An Indian once entered the residence of Wm. McCarty and attempted to carry off a wampum belt. McCarty caught hold of it to wrest it from him. The Indian, still holding to the wampum, drew his gun ready to fire, but McCarty looked him firmly in the eyes, clung to the belt, and told his wife to give him his tomahawk. She, fearing the result to her husband if she should comply, declined to do so. He dare not divert his eyes from the Indian, still clung to the belt and forced it from him; but he said if his wife had given him his tomahawk he would have made a dead Indian of him.

Alanson Thomas lived in a log house on the north side of the river Rouge, about two miles below where the village of Dearborn now stands. His house stood on the brow of the hill. He was one day fixing up some shelves in his house for his wife's convenience, when he heard the voice of a man behind him. He turned round and was confronted by the form of Chief Tonguish, who was ordering his (Thomas's) wife to hand him something which he coveted. Thomas demanded. “What are you doing here?” The chief sprang at him to seize his person. As quick as thought he met the 0179 163 brawny fist of Thomas, which landed him senseless the other side of the room. He then went to him, took him by the hair, raised his head up and kicked him under each ear, and then threw him out the back door down the hill. Looking up he saw a band of Tonguish's Indians standing by who had witnessed the discomfiture of their chief. One of them, a young man—son of the chief, looked at Thomas, scowled, shook his head and said, “Bime-by you be dead.” “Well, dead or alive,” said Thomas, “I'll venture to give you a flogging!” So he picked up a green withe that had been procured for fixing his fence, and proceeded to chastise the young man severely. He jumped up and down and yelled; but he gave the war whoop in vain, for none of his companions came to his rescue. Thomas's determined manner over-awed them, and they passively looked on. Instead of serious trouble, which Thomas anticipated as a result of his treatment, the Indians were after that afraid of him and avoided him whenever they could.

The last act in this drama occurred, if my information is correct, in the fall of 1819. The Indians entered the house of a man by the name of Sargeant, living on the Rouge toward Detroit, and took from it all the bread the family had, and departed. Mr. Sargeant, coming home at that moment, learned the facts and hastened out among the Indians and snatched a loaf from one of them. He returned and was just entering his house when Tonguish's son shot him dead. * The Indians then fled. The settlers hastily collected, organized, armed themselves and started in pursuit. The Indians fled up the Rouge river to its confluence with the west branch which they followed on the north side. The pursuing party first sighted the Indians near where the Indian trail crossed the town line between Nankin and Livonia, a little west of the mill pond of the present Nankin mills. At that point the Indians turned to the left and crossed the stream, since known as Tonguish creek, and passed out of sight over the opposite bank. The whites rapidly passed over the same valley but were surprised on ascending the opposite bank that no Indians could be seen. This was the more strange am the land before them was level plains with very little brush. But they hastily followed on till the Indians arose from ambush and fired at them. Fortunately no person was seriously hurt. The whites then rushed on them before they had time to load their guns, and captured all but Tonguish's son, who ran. Major Macomb, † who led the party, aimed his gun at him to shoot him, but the chief stopped him and said he would call him back. Then in the

* See appendix

He died that night and with his and his son's death ended the Indian troubles in Michigan. This last skirmish took place on section 4, of the township of Nankin, one mile west of where my father afterward settled, on what has since been known as the Dimmick farm, and about twenty miles west of Detroit. The wooden protection which the Indians erected over the graves looked fresh and almost new at the time of our settlement in the vicinity six years after. About the year 1837–8 some boys opened the graves and took from them the chief's gun—or more properly gun barrel—and some personal ornaments. I think the place is now occupied by plowed fields.

Such is the story of Tonguish, as the writer heard it when a boy, and so fares he is informed this is the first time it was ever written. †

Mr. President and Members of the State Pioneer Society:

In complying with the request of your president, that I prepare a brief sketch of the probate judges of the county of Lenawee, from its organization to the present time, for your use, I premise that, in doing so, I shall be compelled to use the materials embodied in a paper I had the honor to read at the laying of the corner stone of the court house, now in process of erection in this city, condensing, so far as practicable, what I then wrote, and using such additional facts as I have been able to gather from other sources, and particularly from Whitney & Bonner's biographical record of Lenawee county.

Lenawee county has been singularly fortunate in the selection of its probate judges, at least up to the time of election of the present incumbent, comprising in the list able lawyers—honest and pure-minded men, who have given character and dignity to the court, and reflected honor upon the county and themselves.

It is to be feared that in many parts of the country too little care has been exercised in this regard, selections being quite too often made for political or other reasons, than those which should govern in the selection of judges of courts.

When it is remembered that once in about every quarter of a century, nearly the entire property of the State has to pass through and be settled in these courts, one gets some faint idea of the importance and magnitude of the interests involved.

And when it is remembered that, under our peculiar system of practice, the judge of the probate court, save in a few of the larger cities, has almost of necessity come to be regarded as the friend, the counselor, and the guide of the widow and the orphan, at a time when, of all others, they most need friendship, counsel and guidance—as well as the judge of the court in which their interests are to be protected, adjudicated and settled—the delicacy of 0182 166 the position and of the requirements necessary for the proper discharge of its Varied and important duties becomes quite apparent. And it becomes doubly so when it is remembered that, of the suitors who come into this court, the large majority are those who are almost absolutely helpless, without counsel and guidance in matters of business, and particularly in the settlement of estates. Widows who, until their husbands' death, had scarce given a thought to anything, save their domestic duties—many with strong, unreasoning prejudices against lawyers, fearing to consult or trust any one who could, by any possibility, have a pecuniary interest in the adjustment of the little property left them, come to the judge of probate, feeling that in him they may confide; that he, by no possibility, can have any interest antagonistic to their own. And while it is true that, in matters likely to be litigated, there is a gross impropriety in the courts giving counsel, or drawing other than merely formal papers, the policy of the legislature of this State has been to make the settlement of estates of deceased persons as inexpensive as practicable, and in very few, compared with the whole number of estates settled, is counsel employed. And thus the practice has been firmly established in most of the counties, and probably in none is it more rarely varied than in Lenawee. That the inconvenience and defects of this practice have been so little apparent in this county must be attributed to the eminent ability, lofty character and kindly sympathy of my predecessors.

The first judge of the probate court of Lenawee county was the Hon. Musgrove Evans, of Tecumseh. He was appointed by General Lewis Cass. then Governor of the Territory of Michigan, soon after the organization of the county, in 1827. Judge Evans was one of our pioneers, coming from the State of New York and settling in Tecumseh in 1824. He was a member of the Society of Friends—a man of great energy of character and kindness of heart. Owing to the sparseness of the population, the business of the court could not have been so onerous as to interfere very seriously with his other avocations—the records showing that nearly one year intervened between the filing of the first and second petitions in his court. I regret that the materials within my reach do not warrant the attempt to give any extended sketch of this early pioneer. That he was an honest. upright citizen, discharging every duty and trust committed to his charge with fidelity, is the uniform testimony of those who knew him; and the fact of his having been selected by Governor Cass for the position shows his estimate of his fitness.

He was succeeded on the first of January, 1833, by Hon. Seneca Hale. also of Tecumseh, who held the office four years. I am unable to learn anything regarding the life, character, or career of Judge Hale save what 0183 167 appears in the records of his own court, and these show him to have been a painstaking, careful official.

In January, 1837, he was succeeded by Hon. Alexander R. Tiffany, a lawyer of learning and ability, and possessed of that culture, refinement, and kindness of heart which eminently fitted him for the discharge of the delicate and responsible trust. Judge Tiffany had pursued his legal studies with Hon. John C. Spencer, at that time one of the ablest lawyers in New York, and who was afterwards chief justice of the supreme court of that State. Before coming to Michigan he had for some years held the office of county judge of Wayne county, New York, thus acquiring a judicial experience, admirably fitting him for judge of the probate court in a new county where he had few precedents to guide him. He came to Michigan in 1832, settling in Palmyra, which then had the promise of becoming the future. great city of the county. He held various offices of trust and honor—prosecuting attorney, judge of probate, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1850, and of the State Legislature in 1855. He was the author of several valuable law books. In all the relations of life he faithfully discharged whatever duty devolved upon him. He died in Palmyra, January 14, 1868, having lived a useful and honored life.

Judge Tiffany was succeeded by Hon. Consider A. Stacy, who brought to the discharge of the duties of the office, not only talents of the highest order and a thorough knowledge of the law, but a kindness of heart, eminently fitting him for the position. Among the members of the bar of this State few have attained a more prominent position. Admitted at the age of twenty, he commenced practice in 1837, with Hon. Peter Morey, afterwards attorney general of the State, and from that time to the present has always been prominent among the lawyers of the State.

In Whitney & Bonner's Biographical Record of Lenawee county I find that “In the spring of 1838 he was elected justice of the peace, and served four years. In 1839 he formed a partnership with Fernando C. Beaman, which continued three years. In 1844 he was elected judge of probate anti served twelve years. In 1845 he formed a partnership with Thomas M. Cooley (now judge of the supreme court), which continued about three years. In 1849 he was appointed by Governor Ransom prosecuting attorney of Lenawee county, under the old constitution, and held the office until the new came into force. For twenty-six years he was a member of the school board of Tecumseh. In 1858 he was the democratic nominee for congress, but was defeated by Henry Waldron, of Hillsdale. In 1850 he was appointed by Governor McClelland * a member of the State Board of Education, and was active in organizing the State Normal School, and erecting

* See appendix

In 1857 Judge Stacy was succeeded by Hon. Fernando C. Beaman, who held the office until elected to congress in 1860, when he was succeeded by Hon. Robert R. Beecher.

Judge Beecher was a good lawyer, and of a most genial and kindly nature. He made friends wherever he went. Sympathetic and generous, he brought to the discharge of the duties of the office qualities and qualifications rarely found combined in any one man. Nearly all the people in the country personally knew and loved him, and their esteem was evidenced by three times electing him judge of probate of the county. He held the office from January 1, 1861, until his death in 1871. He died in the prime of manhood. For nearly eleven years he was judge of probate, and by reason of the practice hereinbefore alluded to, which has become settled in this county, at least, he was during all that time the friend and counselor of all who had business in his court,—doing the work, not only of the judge, but of counsel as well.

It was to him that the widow in deep distress, and the orphan left alone in the coldworld, came for advice and counsel. The pressure was too great; the draft upon his sympathies too wearing, and as a result he died before his time.

Upon his death, what could be more fitting than that his life-long friend, who had been his predecessor. and who had in the interim served his country in the Congress of the United States, with distinction and honor, should take his old place.

Hon. Fernando C. Beaman, who had been judge of probate from January l, 1857, to January 1, 1861, was appointed to succeed Judge Beecher in 1871, was subsequently elected by the people in 1872, and reëlected in 1876, and continued to hold the office until the failure of his health rendered him unable to discharge his duties; when, having resigned. Norman Geddes, the present incumbent, was on the 16th day of April, 1880, appointed his successor by Governor Croswell, and at the election in November following was elected by the people, and was reëlected at the election in 1884.

I am indebted to Whitney & Bonner's Biographical Record for the following regarding Judge Beaman, which I transcribe and condense, as containing the salient points in his history:

“In 1838, he came to Michigan, having pursued his legal studies in 0185 169 Rochester, N.Y.; was admitted to the bar in 1839, and first settled in Manchester, now in Washtenaw county. Later in the same year he moved to Tecumseh and formed a partnership with Hon. C. A. Stacy. In 1843 he was appointed prosecuting attorney of Lenawee county, and removed to Adrian, where he resided up to the time of his decease. He was twice reappointed to this position. holding it for six years. In early life he was a democrat, but became a free soiler in 1848, and made a vigorous canvass of Lenawee county in favor of Van Buren and Adams, the presidential candidates of that party. In 1854 he attended the Jackson convention which organized the republican party in Michigan, and was one of the vice presidents of that assembly. He was also a delegate to the national convention at Pittsburgh, which met for consultation and paved the way for the organization of the republicans as a national party. The same year he served as one of the presidential electors for this State. In 1856 he was also a delegate to the Philadelphia convention which nominated Fremont and Dayton. In 1860 he was elected to Congress in the second district, comprising Monroe, Lenawee. Hillsdale, Branch, Cass, and St. Joseph counties. He was reëlected for four succeeding and consecutive terms, serving ten years in congress. In 1872 he was elected president of the First National Bank of Adrian. and held the position until the bank went into voluntary liquidation,—November 13, 1879. Judge Beaman was appointed to the exalted office of United States Senator to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Hon. Zachariah Chandler, but owing to ill health did not accept the position, although it was one of the highest encomiums to his ability and personal worth that could be tendered him, coming as it did unsought and unexpected. This is not the first time he declined to accept high official stations. Gov. Kinsley S. Bingham Tendered him the appointment of justice of the supreme court to fill a vacancy on the bench, which he declined; and when Zechariah Chandler was secretary of the interior he tendered Judge Beaman the position of commissioner of Indian affairs, which was also declined.

Judge Beaman was all that the above extract represents him, as to ability, integrity and moral worth, and withal, a man exceedingly kind and sympathetic in his nature. His great heart compelled him to be an interested listener to the tales of sorrow and perplexity continually poured into his ears by bereaved widows and orphans, totally ignorant of processes of law, and inexperienced in business. These found in the incumbent of the office a sympathizing friend, as well as a legal adviser. He was an intense and painstaking worker; honest, pure, generous, and noble, he discharged 22 0186 170 every trust committed to him with conscientious fidelity. The office work of the probate judge increases with the growth of the country, requiring more and more constant application and labor, which, with the continuous draft upon his sympathies, taxes to the utmost the strongest constitution. The strain was too great, and Judge Beaman's health was gradually undermined. He grew prematurely old; and, like the lamented Beecher, died before his time, but he left to posterity the rich legacy of a grand, upright, and useful life.

This brings the record, imperfectly, of course, to the time when the writer assumed the duties of judge of probate of the county, and there I leave it.

Hezekiah G. Wells died at Kalamazoo, April 4, 1885, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, he having been born at Steubenville, Jefferson county, Ohio, June 16, 1812. His father and mother were natives of Maryland. Judge Wells received his education at Kenyon College, Knox county, Ohio; he read law in the office of James and Daniel Collier at Steubenville and was admitted to the bar in 1832; he came to Michigan in 1833 and paid some attention to farming in Texas and Schoolcraft for three years, subsequently removing to Kalamazoo. Prior to his removal to the village of Kalamazoo he was county judge; in 1835 he was elected a member of the first Constitutional Convention, where he took rank with the ablest and most useful men composing that body; although the youngest member thereof, he served on several important committees and was active in the discharge of his duties. He was again elected a member of the Constitutional Convention of Michigan in 1850, which prepared the constitution under which we are now living. He has been president of the village five different times. In 1840 and again in 1860 he was elected one of the presidential electors of the State of Michigan. He was appointed minister resident to the Central American states by 0187 171 President Lincoln; also consul to Manchester, England, both of which appointments he declined. In 1878 Governor Bagley appointed him one of eighteen commissioners to prepare and report a new constitution for the State of Michigan, to be voted upon by the people; this instrument was not approved.

In 1862 Judge Wells raised the twenty-fifth regiment of infantry, Michigan volunteers, which greatly distinguished itself under the command of Colonel O. H. Moore.

In June, 1874, Judge Wells was appointed presiding Judge of the Court of Alabama claims, a position he filled with great credit and usefulness until ill health compelled him to come home and finally to resign, less two years which intervened between the expiration of the first organization of the court and its re-organization some two years afterward.

Beside the important political offices which Judge Wells held and adorned, he was also a vestryman of long standing in St. Luke's Parish, Kalamazoo, which put upon the church record, and which we copy, the following just and eloquent tribute:

Willard L. Brooks was born in the town of Bristol, Hartford county, Connecticut, July 21, 1808. His minority was passed on his father's farm, with only the advantages of a common school education. Having a desire to see something of the world, he, with his brother Charles, hired out as peddlers in the employ of Wheeler & Brooks, of his native town. To what extent he engaged in the nutmeg trade. history is silent, but as he continued in the business for several years, it is a fair inference that he was satisfied, especially as he only surrendered it to assume the vows matrimonial on the 24th day of July, 1834, when he was married to Miss Lucina Sanford, who was his companion for the next ensuing ten happiest years of his life. On the admission of Michigan into the Union as a State, he, with his family, came here. On reaching Jackson, in company with William R. Churchill. of Portland, they constructed a flat-bottomed boat and with their families and household goods descended Grand river to Portland. The water was very high and turbid, and several times they were in danger of being wrecked from the frequent jambs of driftwood and hidden rocks just below the surface, but which could not be seen in time to avoid. On arriving ar Portland, Mr. Brooks sought and found a home on section 3, in what is now known as the township of Danby, in Ionia county, where he continued to reside until his death, December 5, 1883, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. When he made his settlement there were but three other white residents in his township. There were, however, many Indians living on the banks of Grand river in his immediate vicinity, and with them he was always on terms of friendship. But, while civil and neighborly, their red friends would sometimes take liberties when Mr. and Mrs. Brooks were away from home. On one of these occasions, on a Sabbath, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks had gone to meeting at Portland, some miles away; a party of Indians called, and, finding only the hired girl and children at home, went into the yard and shot several fowls, and, bringing them into the house, ordered 0189 173 the hired girl to cook them and to be sure to cook them very good. Of course from this responsibility there was no appeal, and, with some degree of fear and all possible haste, the cooking was done; the Indians in the meantime were curiously examining the log house and its contents. The dinner was placed on the table, and the Indians, in perfect good humor, were seated and enjoying it, when the door opened and Mr. and Mrs. Brooks entered, to the relief of the cook and the perplexity of the Indians. At a glance, taking in the situation, Mr. Brooks gave his red brothers a hearty welcome, and, with his wife, sat down to the table and participated in the meal. His first wife died february 8, 1844, leaving three small children. In August following he married Miss Nancy C. Reed, who yet survives him. When the township of Danby was organized, April 7, 1845, there were but nineteen voters, and Mr. Brooks was elected to fill three different offices, and from that time forward he was almost constantly engaged in official duties, until the disabilities of age were too severe for further continuance. He was a man of kindly disposition, and often assisted those who, in the privations of a new country, lacked the comforts of former years in eastern homes. For some months prior to his death he was confined to his home, where in patience he awaited the taking down of his earthly tabernacle, until his change came at the ripened age of more than seventy-five years.

In attempting to briefly set forth some of the incidents which occurred in the pioneer life of my father on first settling En Michigan, at that time a wilderness—but which today may be with propriety compared to nothing less than a garden of choicest roses—thanks to God and the sturdy arm of the pioneer fathers, who so nobly and bravely met and endured all the privations and made all the sacrifices which, of a necessity, comes of such an undertaking—that is, coming west with their helpless families to seek a 0190 174 fortune for themselves and those that they held most dear on earth, and many thanks to them for this goodly heritage which shall be left to their children long after they have passed away as I said, in attempting to prepare anything of interest I can only claim your leniency in presuming upon the time it must take for this paper to be read, as I know that time is most precious on these occasions. Yet, hoping I may not weary you, but rather, on the other hand, entertain this large assemblage for a few moments, I am proud to say that I am a member of this State Pioneer Society, and regret most sincerely my being unable to meet you all here and to read my paper myself; but circumstances over which I have no control prevent it. But I have the most profound regard and reverence for it and its silver-haired members.

In regard to the early history of the pioneer life of my father, Hon. L. B. Price—I have no doubt there are many here personally acquainted with him—he came with his father's family, which consisted of himself, wife and six children (my father being the eldest) from western New York, Monroe Co., Township of Rush, and located in what is now called the village of Utica, situate 25 miles north of Detroit, in the township of Shelby, Macomo Co. This place consisted then of not more than three or four dwelling houses and two, or perhaps three, places of business; on one side of Clinton river there was a blacksmith shop and a distillery—it seems they were a necessity in those days as well as now. The nearest point where dry goods or groceries could be obtained was at what was then (and is now, I think) called Troy Corners, in a little store kept by Mr. Johnson Niles; or at Mt. Clemens, eleven miles distant. The first saw mill and grist mill built in the village of Utica were built by my grandfather, Mr. Jacob Price; the saw mill was built in 1828, and the grist mill was completed in 1829, and very soon after, in that same year, he died. Of course at that time there were many tribes of Indians in this State, and of these I have heard my father say they had little fear, but when I was a child and used to hear him tell some of his exploits with them I must confess the stories would almost make my little heart stand still and I could feel my hair rising on my head, and I would ask in a frightened whisper: “Papa, weren't you afraid?” By the death of grandfather, father was left, comparatively speaking, at the head of the family, at the early age of sixteen years; he seemed to be the main-stay of his widowed mother and younger brothers and sisters, for death had spread his shadowy wing over their home and darkened it in removing husband and father when needed most; but my father, nothing daunted, assumed the responsibility of this large family, and by his sturdy 0191 175 industry, perseverance and integrity, managed to keep the home for his. mother and the little ones. When about twenty-two years of age he made the acquaintance of Miss Ann Eliza Merrifield, daughter of John Merrifield (also an old pioneer) and sister of E. R. Merrifield of Lansing; and at twenty-four years of age was united to her in matrimony, and located on a farm three miles north of Utica village, where he resided about fourteen years. Having always been an ardent democrat he held many offices of trust given him by that party. In the year 1847 (I think) he was nominated and elected as representative to the State legislature, which was the year, I believe, of the removal of the Capitol from Detroit to what was then almost a wilderness, but which is now the beautiful city of Lansing: his vote counted one for the removal. He subsequently removed to the village of Lakeville, Oakland county, where he has since resided. To say that the vicissitudes of life have not been many with him would not be true, as all that remains of our happy family of five are father, sister and myself. If Ex-Gov. Begole is in this audience he will remember him well, as he and my father were very warm friends during their senatorial sitting in 1872–3. Although his hair is frosted with the snows of seventy-three winters, he still maintains his vigor well attends to his business himself with perfect accuracy, and enjoys remarkably good health for one of his years.

James Mullett, the father of the subject of this memoir, was born in England, and came to America with Burgoyne's army of invasion, having been seized by a press-gang in the city of London, and forced to serve King George III. in the strife with his rebellious colonies. He had just completed his apprenticeship as a tailor, and was returning to his home in the country, when the pitiless minions of an obstinate ministry forced him to embark on a troop-ship and sail away from his native land. From that time forth he was lost to his parents and relatives. He participated in the battle of Benningto