F 574 .N6 M2 Copy 1 F 675 17 81 mh 3ati Bt. MuBtpii (»r TSinhn Jour JFlaga BY DANIEL MCCOY Ph.. F 5 7^ Book_>kllL H(1N. DANIKI, MrCClY 1675 1781 OLD FORT ST. JOSEPH OR MICHIGAN UNDER FOUR FLAGS BY DANIEL McCOY DELIVERED BEFORE THE MICHIGAN PIONEER AND HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY AT ITS THIRTY-SECOND AN- NUAL MEETING, JUNE 7, 1906. LANSING, MICHIGAN WYNKOOP HALLENBECK CRAWFORD CO.. STATE PRINTERS 1907 ^^u^trA^ .\)^ / Reprinted from Vol. 35, Pioneer and Historical Collections. OLD FORT ST. JOSEPH. BY DANIEL McCOY. Fort St. Joseph, over which floated the flag of Spain in 17S1, was located in the third ward of the present city of Niles, Michigan. It covered about two acres of ground which is now under cultivation, no trace of its outline remaining. I visited the site in the fall of 1905 and, through the kindness of Mr. Lewis H. Beeson of Niles, whose family has long been of that region and owned the land adjacent to the site, saw innumerable evidences of its authenticity. Mr. Beeson has been a lifelong student of the valley of the St. Joseph and a constant collector of relics of the ancient fort, comprising articles of an imperishable nature, such as flintlocks and flints, buttons of the French soldiers, indestructible portions of ofiicers' epaulettes, nails made by hand, Scaribs, and tokens given by the priests to the Indians; all sorts of Indian relics including a splendid collection of beads from the smallest to the very largest used for neck- laces, etc., all in good state of preservation, but showing great age in their incrustations. He has been collecting since boyhood, and states that no relics ever were discovered outside of a certain area of about two acres, marking the limit of the enclosure. The topograi)hy of the country in the vicinity is about the same as when the mission was begun and when La Salle and Hennepin and Tonty and Marquette passed up and down the river on their way to and from Kankakee portage to the waters of the Mississippi. On a bluff to the east of the fort and overlooking it, when the first settlers came into this valley about 1825, stood a large wooden cross, which has been replaced by a new one as often as it fell from age or decay. At present it is down, leaning upon one arm, but I learn that arrange- ments are being made to erect a new one in its place, either of wood or of some more enduring material. No accurate knowledge a])j»ears to exist as to why a large cross is raised at this spot, but legend had it that it marks the final resting place of one of the early Jesuit fathers, so many of whom sacrificed their lives in their efforts to carry the blessings and comforts of their religion to the Indians. Writers who have touched upon this fort have not agreed as to its location, — Parkman locating it at the mouth of the river, and Hins- dale, in his ''Old Northwest," page 172, falling into the same error and confusing it with the fort built by La Salle in 1679. This fort was named by him Fort Miami, and was destroyed by deserters from Fort Crevecoeur, the year following — was rebuilt by La Forrest, one of La Salle's lieutenants, and maintained a few years only. Father Henne- pin says it was a simple breastwork made of hewn logs enclosing an area of forty by eightj^ feet, which was surrounded by palisades, as additional protection. There is no record of any fort at the mouth of the river except this built by La Salle and, after his final departure from this region the site was never used as a military or trading post. The first white man known to have visited the vicinity of Fort St. Joseph was Father Claude Jean Allouez, who came in 1G75 having an eye to the spiritual welfare of the Pottawatamies and Miamis of this section of the counry. The St. Joseph valley was then, as now, a most attractive place. Game was abundant and fish plenty, making it the Indian's paradise, into which soon came the French furtraders and bush lopers. A mission was first established bj' Father Aveueau of the Society of Jesus in 1690, and February 15, 1694, Governor Denonville granted this society a concession of twenty arpents (twenty -eight arpents equal one mile) along the St. Joseph river by twenty arpents deep, at such place as they might select upon which to locate their chapel and other buildings, which were erected. This soon grew to be a post of sufficient importance to require the protection of a garri- son. Sieur de Courtemauche with a detachment of Canadian soldiers was sent to this mission in 1695 to protect it from the Iroquois, but it was not until 1697 that a military post was established there from which date it becomes known in history as Fort St. Joseph. We know but little of its history for a number of years subsequent to this. Father Marest informs us that the mission was in a thriving state as early as 1712, and Charlevoix writes from there in 1721 to Madame la Duchesse de I>esdiguieres as follows : "River St. Joseph, August 16, 1721. "Madam : "It was eight days since I arrived at this post, where we have a mission, and where there is a commandant with a small garrison. The commandant's house, which is but a sorry one, is called the fort from its being surrounded with an indifferent palisado which is pretty near the case witli all the rest, except the forts Chambly and Catarocouy, which are real fortresses. There are, however, in almost every one of them, some few cannons or pateraroes, which in case of necessity are sulhcient to hinder a surprise and to keep the Indians in respect. We have here two villages of Indians, one of the Miamis and the other of the Pott.awatamies, both of them mostly Christians, but they have been for a long time without any pastor. The missionary who has been lately sent to them will have no small difficulty in bringing them back to the exercise of their religion. "The River St. Joseph comes from the south and discharges itself into Lake Michigan, (the eastern shore of which is a hundred leagues in length) and which you are obliged to sail along before you come to the eYitry of the river. You afterwards sail up twenty leagues in it before you reach the fort." Charlevoix in the above early letter comes very near to the correct distance of the Fort St. Joseph from the mouth of the river, which is a little less than sixty miles. Sr de Muy, an ensign in the French army commanded at St. Joseph's River in 1736. He was afterwards commandant at Detroit.^ The ensign Belestre commanded at River St. Joseph in 1746. In 1761, when the country came into the hands of the English through the fall of Quebec and the capitulation of Montreal, a detachment of the sixtieth British regiment, then called the Royal Americans, re- lieved the French troops and hoisted the British flag at Fort St. Joseph. * * * Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawas, dissatisfied with the change from French to English rule, incited the Algonquin tribes of the northwest to resistance and sought by surprise to capture and de- stroy on the same day the various forts in the region of the Great Lakes, now occupied by the English. Detroit alone, under the control of Major Gladwin, successfully made resistance. Sandusky, Michili- mackinac, Onatonan on the Wabash, Fort Miami on the Maumee, Presque Isle and St. Joseph all were taken, and but few defenders lived to describe the horrors through which they passed. It will be noticed that where Frenchmen were found in any of these posts they were un- molested, the Indians having no grievance against the French. Seven- teen Pottawatamies came into Ensign Schlosser's quarters at Fort St. Joseph on ^L-Q* 25, 1763, on pretense of holding a council. A French- man having knowledge of the treacherous nature of their errand, en- deavored to give the alarm, when at once Schlosser was seized, ten of the garrison killed, and three, together with the commandant, taken " See Cadillac papers, Vol. 34, p. 334. 6 prisoners and brought to Detroit, where they were exchanged for Indian prisoners in the possession of Major Gladwin. Richard Winston, a trader at Fort St. Joseph, writes of this event: "June 19, 1763. "I have oulv to inform you that by the blessing of God and the help of M. Louison Chevalier I escaped being killed when the unfortunate garrison was massacred. Mr. Hambough and me being hid in the house of same Chevalier for four days and nights." We read in "Historic Illinois," page 155, that in October, 1777, this insignificant stockade on the St. Joseph river was surprised and cap- tured h\ sixteen Illinois patriots under Tom Brady, a Kaskaskia Irish- man, and a Canadian half-breed named Hamelin, then residing at Cahokia. They surprised at night the garrison of twenty-one British regulars whom they paroled, seized the merchandise and destroyed what they could not carry away, and, upon leaving, set fire to the buildings and stockade. Rendered careless from the easy success of their lawless venture they were overtaken on the Calumet river, not far from the present South Chicago, by the same regulars they had paroled, together with a number of Indians, and several were killed, the remainder taken prisoners. We also read that in the summer of 1778 Paulette Meillet, then re- siding near Peoria, led a force of three hundred French, Indians and half-breeds along the water courses of the Illinois and Kankakee to Fort St. Joseph. An assault was made which was successful, and once more the flag of England came down at a run. The garrison was paroled, and the fort once more looted and set on fire. Notwithstanding these vicissitudes the post of St. Joseph was main- tained and, in 1780, contained eight houses and seven shanties, the population consisting of forty-five French and four Pawnee slaves, according to information furnished by the Haldimand papers. The last and most memorable attack was made by the Spaniards in 1781, at the close of the revolutionary war. Spain then occupied the terri- tory west of the Mississippi river and had a fort of some consequence; at St. Louis, Galvez, the governor of Louisiana had captured the British posts on the gulf of the Mississippi river; Pensacola, Mobile, Natchez and Baton Rouge, and the extension of Spanish claims north to the Groat Lakes seemed possible. That a knowledge of Spain's desires in this direction were known to the English is evident from the fact that in 17G6 Major Robert Rogers, a native of New Hampshire, who commanded a body of provincial rangers and wlio had been assigned the task of taking over the French outposts which had become English by the terms of the Montreal capitulation of 17G0, was tried by a court-martial for having meditated an act of treason in the sur- render of Fort Michilimackinac into the hands of the Spaniards. With this desire for the extension of their territory northward to the lakes still strong, and to give stability to such claims as they might make to the region, an expedition left St. Louis, January 2, 1781, consisting of sixty-five militiamen and sixty Indians under the command of Cap- tain Don Eugenio Puree, accompanied by Don Carlos Tayon, a sub- lieutenant of militia, by Don Luis Chevalier, a man versed in the Indian language, and by the great chiefs Electurno and Nagingan. They traversed the State of Illinois and leaving the present boundaries near Danville, advanced northerly through the swamp-country directly towards the old Kankakee portage to the Eiver St. Joseph, about the present location of South Bend, Indiana. With presents they bought a safe passage through the Indian tribes, allies of the English, and suddenly appeared before the fort, having traveled some two hundred and twenty leagues in the dead of winter, across a trackless country, each man on foot and carrying his provisions and equipments. But few soldiers comprised the garrison at this time and an easy conquest was made, the English soldiers and traders being made prisoners of war, and the flag of his most Catholic majesty, the King of Spain, tak- ing the place of the English standard. They remained but a short time when, having divided the provisions and stores among their own Indians and those living near, they destroyed the post, and returned to St. Louis carrying the British flag with them. After this the fort was never rebuilt. It is strange that no history of Micliigan, uj) to this time, relates this x>ossession of Michigan territory by the Spaniards, but its truth is unquestionable. Manj' writers on tlie subject of the northwest terri- tory mention the event. It may be found in ^'Hinsdale's Old Northwest," in Charles Moore's "Northwest Under Three Flags," in William H. English's "Conquest of the Northwest," in Mason's ''Chapters from Illinois History," in "Parrish's Historic Illinois," in "Windsor's Nar- rative and Critical History of the United States," Vol. YI.. ]). 74^. and ^'Wharton's Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States," Vol. A'., p. 3G3. John Jay, writing from Madrid, April 28, 1782, to Kobert R. Livingston, secretary for foreign affairs at Philadelphia, savs : 8 "The Madrid Gazette of 12th of March contained a paragraph of which you ought not to be ignorant. I shall therefore copy it verbatim and add a translation as literal as I can make it." Here follows: "By a letter from the commandant general of the army operations at Havana and Governor of Louisiana, His Majesty has advices that a detachment of sixty-five militia men and sixty Indians of the nations of Otagnos, Sotu, and Putnami under the command of Don Eugenio Puree * * * ^yho marched the 2nd of January, 1781, from the town of St. Louis of the Illinois, had possessed themselves of the post of St. Joseph which the English occupied at two hundred and twenty leagues distance from that of the above mentioned St. Louis." » * * ]^enjamin Franklin, writing from Passy, France, April 12, 1782, to Robert R. Livingston, secretary for foreign affairs, says: "I see by the newspapers that the Spaniards having taken a little post called St. Joseph, pretend to have made a conquest of the Illinois country. In what light does this proceeding appear to Congress." * * * In the Canadian Archives, series B., Vol. 101, p. 1, a letter from DePeyster, commander at Detroit, dated January 8, 1781, to Brigadier- General Powell shows a knowledge of the contemiilated expedition, an extract from it is as follows: "The rebels having long since quit all that country, Brady, who says he had no longer a desire of remaining in the Rebel Service there- fore did not follow them, informed me that Colonel Clarke was gone down to Williamsburgh to solicit a detachment to join with a S])anish colonel in an expedition against the place. When the heavy cannon and ammunition arrives, I shall be ready to give them a warm recep- tion should they be rash enough to attempt it, our works are however yet in a shattered state." In the Canadian Archives, same volume page 62, Patt Sinclair, lieutenant governor, writing from Michilimackinac Island, May 1, 1781, to Brigadier General Powell, mentions the fall of fort St. Joseph as follows : "The disasters at St. Josephs, and what threaten any traders per- mitted to go there in future, or towards the Mississippi, oblige me ta entreat the honor of your directions respecting that matter." In locating this little fort in the wilderness which had such a stormy existence, one is greatly helped to a conclusion by consulting the early maps of the territory, some of which I name. In the congressional library at Washington there are: John Mitchell's map of North America, 17.^5, which locates the fort more tlinn lliirly miles fi-(»in llie mouth of the St. Joseph river. This rr ' j) ' II l > I I ' ^M |> i xJ.,^,:....i.A^.i,., > .d„.,^^^>»>^'^>^.J-Vjj^^ ' ' ^"^ " *' -i<^ ' r "-"''-y^- MAI' SIIOWINC I.orATK^N OF OLD FOHT ST. <;PH.— FUOM Till'. MICIIIC.AN STATK l.lUHAiJY SKCTIONS OF THK .JOHN MITCIIKI.I. MAP OK 175.-). OIUCINAI. IN THK CONCIU SSK » 3S K V.-*' m^r V y ■ WITH THK ..^C~ • ' SET T L EM E Jf T S, I IBIiAHV. WASHINGTON. D. C. AND IN THK HYl.HSON I.IUKAItY, CHAND liAriDS. is an authoritative map. and is used in the settlement of boundary disputes. D'Anville's map, 1755, indicates about the same location. The Pouteatomies and Miamis are shown to have villages near by. This French map is also authoritative. In the Michigan State Library are five maps showing Fort St. Joseph up stream: "CaHe des Possessions Angloises . There is a village of Puttawateamees of six kirge cabana. The river at this place is about Fifty feet wide and the water is generally from one and a half to two feet deoj), when there are Floods Travel- lers are obliged to make Rafts to cross it, the road in this place is bad. 10 Miles. Miles. To the Salt River or Wanadagon Sijypy 12 N. B. There is another village of Pittawattamees of five Cabans. This river is never so high as to pre- vent people passing it. To one of the Branches of Ch-and River or Washtanon that falls into Lake Michigan '. . 60 112 There is another village of Pottawattamees of eight large Cabans. To Reccanama:^oo River or Pnsawpaco Sippy, otherwise the Iron Mine River 75 N. B. There is another village of Pottawattamees of eight large Cabans, this river cannot be passed in Freshes on Rafts; at other time 1 or 2 feet deep. To the Prairieroude 30 N. B. There is a small lake of about % of a mile wide and 11 miles long, abounding with several sorts of Fish, such as Maskenougi, Whitefish, &ca. To the Fort St. Joseph 75 292 N. B. There is a few Puttawattamees near the fort. The road after you pass the River Huron is verj-^ good being mostly on a small height of land & little wood till you come to St. Joseph's where you pass through about a mile long and another about six miles long. From Fort St. Joseph's you ascend that River to a carry- ing place (LaSalles portage) 12 ^ From carrying place to Recankeekce 4 To the Juncture of this river with the Iroquis River 150 N. B. In this fork is a village of 14 large Cabans of Mascontains. To the Junction of this river icith the Chicangoni River which forms the Illinois River 45 N. B. At this fork there is a vi llage of Putta- watamees of 12 large Cabans. To the Rocks or old French Fort called Pumetewee 90 To the Mississippi 240 541 From Detroit to the Mississippi by way of the Illinois River 833" In view of the facts here narrated there can be no reasonable doubt of the location of old Fort St. Joseph within the limits of the city of Niles; neither can it be doubted that the final destruction of the fort was by the Sy^aniards in 1781, and so have the flags of four nations waved over the State of Michigan ; the French, English, Spanish and our own stars and stripes. FXCEKPT FKOM THE WESTERN GAZETTEER OR EMIGRANT'S DIRECTORY. By Samukl R. Brown, Auburn, New York, 1817. Page 154. "The Rivers of :Micliisnn are numerous and mostly navigable for boats and canoes nearly to their heads. Those running into Lake ^Michinan are: I. The St. Josephs, which heads in Indiana and in- terlocks by its several branches with Black River, St. Josephs of Miami, Eelriver and Tippecanoe. It enters the southeast end of the lake. It~is" rapid and full of islands, but navigable 150 miles, and is 200 yards wide at its mouth. The Pottawattimie Indians, who reside on the shore, catch prodigious quantities of fish in its waters. It runs about fortv miles in the Michigan Territory. On the north bank of this river stands the old fort St. Josephs, from which there is a bridle road to Detroit." i._J \ 016 090 818 pL