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The history of early Niles is the story of young America in its struggle to become a great nation. For many years it was an outpost between Detroit and Chicago through which passed the early explorers, traders, settlers of the West and the armies of four nations which were striving for control of this vast area. The story of this early history has been assembled by the author after years of painstaking research of early files and other authoritative sources, and from the stories of early settlers here that he heard as a youth. Publication of the volume is particularly important now because it preserves this rich, historical data for the benefit of future generations. Failure to do so at this time would probably have resulted in its being forever lost to our children and our children's children. -J. R. S. STORIES OF THE INDIAN TRAILS By Ralph Ballard When the first settlers came to Michigan, there were still many remains of an early civilization to be found. These consisted of mounds and other earth-works which existed along the borders of little flower-like prairies, that are such familiar features of the Michigan landscape, and along the streams that flow down from the hills, to loiter through sunny valleys, and at last flow into Lake Michigan on their long journey to the sea. At what is now Summerville there was a group of nine mounds, some of which still show along the main street of that little burg. Two more were located on the old Wood farm, just a little way north across Pokagon creek, and in the same field was a horse shoe shaped earth-work, now almost obliterated through years of cultivation. South from Summerville, on the old Pokagon prairie, were more mounds and embankments and a garden bed. These garden beds were called so for want of a better name. Whether they were garden beds or not is a matter of conjecture. They were raised mounds of earth, perhaps eighteen inches high and of indefinite length,, which lay side by side in parallel rows as though they had been used for garden purposes. There were many designs, some with rounded ends, others were laid out in concentric rings, and some were of great extent, two or three hundred acres in area. Mounds were of common occurence in the valley of the St. Joseph, but the constant cultivation has worn them away until there are few left to attract attention. Those at Summerville have all been opened and their contents removed many years ago. Dr. E. J. Bonine, and his son, Dr. Fred N. Bonine, opened those on the Wood place and found many bones, some of them those of a man of more than ordinary size, and stone and copper axes and other articles of interest. Prof. E. H. Crane, at one time a resident of Niles, opened those at Summerville which had not been already excavated, at a later date, and found a great many articles. There were many bones which, by careful handling and proper treatment, were preserved; bones of the hands and feet of those people of long ago. Some of the bones of the feet of the ladies of that remote time, were as dainty and highly arched as those of any queen and, who knows, maybe they were those of a queen. The only remains of a child were the cartilages that connected the ribs to the breast bone, and these were preserved because a copper axe had been laid on the breast of the child, the preservative effects of the copper being such as to keep them intact through all the years, and also between the bones and the axe were two fragments of cloth, one of coarse material, the other as fine in texture as fine linen. Axes of copper, as sharp as a modern axe, their edges apparently annealed in some way, long forgotten, stone axes, celts, and pipes, some of which were as true as though turned in a lathe, with a curved stem, and a hole, drilled on a curve, yet as accurately done as though by some modern artizan, and of stone as hard as glass, a green porphyry. There were mounds on the west side of the river, just north of West Main street. There were mounds on Portage prairie and in many other locations, but the Indians of our time knew nothing of this ancient people and had no traditions concerning them. North of Buchanan, there used to be a dance circle, clearly discernible when the early settlers came, but it has long since disappeared. A little farther down the river, toward Berrien, where a little stream flows down from the west to meet the river, is Bear cave, now commercialized, but an interesting spot sixty or more years ago. Then the stream poured in a little waterfall, as it does now, over the entrance to the cave. It is said to be the only waterfall in southwestern Michigan. The cave, before it had been excavated by man, extend ed back perhaps twenty-five feet, through the lime tufa rock and above the doorway, on a ledge of rock, the discoverers of the cave found the skeleton of an Indian. Whether his body had been placed there by his friends or he had sought a place where he might die in peace, with the music of falling waters eternally about him, no one knows or will ever know. Just below the pool made by the falling water, there was an old kiln, where the early settlers burned the lime tufa to make the quick lime they needed for their masonery. This lime tufa rock is formed by the deposition of the lime, held in the water, and contains many leaf prints; prints of leaves of elm, maple, and cranberry,, and the casts of sticks and twigs and an occasional clam shell are found. Across the river and up stream a bit, "the falling spring" poured its clear waters into the river; it was called "La Vache qui pisse" by the French, but perhaps "falling spring" is better. The spade and steam shovel have brought to light the bones of many prehistoric animals in this vicinity. The bones and teeth of the Mammoth and Mastodon have quite often been found where they had sunk in the yielding mud of the swamps and, unable to extricate themselves, died and left their bones to tell the story to us, some ten or fifteen thousand years later. Portage prairie was known by the French as "Ox-head" prairie because the head of a huge ox was found there at one time. Charlevoix refers to it in his memoirs. They were traversing the portage trail, near South Bend he says, "I landed on the right, and I walked a league and a quarter; at first by the bank of the river, then cross the country, in a vast meadow, interspersed all over with little clusters of trees, that have a very fine effect. They call it the Meadow de la Tete de Boeuf, the Buffalos head, because they found there a buffalo's head of a monstrous size. Why should there not be giants among these animals?" This was doubtless the head of a mastodon that had been washed from its place of concealment in the marsh and exposed to view of the amazed natives, had caused them to exclaim with wonder at its gigantic size. When the grading was being done at the Michigan Cen tral terminal, the steam shovel brought to light the skull of a giant beaver, the most perfect skull of this pre-historic animal ever found. It is now in the museum of the Northern Indiana Historical Society, at South Bend. On the site of Fort St. Joseph have been found great quantities of bones of all sorts of animals, with those of the bear and deer predominating, but with those of the bison, elk, antelope, beaver, wild cat, and many others in evidence; bones from the countless camp-fires and camp-feasts, for hundreds of years when it was a favorite site for trading among the Indians, long before the whites came to make it what it was, next to Michilimackinac, the greatest fur trading post in the whole Northwest. The ford at the foot of Cedar street, which was known as "The Crossing," started a little above the site of the present Main street bridge, and taking a diagonal course, came out at about the west end of the Broadway bridge; from that point it followed a southwesterly direction,, somewhere near where the Catholic church now stands and then through the Catholic cemetery, it crossed Kimmels creek at a point just west of the cemetery, on the flat that in early times was covered with vast thickets of wild-plum, where the Indians and bears came, when the fruit was ripe, and the ground was covered with the fallen plums, red and yellow and streaked, to feast. From there the trail still led a little south of west, by the great burr oaks on the north side of M-60; trees that if they could talk might tell of many passers for they are huge trees, of great age, the largest seven feet through the trunk, and is probably at least four or five hundred years old. A tree by the side of the road, not far away, that was struck by lightning and had to be cut, not half as large showed 280 annual rings. This old patriarch was a good sized tree, probably 200 years old, when La Salle and his missionaries and Couriers du Bois made their trip up the St. Joe River in 1679. It saw the coming of the various French Commandants and in 1763 it saw the massacre of the garrison by Pontiac's adherents and, in 1781, witnessed the surprise of the fort by the Spaniards and the raising of the Spanish flag. It saw the escape of the Healds from the Fort Dearborn massacre, to the shelter of Topinabee's Village, and the alarm at the time of the Blackhawk war in 1832, and saw the sorrowing Indians, with aching hearts, leaving the lands which they had always known as home, to emigrate far beyond the Mississippi in 1838. Off to the south toward the river and Topinabee, and Arrowhead Hills, a little brook, spring fed from the hills to the west, gurgles through the grasses that line its banks. In early times the grasses grew to a great height, far above the backs of the ponies, which the Indians turned in there every fall, to have them come out as sleek as moles in the spring. Farther west the trail climbs the hill and about half way up, Cold Springs, as the old settlers used to call it, made a place for travelers to stop to drink and rest a bit, and here close beside the spring, on the slope of the hill is a little depression, all that is left, to tell of a little log hut, built halfway into the hill, to provide warmth. Probably this was the home of some French trader who made it a point not to wander too far from the protection of the Fort, to which he could fly in time of need. All that is left is this little hollow in the hillside and if one digs he may find a few hand wrought nails,, and some bits of glass and pottery and close at hand, where Cold Springs keeps the ground moist, a patch of spearmint, escaped from his garden, and which has persisted here through the years. There is a little valley that leads up to the hilltop, and grandfather used to say the trail led up through this, as it afforded some protection, the Indian always making his trail in the low spots, as it partially hid one following him, and gave him a good view of anyone lurking on the higher ground on either side. To the southwest now, just about where M-60 now runs and just south of the spot where Topinabee had his village at the south end of Gitchells lake, then on until, at the north end of Clear lake, it joins the "Old Sauk Trail" a little west of Chief Pokagon's village. This was the route of the Old Territorial Road, which very nearly followed the route of the Old Sauk Trail from Detroit to Chicago. There, until a few years ago, were three trees close beside the trail that, in their sapling age, had been bent by the Indians to indicate the direction of the trail. They had grown to a large size, but bent in grotesque shape. It is said the squaws, on their way back and forth along the trail, often sat on these bent trees to rest. Be that as it may the trees are gone now as a result of over diligence on the part of the road builders who, rather than deviate a little from the line, sacrificed the trees. There are in the county two or three, at least, of these old bent trees, still left to point the way the trails used to run. The "Old Sauk Trail" led from Detroit, pretty close to the southern boundary of the state, passed through the village of Bertrand, and entered Indiana a few miles west of Niles, and a branch left the main trail, a few miles east of Niles, crossed the river at "The Crossing" and rejoined the main trail at Clear lake. After the Sauk Trail entered Indiana it continued west around the end of Lake Michigan, to a Sauk village at the confluence of the Rock river and the Mississippi. A branch north through Chicago led to the great rice fields of Green Bay, and the copper mines of Lake Superior. It was the most important trail to the West. Over it the Sioux often made their raids, or made their way to Detroit and Fort Malden to receive gifts from their British allies. In the eastern part of the state the Sauk Trail connected with the Grand River Trail, which led in a northwesterly direction from Detroit to the valley of the Grand river, with its great Indian population, and a branch from there went to the valley of the Saginaw, where remains of Indian villages, mounds and burying grounds are very numerous. The "Great Trail" came west,, from the New England states and Delaware and Chesapeake bays along the south shore of Lake Erie and continued to Detroit, and under the name of "Mackinaw Trail" to the Straits of Mackinaw. Branches of the Great Trail, connected with the Old Sauk Trail" in southern Michigan and it was over this trail that the Iroquois conducted their bloody raids against the Pottawatomies of the St. Joseph valley and the Illinois and other western tribes. It was over this trail, too, that the Delaware Indians, once a powerful tribe along the eastern coast, but their numbers greatly decimated and being pushed almost to the point of extermination by the whites, took their path westward to find refuge in the fastnesses of the Kankakee swamps. The "Scioto Trail," one of the great war paths of Indian history branched from "The Great Trail" at Sandusky bay, followed up the Sandusky, and down the Scioto rivers to the Ohio and crossing that, joined "The Warriors Path" in Kentucky, which led to Cumberland Gap, and thence South to the Atlantic coast with branches to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Michigan copper went south over "The Warriors Path," and other ornamental articles came back. "The Shore Trail" from New York, Pennsylvania and the East led through the Bloody Ground, so called. It followed close along the south shore of Lake Erie, and joined the Michigan trails at Toledo; an eastern branch, "The Mohawk Trail,"" led through the Iroquois country, to the Hudson river. "The Potomac Trail,"' the route of the Baltimore and Ohio from Parkersburg east through the mountains, is a marvel of engineering skill (says Hinsdale) but is really a re-survey of the paths followed by the Indians and buffalo for hundreds of years. "The Green Bay and Sault Trail," connecting with the "Old Sauk Trail" at Green Bay, followed up the lake to the Soo, crossed into Canada, and went eastwardly to Montreal and Quebec, and "The Montreal Trail"" went from Montreal to Detroit, where it joined "The Sauk Trail" to Fort St. Joseph, there it turned sharply southward and ultimately reached the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans, a distance of nearly 1900 miles. It will be seen, then, that the dwellers in the St. Joseph valley were connected by trail with every part of the country, north, south, east and west. These old trails were worn deep by the feet of countless travelers. The Kankakee Trail was so deeply worn that a man on horseback had to exercise care to avoid striking his feet on either side of the trail as he rode along; nor was this trail very different from many others, remnants of which were observable until very recent years; in fact, there are some still to be found where they have escaped the plow. But these were not the only avenues of transportation. The waterways provided ways equally extensive. The St. Joseph river rises far to the east in Hillsdale county, where the little Baw Beese lake is cradled in the hills. It is the head waters of both St. Joseph and the Raisin river, which flows into Lake Erie. There are other rivers that have their headwaters in this same county and by short portages one may reach them from the St. Joseph. They are the Kalamazoo, which flows a little north of west into Lake Michigan; the Grand river, which flows north and west into Lake Michigan and through whose tributaries, the Looking-Glass and Maple rivers, by portages to the Shiawasee river, which is a branch of the Saginaw, the Saginaw bay, is reached; and by its northern branches, the Chippewa, and Tittabawasee, with portages to the Muskegon, the Pere Marquette, the AuSable, and the Manistee, these cover all the navigable waters of lower Michigan. The Little St. Joseph, or St. Joseph of the Maumee, also rises in this county and flows south into Indiana where, before it turns east to Lake Erie, by a portage one may reach the Wabash and through that, the Ohio, Mississippi, and all the countless streams that comprise it's vast system. Most of the heavy transportation was by water which was much easier than by trail, and while it frequently meant a long traverse to get a short distance, it was on the whole to be preferred. Fort St. Joseph, too, was only a short distance from the Kankakee and the route south to the Illinois and the Mississippi, with a portage at South Bend, or where South Bend now stands. STORIES OF THE ST. JOE VALLEY By Ralph Ballard Senator Woodbridge, in a speech in the United States Senate in 1842, has this to say: "The St. Joseph river acquired its name, about two centuries ago, from the French. That people then possessed a large establishment upon it, a few miles up from its mouth. "Their settlement there progressed, as most of their early settlements did, first a missionary, then as a trading post, and then as a military post. The remains of its ancient fortifications,, yet visible, are an object of curiosity and of speculation to the inquisitive traveller; and in exploring those remains, in connection with the surrounding scenery and the beautiful river in sight, he will not fail to admire that extraordinary judgment and forecast, with which the French, in those early times, seized upon that, and upon all the prominent and imposing positions, in the whole of those wide spread regions." "The St. Joseph waters an extensive range of country, as fertile as that of the Nile, and far more beautiful. "A small steam bbat already plies upon its waters, and ascends along its winding course, I think as far as Constantine, perhaps one hundred and fifty miles. "Its bateaux navigation extends many miles above, to the three rivers. No human eye ever rested upon a more beautiful, nor a more interesting country." And quoting from a letter by G. F. to the Niles Republican, telling of a trip through Michigan in 1831: "As we moved slowly along, we took note of that which was most interesting and striking, and as we neared the old St. Joe, our eyes were occasionally greeted with the sight of the cabin of some enterprising pioneer. "Before us, the beautiful St. Joe, rolled in peerless grandeur between her high and towering banks. "The small group of houses below was Niles. "We put up at a small and comfortable inn, (doubtless Col. Almanson Huston's tavern, on the north side of Main street near the river) and after supper strolled up the river along its bank, in search of some of those antiquated remains of the ancient race that once was supposed to have peopled the western part of this continent. "We had not rambled far before we came across, the remains of an old fort, the appearance of which indicated that it was near 150 years old. Upon the higher bank on the opposite side of the river, were to be seen several small mounds, apparently the burial place of our red bretheren. A few rods from the fort, and higher up the bank, we found a solitary mound, surmounted by a rude cross, bearing no inscription." The valley of the St. Joseph must have been an enchanting spot in the early days before the whites came to settle and despoil it of its beauty. For the most part, the forest covered it with here and there a little prairie or oak openings, where forest paused for a bit, and there was only an occasional tree or clump of trees, with wide treeless stretches in between. These little prairies with their tall grasses, shoulder high, provided wonderful nibbling for the deer, that might be found, most any time, singly or in little groups pasturing there. The constant succession of wild flowers, from early spring until frost, made them as gay as any flower garden. At first,, before the snow was off the ground, the skunkcabbage thrust its odd red purple sheaths through the yielding mud of the swamps, with pussy willows and spice bush not far behind, and then came the hepaticas thickest on the south sides of the ravines, but plentiful everywhere, with anemones and violets, and bloodroot and squirrel corn and dutchmans breeches, bishops cap, and the gold of trout lilies, shy spring beauties, and hosts of others, and a little later, soloman's seal, and spikenard and water leaf, with the croziers of the ferns unrolling in the summer light. Then the cool marsh woods came alive with lady slippers or moccasin flowers, the lovely pink ones first, then the little white ones, and the yellows, and finally the great showy lady slippers, white mottled with pink and many other beautiful orchids, such as the great fringed yellow and the purple fringed habenaria. Then the marshes glowed with the flame of cardinal 10 flowers,, the hillsides were thick with wild roses and convolvulus, and so on, till with the frosts of autumn the blue fringed gentians, brought to a close the pageantry of the seasons. Little lakes, their clear waters glistening in the sun, their shores lined with water lilies, made charming spots to tempt the pioneers, as did the oak openings, and when the two were found together, they made a combination difficult to resist, for once the sod was broken on the openings, then they could be farmed indefinitely, while the wooded areas required almost endless labor before they were ready for the plow. Early writers tell of the beauties of this country for though it is still a beautiful country, it can in no way compare with what it was a hundred or two hundred years ago. Charlevoix in 1821 says: "The river St. Joseph is about a hundred leagues long, and its source is not far from Lake Erie; it is navigable for the 20 leagues, which I went up it to arrive at the Fort; I saw none but good lands, covered with trees of prodigious height, under which there grow in some places capillaire, (ferns). "I was two days making this way. The Acemine (pawpaw) is a fruit of the length of three or four inches and an inch in diameter; it's pulp is tender, something sweetish, and full of a seed like that of the water melon. "The acemine tree does not grow large nor very high; all those I have seen are little more than shrubs of a brittle wood; it's bark is thin; the leaves are long and large as those of the chestnut tree, but of a darker green." "The forests are full of walnut trees, like those of Canada, and their roots have several properties, which I have not heard remarked of others; they are very soft and their bark dies a black, but their principle use is for physic; they stop the flux of the belly, and are an excellent emetic. "I was treated here with maple juice; this is the season in which it is drawn; it is delicious, of wonderful coolness, and very wholesome. It is certain the savages did not know how to make sugar of it, which we have since taught them; they were contented to let it boil a little to thicken it somewhat, and make a sort of syrup, which is pretty enough. "The cedars are of two species, white and red; the first 11 are the largest; they make pales of it and this wood is what they generally make shingles of because of its lightness. There distills from it a kind of incense or perfume, but it bears no fruit like that of mount Lebanon. The red cedar is smaller; the most sensible difference between one and the other, is that the smell of the first is in the leaves, and of the other in the wood, but the last is much more agreeable. "There are every where two species of oaks distinguished by the names white and red, the first are often found in low wet fertile soil, which is fit to produce grain and pulse; the red, whose wood is less esteemed, grows in a dry and sandy soil, both kinds produce acorns. "Beech trees are very plentiful here, they bear much mast, from which it is easy to extract an oil; the bears make it their principle food, as do the partridges. "Elms are very common through the whole country, they are white and red; the wood of the first is hardest to work but lasts the longest. The Iroquois make their canoes from the bark of the red elm; there are some of a single piece, which will hold twenty men; there are also some hollow elms, where the bears and wild cats retire, from November to April. "The pemine is a kind of shrub which grows by the side of brooks and meadows, it bears a bunch of fruit, of a lively red, which is astringent. (Highbush cranberry?) The atoca is a fruit with kernels as big as a cherry; this plant which runs upon the ground in the marshes, produces its fruit in the water, the fruit is sharp and they make sweet meats of it." (This must have been the cranberry.) "They call here the cotton tree, a plant which shoots up like asparagus, to the height of about three feet, at the top of which grow many tufts of flowers; in the morning, before the dew is off, they shake these flowers and there falls off the water, a kind of honey, which is made into sugar by boiling, the seed grows in a bladder, which contains a very fine sort of cotton, (Milk weed?) "In going up the river St. Joseph, I observed several trees, which I had not seen in any other place, the most remarkable, and which I took at first for an ash by its leaves, grow very large and bears beans, which appear very good to the eye; but the more they are boiled the harder 12 they grow, so they could never be used." This was doubtless the Kentucky coffee tree, which still grows along the river in places. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, writing of the lower peninsula of Michigan in 1701, says: "There are so many vast prairies, dotted with woods, thickets and vines, where the waters of the streams keep the shores always green, and the reaper has left unmown the luxuriant grasses which fatten buffaloes of enormous size." In 1718, a memoir was prepared for the French government, describing the valley of the St. Joseph, as follows: " Tis a spot, the best adapted of any to be seen, for the purpose of living, and as regards the soil. "There are pheasants as in France, quail and paroquets, the finest vines in the world, which produce a vast quantity of very excellent grapes, both black and white, the berry very large and juicy, and the bunch very long. It is the richest district in all the country." J. Fenimore Cooper, who wrote so many Indian stories, and who lived for a time on prairie Ronde, during which time he wrote The Oak Openings, in that interesting volume, says, "The St. Joseph country is a region that almost merits the lofty appelation of the Garden of America." In 1835, Harriet Martineau, an English traveler and author, made a trip through this country and her observations may be interesting reading. On the eighteenth of June 1836, they had left Detroit and had reached the vicinity of Sturgis: "Our drive of twelve miles to breakfast was very refreshing. The roads were the best we had traveled since we left New York state. "We passed through a wilderness of flowers; trailing roses, enormous white convolvulus, scarlet lilies, and ground ivy, with many others being added to those we had before seen; Milton must have traveled in Michigan before he wrote the garden parts of Paradise Lost. "Sturgis and White Pigeon prairies are highly cultivated, and look just like any other rich and perfectly level land. We breakfasted at White Pigeon prairie, and saw the rising 13 ground where the Indian chief lies buried, whose name has been given the place. "White Pigeon was an Indian chief, a firm friend of the whites, who gave his life to help them. He had been at Detroit, where he overheard plans among hostiles for massacreing the whites of southern Michigan, and on foot he made the run, in desperate haste, to apprise them of their danger. He succeeded, but was so exhausted that he died a few days after. A monument to his memory has been erected, where his body lies,, at a little turn in the road near White Pigeon. "Tie charms of the settlement to us were a kindly landlady, an admirable breakfast, at which eggs abounded and a blooming garden. "Thirty-seven miles further brought us to Niles, where we arrived at five in the afternoon. The roads were so much improved, that we had not to walk at all; which was well, as there was much pelting rain during the day. "Niles is a thriving town on the river St. Joseph, on the borders of the Pottawatomie territory. "Three years ago it consisted of three houses; we could not learn the present number of inhabitants; probably because the number is never the same two days running. "A Pottawatomie village stands within a mile; and we saw two Indians on horse back, fording the rapid river very majestically, and ascending the wooded hills on the other side. Many Indian women were about the streets; one with a nose ring, some with plates of silver on the bosom, and other barbaric ornaments. "Such a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning came on, with a deluge of rain, that we were prevented seeing anything of the place, except from our windows. "I had sent my boots to a cobbler, over the way. He had to put on India rubbers, which reached above the knee, to bring his work home, the streets were so flooded. "We little imagined for the hour, the real extent and violence of this storm, and the effect it would have upon our journeying. "The prairie strawberries,, at breakfast this morning, were so large, sweet and ripe, that we were inclined for more in the course of the day. Many children of the set 14 tiers were dispersed along the roadside, with their baskets, gathering strawberries; they would not sell any; they did not know what mother would say if they went home without any berries for father; but they could get enough for father, too, they were told, if they would sell us what they had already gathered. No, they did not want to sell. Our driver observed that money was no object to them. I began to think that we had, at last, got to the end of the world; or rather perhaps, to the beginning of another and a better." "June 19th-No plan could be more cleverly and more confidently laid, than ours was for this day's journey. "We were to travel through the lands of the Pottawatomies, and reach the shore of the glorious Lake Michigan, at Michigan City, in time for an early supper. "We were to proceed on the morrow, round the southern extremity of the lake so as, if possible, to reach Chicago in one day. It was wisely and prettily planned; and the plan was so far followed, as that we did actually leave Niles sometime before six in the morning. Within three minutes it began to rain again, and continued, with but few short intervals all day. "We crossed the St. Joseph by a rope ferry the ingenious management of which when stage coaches had to be carried over, was a perpetual study to me. "The effect of crossing a rapid river by a rope ferry by torch light, in a dark night, is very striking; and not the less so, for one's becoming familiarized with it as the traveler does in the United States. "As we drove up the steep bank we found ourselves in the Indian territory; all was very wild; and the more so for the rain. There were many lodges in the glades, with red light of fires hanging around them. "The few log huts looked drenched; the tree stems black in the wet; and the very wild flowers were dripping. "The soil was sandy so that the ugliest features of a rainy day, the mud and puddles, were obviated. The sand sucked up the rain, so that we jumped out of the carriage as often as a wild flower of peculiar beauty tempted us. The bride white convolvulus, nearly as large as my hand, grew in trails all over the ground. 15 "The poor, helpless, squalid Pottawatomies are sadly troubled by squatters. It seems hard enough that they should be restricted within a narrow territory, so surrounded by whites, that the game is sure soon to disappear, and leave them stripped of their only resource. "It is too hard that they should also be encroached upon, by men who sit down, without leave or title, upon lands which are not intended for sale. "I enjoyed hearing of an occasional alarm, among the squatters, caused by some threatening demonstration by the Indians. I should like to see every squatter frightened away from Indian lands, however advantageous their squatting may be, which are unclaimed, or whose owners cannot defend their own property. "I was glad to hear today that a deputation of Pottawatomies had been sent to visit a distant war-like tribe in consequence of the importunities of the squatters, who wanted to buy the land they had been squatting upon. The deputation returned, painted, and under other hostile signals, and declared that the Pottawatomies did not intend to part with their lands. "We stopped for some milk, this morning, at the 'location' of a squatter, whose wife was milking as we passed. "The gigantic personage, her husband, told us how anxious he was to pay for the land which repaid his tillage so well; but that his Indian neighbors would not sell. "I hope, by this time, he has had to remove and leave them the benefit of his house and fences. "Such an establishment in the wild woods is the destruction of the game, and of those who live upon it. "At breakfast we saw a fine specimen of a settler's family; we had observed the prosperity and cheerfulness of the settlers, all along the road; but this family exceeded the best; I never saw such an affectionate set of people. They, like others, were from the southern states; and I was not surprised all emigrants from North and South Carolina were well satisfied with the change they had made; the old lady seemed to enjoy her pipe, and there was much mirth going on between the beautiful daughter and all the other men and maidens. 16 "They gave us an excellent breakfast in one of the lower rooms; the table being placed across the foot of the two beds. No pains were spared by them to save us from the wet in the stage; but the rain was too pelting and penetrating for any defense to avail long, it streamed in at all corners and we gave the matter up for the day. "We were now entering Indiana, and one of our intentions had been to see the celebrated 'Door Prairie'; so called from exquisite views into it being opened, through intervals in the growth of wood with which it is belted. "I did obtain something like an idea of it through the reeking rain, and thought that it was the first prairie that I had seen that answered to my idea of one; but, I dare say, we formed no conception of what it must be in sunshine, and with the cloud shadows, which adorn a prairie as they do still water. "... We jolted on for two miles and a half through the woods, admiring the scarlet lilies, and the pink and white moccasin flowers which were brilliant,-it grew here in great profusion and splendor." Miss Martineau has much more to say about the West, but her travels had taken her beyond the confines of the St. Joseph valley. The author of "A Winter in the West," which was published at about this time, has this to say about the country hereabouts, "to no scenery of our country, that I have yet seen, is the term Arcadia more applicable than the rich and fairy landscape on the west side of the peninsula, watered by the Kalamazoo and the St. Joseph. "We were ferried across the St. Joseph at Niles, a lowsided scow,, was the means of conveyance. "At length ascending the bank, a beautiful plain, with here and there a clump of trees upon its surface opened to our view. The establishment of Carey mission, a long low, white building could be distinguished afar off, faintly in the moonlight, with several winter lodges of the Pottawatomies which inhabit this fine district, were plainly perceptible over the plain." But one of the most beautifully written stories of those early days, was one written by Mary Bacon Field, who, 17 with her little sister and her two brothers, Joseph and Edward Bacon, in later years were to attain honors in the little community as attorneys. The father of this little group was Nathaniel Bacon, an attorney, who came to Niles in 1833, and he had bought a farm of four or five hundred acres on the Edwardsburg road, just outside the town. Here he brought his bride, the daughter of a prominent New York clergyman, and one who had been accustomed to all the conveniences and luxuries of the great city, to "a home in the wilderness" a log house, that at first had but three sides, with the other side enclosed by a canvas curtain against the cold and storms of a Michigan winter. As an attorney, he served his State well as Judge of the Second Judicial Circuit, filling the office for several terms. The children were born on the farm and lived there in their childhood. It is of those childhood years, that Mary Bacon wrote; she later married a clergyman named Field, and lived in California; her title was 'One Little Meadow.' 18 REMINISCENCE OF THE EARLY HOME By Mary Bacon Year by year the grain fields of the homestead, stretched farther into the forest, and orchards took the place of the "Oak Openings," although many a stately father of the forest was left standing to adorn the landscape and the house stood in a grove of them. But the little Meadow was left untouched. Its few acres of rich soil blossomed on at their own sweet will, and all around it was left a fringe of underbrush, with here and there a great oak, or a tall unbranching hickory. Ah, what a playground was here for the children, two little sisters, and two brothers; all summer here they raced and climbed and swung, along with the squirrels and the birds, and in the fall at nutting time, shared amiably with them the unfailing harvest, only the blue-jays scolded. The wise young mother turned the grove into an academy, herself a modest and unconscious Plato. Here, long before nature study had been urged from the housetops, or summer schools had opened, to gather in unwary holiday takers, she invented the whole scheme. She had a way of taking her little sewing chair and work basket out under the trees, in the long sweet summer days, and thus made all out doors seem homelike. With the sewing came always a book or two; often the children's own little orange colored ornithology, full of pictures of their friends, the robbins and meadowlarks, and woodpeckers and whipporwills, with their long names slyly tucked into parenthyses, over which the children made very wry faces, and the birds themselves, from their leafy perches seemed to look askance. It seemed almost incredible, that there should have been such a book out on the frontier at that early day, but there it certainly was. There too were all the volumes of Goldsmith's Animated Nature. These with the Peter Parlay books, and the well worn botany, made up the nature library of the little pioneer school. All were brought into use, and the young students, two of them mere toddlers, who could hardly be trusted out 19 of sight, were turned loose for original investigation, and experiment, quite like university students of the present day. What patient watching went on of bee and bird and blossom; what careful handling of beetles and butterflies; what skillful and accurate counting of petals and stamens and pistils; a wonderful school room, a model teacher, never to be forgotten lessons. The flowers, on the whole, carried off the palm with both teacher and pupils. They seemed to come in endless procession, and the meadow was almost always accessible to little feet. The winters were very mild and short, deep-lasting snows and storms were rare, and always there was something to look for. Some feathery dried grass or weed, some quaint rush or lichen, or valiant great cat tail, and then to the eye of faith, pussy willows were always imminent, and should daily be watched for. Neither did bob white ever forsake the meadow as a visiting place, especially if small hands scattered corn among the dried grasses; and all winter long father crow,, on sunny days, preened his shining feathers atop an old fire girdled oak, giving challenge ever and anon to loquacious jays, who also lingered through the year. But oh, when spring really came up from the southland, and dried up the pools and miry places, how the meadow and the children welcomed her: a single week of mild March weather, brought indisputably the catkins to the front, and set the little blue eyes of the hepaticas peeping out from their furry hoods, and the child who came running home with the first of these, was as welcome as the first bluebird, and as flattered and distinguished as other lucky people are apt to be. Then Nan, the black cook, encouraged by these tokens, would set forth with pail and knife, for the wet, far side of the meadow, where the cow slips grew, and return, if successful, with the material for the first welcome dish of greens. April came, and on a certain sunny southern slope, near the meadow, where a thicket of saplings grew, wood anemones began to unfurl their white kerchiefs, and set up a flirtation with the south wind; then came the violets, half a dozen kinds, but, loveliest and most abundant of all the great, pale blue viola pedata. By May the children would be bringing in Claytonias 20 and bishops caps, and dandelions galore. After this there was no use trying to keep count; it was high time for the summer school to open, and what a gala season it was; the green leaves over them, "clapped their little hands in glee," the bluebirds sang cheerily and jack in the pulpit stood up in his royal purple vestments, to give them his benediction. In those days of lavish blossoming, the teacher's basket used to lose itself in lynchnidias, and lupines, the children rolled down banks of moss pinks, they made garlands and necklaces and girdles, like young Hawaiians, they even pulled off shoes and stockings and decorated their toes with lady slippers; the teacher started a competition as to who could find the most kinds of flowers, and thus beguiled, they discovered more than a hundred genera. Then, of course, herbariums came into fashion and there was a commendable struggle to call the little flower neighbors by their scientific names. This feat could not be accomplished, to any great extent, but there were quite a number of the simpler technical names which became familiar, and were thus engraved for a lifetime on the impressionable young memories. Best of all, they learned to "consider the lilies, how they grow," to know well each great flower family, and how there were tribes and kindred, among those pretty wildwood things, and that each had its appointed time and place; law and order were everywhere, and tender care, not even tiny seeds forgotten, but equipped with wise forethought, for their journeyings. The smallest child, learned to see that "the meadow all over was lettered love." May was buttercup and daisy time. June brought the trilliums and columbines and clovers, the cranesbills and blazing stars,, the spiderworts, the castillias, and the beloved wild roses. In July, the meadow was aflame with cardinal flowers, and red lilies, and black eyed susans. In August, the orchids arrived, the beautiful arethusa bulbosa first, and then the great yellow fringed orchis lit its torches. Then came the asters and the goldenrods, and last the dear gentians. Only the great leaders in the procession have been named; there were trains of humble followers, as is the way of the world. 21 It goes without telling, that the meadow was a favorite foraging place, there was always something to nibble, and children are as addicted to this as young lambs. Our little foresters were always perfumed with sassafras or winter green; the latter was in evidence through the whole year; it's spicy shoots were among the earliest of "the green things growing," and all summer the shining leaves were good munching. Then came the delightful wintergreen berries, which stayed on all winter, and could be found on the lee side of old logs, when the snow lay thick on the ground, unfaded by frost and with undiminished flavor. Sassafras grew everywhere along the edges of the fields and what aromatic pungencies lay in leaf and bark and root; what grateful coolness and flavor the white pith gave to a glass of water. All the mints flourished in this garden of simples; spearmint, balms of two or three kinds, pennyroyal, pepper grass, and water cress. Early in June great luscious strawberries abounded and later came huckleberries, and blueberries, dewberries and blackberries, each according to its season. The little Pottawatomies must have had rare pickings there in the old days but the government had, ere this, moved the tribe to a new reservation far to the westward. To the pale-face children also must come the inevitable changes of time. Let us drop the curtain while all is well with them, and leave mother and children among the flowers. More than half a century has passed. Strangers live in the old home. The great trees have all disappeared. The meadow has been converted into a fruitful field. All who loved the wild flower garden are far away, most of them in the Invisible Country-and the garden itself is irreparably and forever gone. Gone do we say? Nay, verily. It lives and shall live, "God's colors all are fast." Its blossoms take their place, beautiful, fragrant, immortal, among the asphodels. In 1836, a gentleman who had been here nine months, in writing to friends in the East, said,i "The general face of the country is rolling; a great deal of picturesque scenery, but not much that is bold or romantic. 22 The hills are sometimes considerably elevated, but always by very gradual inclinations, so that we have no land that can be called broken, or is not capable of being easily tilled. The appearance of the greater part of the country, may be conveyed very correctly by the term hillsdale, which is the name given to one of our counties lying about 80 miles east of this beautiful, sloping hills, interrupted by equally beautiful rolling dales. Conversing with an intelligent English gentleman a few evenings since he observed that "in almost any part of the country you 'might fancy' you were looking upon the elegant park and lawn attached to a nobleman's villa." Another writer, somewhat inclined to romantic description says, "We have sometimes, rough blasts, but generally nothing more than a gentle breeze. The skies are as beautiful as the pleasant skies of New England; many a night have I sat on the banks of the St. Joseph, when the breeze gently breathed among the leaves, and the radiant light of the moon danced along its waters and sighed, tho vainly,, for the Indians barge, that I might gently float on its bosom." And again, "I would much rather skim along the surface of the St. Joseph in my jolly bark, where I could view on either side extensive and beautiful landscapes, with here and there a mansion towering in the distance; the dam and fawn bathing in the crystal stream, and listen to the sweet notes of the warbler, than to pass by any other course to any point west of here." South of Niles, various species of oak, hickory, poplar, and black and white walnut predominated, but to the north, the hard woods extended for miles in unbroken forests, from here to Lake Michigan. Toward the lake there was much white pine and hemlock in places, but forests of beech, maple, whitewood and white oak composed most of the forests which D. B. Cook describes in an account of a trip to Charlotteville, which was near where Bridgman now stands, "situated in the midst of the best timbered land in the county, there is much pine, and an endless quantity of whitewood, oak, beech maple and hemlock. Whitewoods of enormous size, stand in every direction and on all sides for miles." These forests were lumbered off and millions of feet of 23 lumber went to rebuild Chicago which was burned in 1871. A hunting trip to the Grand Marais, which is a few miles south of St. Joseph on the shore of the lake, found "an immense cedar swamp, which would be of immense value, if it was near civilization. The cedar stands very thick, and many trees are over two feet through. The Coolidge history tells of "many giant trees which were found, a walnut tree in Three Oaks township was twenty-five feet in circumference; a white ash, in the same township, was four feet through, one in Weesaw township, was five feet through, and cut six logs. Large whitewoods were common of three or four feet. Silas Sawyer, from ten acres, cut and sawed four hundred thousand feet of whitewood. From one whitewood four feet in diameter, six twelve-foot logs were cut, and one ten-foot. Wm. Valentine had a hollow black walnut on his farm, twenty-nine and a half feet in circumference, and sawed one that was sound, that was six feet in diameter, and cut four twelve foot logs, and Mr. Chamberlain tells of seeing the stump of a sassafras four feet across, from which three twelve-foot logs were taken. A grove of sassafras in Chikaming Township, grew from eighteen to twenty-five inches through, which isn't so large, for there is now one growing in the street at Lakeside, Chikaming Township, which is three feet and ten inches in diameter. Black ash grew to a diameter of thirty-six inches, red oak forty-six inches, hickory four feet, maple three and a half feet, basswood, three and a half to four feet, sycamore four feet. Hollow sycamores were occasionally found six and eight feet in diameter. In the Newton woods in Cass County there still stands a giant elm, one of the largest trees left in Michigan. It once stood, a monster of its species, with a trunk ten feet through, holding aloft its great branches, each as large as the trunks of neighboring trees. Storms have shorn it of its crown, its shattered limbs lie rotting on the ground about it but its sturdy trunk, with it's great buttresses, still stands. The little town of Volinia, is just east of Newton woods, and on the hills to the south there is a wood where the giant whitewoods still stand to lord it over their neigh 24 bors, lifting their heads far above them, heads that in autumn turn to crowns of gold. In the spring, with the soft gray green of new leaves, come thousands of great blossoms, like tulips, which gives the tree its name Lyriodendron Tulipifera which, in the Greek, means the tree bearing tulips. One at least of these old monarchs is six or more feet through, and there are others nearly that, with no limbs for sixty or seventy feet or more. The Indians used to make their great war canoes or pirougues of white wood trunks, hollowing them out by fire and scraping. Often they would be forty or fifty feet in length and six feet across and took at least eight men to handle them. They were also used to carry heavy loads of peltries, camp equipment, and supplies,! and were a slow and tedious means of transport. Charlevoix was amazed at the great number of species of trees in this new county, and well he might be, for the flora of the St. Joseph valley is one of the richest in all America in this respect. One hundred and sixteen species of trees, nearly all indigenous to the valley, have been listed here, while the British Isles have but eleven or twelve which are native there. The strays from other regions may have come in various ways. The migrations of the herds of buffalo may have brought the Iowa crab, a native of the west, and the Ohio buckeye may have spread to the eastern part of the state and then down the St. Joseph valley. The giant poplar, and shingle oak, and Kentucky coffee tree were from the south, and possibly some early voyager may have brought them. It is only a conjecture but it is an interesting one to think about. Some of the conifers which normally are residents of the north, were found here in quite large numbers in early times such as the white pine, hemlock, and cedar both red and white, but the fir and spruce were notably absent, though growing far to the north. Yet the fir and spruce were once common here, as shown by the investigations of Mr. Brittain at a small marshy lake west of Buchanan, where his investigations carried on to a depth of forty-five feet in deposits of peat and marl that were made thousands of years ago,! show the presence of the pollen grains of 25 these species, which would have been not so long after the close of the last ice age. This little lake is now cluttered with water lilies and spatter docks, a fringe of tamaracks lines its shore but all that remains to tell of the forests of spruce and fir of those times of long ago, are grains of pollen dropped there perhaps ten or fifteen thousand years ago. 25a STORIES OF THE BERTRAND ROAD By Ralph Ballard In 1829, Justice, Walling and Lacey laid out the village of Niles, and the plat was registered. Niles was born as a village and was ready to grow. Plans were in the making for a grist mill. The Dowagiac was to be harnessed and the power brought into the town by a race three quarters of a mile long. A bridge across the river was hoped for. A darn was talked of, and many other things were projected for the little village by the St. Joe. Accomplishment was to come only after years of planning about the fireplace in Obed Lacey's grocery and general store at the foot of Main street, where they met on Saturday nights to talk things over. 1834 came and while the village had grown, it only numbered 26 houses, and these were for the most part on Main street or north of it. But the town was growing, there was no mistaking that. A little bunch of Presbyterians, lonely for the church associations to which they were accustomed, were building a church on Fourth street south of Broadway, though all east and south of the location was yet a primeval forest. To the west, reaching to the river, and north to Main street, the land had been cleared and planted to corn. Looking up the river from the location of the present Broadway bridge, it seemed lonely enough,, as though it might never have known the presence of a white man. The islands were there, three of them, one close by the western shore, which in later years was to become Castor's island, from a man named Castor who owned it and pastured his cows there. It is Island Park now, since the Women's Progressive League bought it and gave it to the city for use as a park. Another island, just above Island park, became Weaver Island, for a man named Weaver built a house there, a lovely place for a house, only sometimes the water would rise suddenly, sending him scuttling for higher land. It is known as Frenches island now, for Frenches own it. And over on the east side of the river, with just a little 26 channel separating it from the bank, was a third island. In 1834, it was just another island, without a name, but when the town grew big enough so that people began to want a place to go picnicing, and began to look around for a convenient spot, the island seemed the ideal place to go. By that time the place had ceased to be an island, for a great storm had caused a washout somewhere near Bond street, and the little channel had washed full making it a part of the mainland. There was, though, one place, probably fed by springs, where the water spread out to form a little pond which was called Eden's eddy. In the winter, when the thermometer would get away down toward zero, and the ice would grow thick and safe, it was a famous place for skating, and the boys and girls would go down and build fires on the ice, which would give them light to see by and also a place where they could warm themselves when they got cold, and many happy hours were spent there skating on Eden's eddy. Eden's eddy is now just a weedy pond, the haunt of frogs and turtles. On the bluff, where the engine house and police station now stand, there used to be a house which was occupied by one Benjamin Y. Collins, better known as Benny Collins. I don't know whether he built the house or not; at any rate he lived there. The house was later known as the F. C. Schmidt house, and all the little Schmidts grew up there, a happy-go-lucky, care-free bunch, with old Mary Cannon as "hired girl" and general fac totum. Anyway Benny lived there, and I think died there. He came to Niles in 1834 with a kit of cobblers tools looking for a location, and started a shoe shop, which eventually grew to be, for that time, quite an emporium, employing 15 cobblers, and he stayed in business for 15 years. He and the other shoe makers of the town built a tannery at Dickerville, which was near Watervliet, of which The Niles Democrat has this to say, "The Niles Shoemakers union carry on here an extensive tanning business, and judging from appearances, business is made to move rapidly along. Hemlock bark is used in the tannery, taken from a large tract of land in the vicinity owned by the union. A small stream of water, from living springs, passes through it, which is used by the tannery." 27 About 1849, Benny started in the brick business. His clay came from the west side of the river, south of Clay street, and here he built his kilns and baked his brick. The mounds along the river bank, just north of the entrance to Island Park are not, as some suppose, mound builders works, but are the refuse from the brick yards of B. Y. Collins. Some of the finest buildings in Niles were built of brick made in the Collins yards. Taken all in all, Mr. Collins was a remarkable man and did much for the upbuilding of his home town. But he was a man who had his ideosyncrasies. Among others, he had an irritable disposition. His wife, a little mild-tempered woman, learned to respect his fits of temper, and when she would see him coming home in one of them, she would run for her bedroom and lock herself in, leaving him to vent his anger on the dishes, the furniture, or whatever came to hand. On one occasion, he had loaded his dump cart with a heavy load of bricks, and started for some building that was in course of erection over in town. All went well until he had reached the middle of the bridge at the foot of Broadway hill, and then the pin that held the box in place worked out and up went the box and dumped the whole load. Anger overpowered him, and seizing a brick in each hand, he waded in and hammered them until not a whole brick was left in the load. Then he gathered up the pieces and threw them vengefully over the railing into the river below,, where they remain to this day. But one day Benny was sick, he didn't feel like going to work, and with his red flannel night gown wrapped closely about him, he decided he would stay in bed and maybe sleep off his indisposition. His neighbor, just over the fence, kept chickens, and among them was a big rooster, that felt his importance, and proposed that the world should know about it. He crowed and crowed and got up on the fence and crowed, and finally got down on the Collins side of the fence and flapped his wings and crowed even louder. Every time he crowed, old Benny got madder until, clad only in his night gown, which he lifted high so as not to impede his leg action, he sallied forth for vengeance on the unwary rooster. What a chase it was, up and down the cabbage rows, through the sweet corn, and the gooseberries that scratched 28 his legs unmercifully, until at last the frightened, hardpressed bird saw a chance and darted under the house, which stood up off the ground a little way. But Benny was close behind,i and under the house he went, hunching himself along through the dead leaves and trash, until well along, when he found himself unable to go any farther, and when he attempted to back up, he couldn't do that either. He was hopelessly stuck, his shirt had caught on a nail, and try as he would he couldn't get loose. HiP only alternative was to yell for help, which he did, but for some time no one heard him, but at last his wife thought she heard something and located him. Then the problem was how to get him out, which was finally solved by taking up some of the floor boards and fishing him out, scratched, dirty, covered with cobwebs, and in a general mess. He crawled back into bed content for once, at least, to let the rooster crow. If we stroll along up the river on the old C. W. and M. track, on the right is the island, and it was here that they used to hold their picnics and celebrations. To get to it, one left Broadway just at the end of the bridge. I remember about 1880, when they held the G.A.R. state encampment there, and what a spectacle it was with posts from all over the state, with bright uniforms, and much bedecked officers, with colors flying, and fife and drum corps playing 'madly those old favorite tunes, Yankee Doodle, and The Girl I Left Behind Me. Then there was the parade, with the brass bands, and drum majors with their tall busbys and staffs, and the officers riding proudly at the head of their troops. The Governor and his staff were present, and there were speeches and fire works in the evening, and a grand time generally. And there was a poor woman, sitting on a stump, holding a fretful baby, to which she was feeding peanuts, and as the baby had no teeth with which to chew them, she was chewing them, and when they were well chewed, was stuffing them into the mouth of the eager infant. What, oh what, would our present day authorities on child culture say to that? The Island was a favorite place for us to go during the noon hour, when we were going to school, and we used to 29 shoot at a mark, with a little deringer pistol that Hugh Edwards owned. Among the bunch was Elgin Dodge, his name was Horace Elgin, but he didn't like the Horace so he was called Elgin. Later he and his brother John moved to Detroit and while there got into the automobile business. It is said that they were the inventors of the original Ford engine. At any rate they were in business with Henry Ford, but dissolved partnership and there was much litigation to determine who was the inventor of the engine. John was older than Elgin and he used to work around his father's machine shop, which was located up near the Michigan Central passenger depot. That was when the old high wheel bicycles came in fashion and John was too poor to buy one, but he made himself one that was just as good as those the other boys had that they paid $100 or $200 for. Neither one of the boys was much in school, but when anything in the line of machinery was involved, then they were in their element and did fine work. Elgin was a red-headed, freckled-faced little tough, not afraid of anything, and could whip his weight in wildcats. He was inclined to be more or less of a bully, and was not any too popular among his school mates. I think they left town about 1880 or '81, and we didn't hear much about them until they became famous in the auto industry. They used to come back once in a while to visit, and were very kindly and helpful to some of their old friends, among them Mr.' J. S. Tuttle, who had been their Sunday School teacher, and when financial difficulties overtook him, they stood by and helped him out. They wanted at one time to do something for their old town. Their idea was a park system to take advantage of Niles beautiful river frontage, and they would have done it, but certain residents were so afraid it would raise their taxes, and made such a fuss about it, that the Dodge Bros. became disgusted with the whole project and withdrew their offer. When the railroad came it ruined the Island, for it went right through the middle of it, and it was abandoned. A bit farther up the river, is where Bond street comes down and crosses Silverbrook, where it ripples down to meet the river. This was called Bond street, from the Bond family, who laid out the Bond addition to the city of Niles, which takes in the land east of the hill. Judge Bond was a New Hampshire man, who came to Lockport, N. Y. in 1815, and became one of its founders. In 1834 he came to Niles, accompanied by his two sons, George N. and Henry,, who bought land and laid out the portion of the city known as Bond's addition. This was the road to South Bend in those days, though not much of a road-just a rutty trail along the river. At the foot of Bond street hill a distillery was erected by Wm. McOmber, which provided the wherewithall for many a high time when whiskey was considered one of the necessities of life. The clear waters of Silverbrook were used in the business. The distillery was destroyed by fire and was not rebuilt. A man named Hess used to net sturgeon here, in the river, and kept them impounded in Silverbrook, by making a fence of poles driven in the bed of the stream. He took the eggs from the fish and shipped them to Russia for caviar. A little farther on, near the east end of the present bridge, David Brown, on July 4, 1878, started a grist mill and ran it for a number of years, but eventually moved it to the foot of Broadway hill, just north of the approach to the bridge. It was destroyed by fire about 1890. Just south of this mill was a mill owned by Gitchell and Paine. It was a furniture factory to begin with, and was later changed to a woolen mill, employing a large number of hands, mostly women. On February 15, 1878, it burned to the ground, one of the worst fires in the history of Niles, for the women,, trapped in the upper story, were forced to jump from the windows and many were quite seriously hurt. This fire occurred the same year that Dave Brown opened his grist mill, but at an earlier date. Doubtless his mill would have burned too had it been there at the time of the fire. The Ohio Paper company mills occupied the land just south of the woolen mill, employing many men. They made straw board, from wheat and oat straw, hauled in from the surrounding countryside, and the area east of the race was used as a storage space for this straw until such time as it could be used in the mill. John L. Reddick, and later Carmi R. Smith had the contract for furnishing the straw, and they had a large barn on north Front street where they kept 31 their teams employed in straw hauling. Often they would send out forty or fifty teams after straw, and when they came in loaded with four or five tons of loose straw to a load, it was something. Everybody would have to get out of the road, for they wouldn't turn out for fear of tipping over. Sometimes they would tip over and then they would take a team from another load and hitch it on the side away from which the load was tipped, to a chain which was attached to the binder, which was a stout pole, put over the top of the load, hooked to the ladder at the front and hauled down tight by a windlass at the back end of the load. Then it was up to the team; they were started, and if they stopped soon enough, the load stood upright, but sometimes they would pull a bit too long and then the load would tip over the other way. This was most apt to occur when the men who did the hauling found a place where the farmer who owned the straw stack had a barrel of hard cider and was willing to stand treat. The straw was steamed in great revolving drums, and when the process of steaming was done and the drums were opened, the stench from the steamed straw,, if the wind was right, spread over the town to the great annoyance of the populace. This mill, too, burned and has never been replaced. The fiat to the east and north of the site of the present dam, was an ideal spot for Indian encampments, and it was used for that purpose for hundreds of years before the white settlers came. It was here that Aniquibba, the greatest chieftain the Pottawatomies ever had, the great hereditary Sachem of them all, had his village where he would be close to the French mission, and the blacksmith who formed part of the mission party. A little farther south, on the land now partially overflowed by the waters of the dam, which raises the level of the river ten or twelve feet, is the site of old Fort ST. JOSEPH, and here Squire Thompson, the first white man with the exception of the French, who had been gone for about seventy years, and McCoy, who established his Mission west of the river the preceding year, came to settle in the valley of the St. Joseph. It was 1823, and he had followed the trail made by McCoy from Fort Wayne, just a faint trace 32 through the wilderness of trees and swamps, and had at last reached the mission, where he stayed for a time while he was looking for a location. He chose this land by the river, just why, we do not know, but probably because it may not have had too much growing upon it, as it had been occupied by the French as a trading post for a century or two. In the time that had elapsed since that occupancy, it probably would not have had much growth that required clearing off before he planted his corn. He planted three acres, but while he was preparing to plant his crop, a number of Indians visited him and tried to intimidate him by telling him that they did not wish him to plant corn as their ponies would break in and destroy it, which would make trouble. Mr. Thompson, after parleying for a while and reminding them of the various treaties by which the Indians had ceded lands, told them cooly: "that he would raise corn or die." At this they gave a grunt, and saying "much brave" paddled across the river in their canoes, and he was not molested. In the fall he returned to Ohio for his family, and when he came back, found his crop destroyed by evilly disposed Indians. But he was not to be discouraged and soon built a cabin to shelter his family, which consisted of a wife and two children. He brought food from Indiana for the winter,, and a daughter was born to him at Carey, who was later Mrs. Rachel Weed, the first white child born in the St. Joseph valley, excepting, of course, the French, who were noted for their large families and who had many children here in their settlements beside the river as the records,i still preserved, indicate. James Kirk came in 1824, and for a while he occupied a house in the same yard as Thompson, but afterward built a house on the west side of the ravine near the depot. John Lybrook came to Michigan, arriving in December, 1823. He came to assist Squire Thompson in moving, and when first starting, intended to go only fifty or sixty miles but, as circumstances seemed to require it, he came the whole distance, and assisted in putting up the log house and getting things ready for winter, which was fairly upon them. But he returned to Ohio in 1824; not, however, to remain for he started again for Michigan 33 that same year,! and put in a crop of corn at Indian Fields, below Niles, at what is now River Bluff. Squire Thompson, was a strong man physically as well as mentally, a jack of all trades, being something of a lawyer, a merchant, farmer, politican, guide, interpreter, hunter and trapper, but he was not satisfied with his location, and was looking for one that suited him better. In 1826 he moved to a place on Pokagon Prairie, just north of Summerville, where he erected a brick house which is still standing and occupied at the present day. It is said that in 1829, when settlers began to come in more plentifully, that Joseph Bertrand, Jr., and Job Brookfield were living here in the double log house that Thompson had built. There were also several cabins or outhouses, and a barn with a thatched roof, which stood under the hill, and there were also a half dozen old apple trees on the place. Bertrand was the son of Joseph Bertrand, the old French trader, at the post a few miles up the river, which was named Bertrand in his honor and Job Brookfield was the man, who in 1832, raised a company to fight the Indians in the Blackhawk war. His brother, Wm. Brookfield, was a surveyor and did most of the surveying in this part of Michigan and northern Indiana, when the country was being opened up for settlement. The apple trees grew on the side hill west of the boulder that marks the site of the fort, and were very large, and apparently very old trees, at the time the first white settlers came. It is probable they were part of the orchard that Louis Chevalier, who was Kings man here about 1760, regretted so to leave when he was forced, by those high in authority, to go to Michilimackinac for questioning. When Thompson first broke up this land he is said to have unearthed quantities of relics. They lay in heaps in the fence corners, old gun barrels, flints, and piles of similar articles, which showed that this had been the scene of many hard fought battles in its's day. Old settlers thought the old fort stood up on the high land just south of the boulder monument. The boulder, when it was placed, was not put directly on the spot where the fort had stood, for no one knew just where that was, so a spot was chosen near the road, 34 for all this ground is historic, and whether the monument was on the exact spot or not didn't seem to matter. The record of the first survey made of this place, by Wm. Brookfield, has this to say, "Town 7, range 17 west. Beginning at quarter section corner and proceeding west on the south side of section 35, 66.50 rods, is an Indian trail, north." This would have been about where the Bertrand road is now. "At 78 rods, and due north 4 rods, was an ancient fort, in the form of a crescent, with banks five feet high, encircled with a ditch eight feet wide." The embankment "in the form of a crescent", has long since been leveled, but we still have the question, Was this Fort St. Joseph? Is it probable the fort would have been placed so far from the river, which was the route by which they came and went. And is it not possible that this crescent shaped mound of earth, surrounded by its ditch eight feet across, is the remains of some old mound builders work, of a date antedating the French and Indians by hundreds of years. In support of this theory is the fact that while no relics are found around this embankment on the site by the river, where Mr. Thompson planted his corn, great quantities have been found, making it probable that this may have been the location of the fort, where but a few steps would separate the voyageur from the safety of the fort, and where his canoe and all its contents could have been easily carried. In the early times no one thought much of Indian relics. They were common every where, they were picked up, and then cast aside as useless, interesting, but hardly worth keeping. To be sure, there were some, like Clement L. Barron, and Mrs. Harry Gephart, who treasured them, but it was not until about 1890, that Fort St. Joseph began to be talked about, and people began to wonder just where the old fort had stood, what its history had been, who had been stationed there, what had happened there. At about that time four citizens of Niles became keenly alive to the possibilities excavation held out as a means of answering some of these questions. These men were Lewis H. Beeson, a member of one of Niles' oldest families, whose father Wm. H. Beeson, was assistant surgeon in the Blackhawk war, and who had himself been mayor of Niles; Mr. 35 E. H. Crane who had all his life, been interested in archaeology, and kindred subjects, and who had studied Indians all over the country from Michigan to California, had a museum at Grand Rapids, and later opened the mounds at Sumnerville; Mr. Wm. Hilles Smith, who was a cement contractor here for many years and a collector, not only of Indian artifacts, but of all sorts of things that were of interest to him; and Mr. E. D. Lombard, who was a retired railroad man, who had much the same interests, as far as collecting went, as Mr. Smith. These men, who had a little society of their own which was quite exclusive, its motto being "We four and no more", became frequent visitors at the "Battle Ground", as it was called, and they found much to interest them, but always they would come back to the excavation idea, so at last they got the boys of the town interested. The boys were to provide themselves with sieves, in which they were to dig up some of the earth, then take it out in the river and wash it out for relics. This became quite an industry with the boys, for when their luck was good and they found something interesting in their seives, the four men would buy it of them, thus adding to their collections, at the same time adding to the boys store of pocket money. Well, this went on for some time, until the Frenches, who owned the property, began to think they were overdoing it, and were going to wash the whole place into the river, and put a stop to it. But before that happened, they had found an almost incredible amount of material, much of which may be seen in the Fort St. Joseph Historical Museum; material which shows that the little flat beside the river had been a camping ground and trading place of the Indians for probably hundreds of years, long before the advent of the whites. Flints comprised the most numerous class of artifacts found, and these were of many types, long slim ones used for drills; all sorts and shapes of arrow points, some with their edges beveled, so that they would whirl in flight, and make an ugly wound; some with rounded bases; the hunting arrows, that could be drawn from a wound without much effect; others with barbed bases, that were war arrows, and could not be withdrawn without lacerat 36 ing the wound and making it worse. Others still were tiny three cornered points, that were said to be typical of the Iroquois, and must have been left here when they made some of their bloody raids in one of which they drove all before them to refugees in Wisconsin, across Lake Michigan, and for more than a decade Michigan was a land deserted. There were many other types of arrows with many types of bases, and points,; but all equally deadly in the hands of an Indian. And there were spear heads, and lance heads, and implements of the same shape but too large to afford good penetration, for spears, that were used as knives and scrapers, and fish scalers and when attached to handles, could be used as hoes and war axes. Then there were the stone implements, axes, some with a groove all the way around, with a ridge on each side of the groove, which is called the Michigan axe, because it is rarely found outside of our state, some with the groove three-fourths of the way around, so that a wedge could be inserted between the axe and the withe that bound it to the handle, to tighten it. One axe was made of hematite or iron ore; one can't imagine how they shaped it with only stones to chip it. There are many axes and celts of stone, which have no groove, but which may be attached to a handle by withes and used as an axe or tomahawk, and they were used as skinners to remove the pelt of a deer, or bison, or bear. There were discoidal stones, that were used in games, as were the round ones which might also be used as war clubs if wrapped in a piece of buckskin and lashed to a handle, or as weights to sink the fish nets. There were pipes of many sorts, large and small. Peace pipes of the red pipestone, that the Indians used to go so far to get, away up in Minnesota, to the red pipe stone quarries, that Longfellow made famous in his Hiawatha. Of the chips that were left from making the peace pipe trinkets, pendants, amulets, and effigies of the animals they caught in the chase, such as the muskrat, and beaver, were made. These articles date back to the years of long ago, before the white men came to trade and barter with the Indians. But then there came a change; the bow and arrow were giving place to the flint lock gun,i and flint implements, to implements of iron and steel. This was in 37 the later years of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, when the French first appeared on the scene. Then articles that denoted French influence began to make their appearance, and one thing in particular was found in quite large quantities, brandy bottles, or pieces of them, for brandy was a great civilizing influence with the traders, and if they could get an Indian drunk enough, he would sell or trade anything he possessed for more whiskey. But there were other things besides brandy bottles; there were copper kettles, which as soon as they began to leak and were useless for cooking purposes, were cut up for other uses, some into little three cornered pieces for arrow heads, and some into pieces that were rolled into little cylinders, to attach to the fringe on their garments, to tinkle agreeably when they moved. They had little bells of bronze or silver that they used on the fringe of their leggins, and in their hair or as necklaces. There were many kettle ears found, all that were left of kettles that boiled above the camp fires and cooked the stew of bear or deer or dog, or anything else that the man of the family brought in to show he was a good provider. And here is a little contrivance, it is called a caltrop, and is a bit of iron with four barbed fingers which are so bent that no matter how one throws it down, one barbed point always stands erect. These were thrown in the Indian trails when they were being pursued, in the hope the fleeing Indian might step on the bard and so injure himself as to make escape next to impossible. There were bullets too, many of them, that could tell of fighting, and hunting, and some of them show tooth marks which shows that some one was badly hurt, and had to have surgical attention. In those times, there being no anaesthetics to be had, the next best thing was a bullet which was given the sufferer to chew on so that he wouldn't yell while he was having his operation. There were quantities of bones; many a fine buck or doe was consumed around the open fire, and the bones left to the dogs, which couldn't manage to crack the bigger ones, so the man of the family hammered them on a stone and here we have them; bones cracked lengthwise to get the marrow. There are other bones and teeth, the big canine teeth of the bear drilled to make pendants and necklaces. There are elk, and beaver teeth, long and curved, that made short work of the birch and poplar trees along the creeks, that they felled for their winter food supply. And buffalo teeth; all the prairie south and east of here was called Park au Vasche, by the French, or cow pastures, by the Indians, because vast heards of buffalo used to graze there, or wallow in the wet places where springs bubbled forth. There are bones and teeth of many others, panther, lynx, antelope, wild turkey, whose hollow bones made some of the bird calls found here. Bones of about 16 animals were found here and doubtless those of many of the smaller animals and birds, such as opossum, wood chuck, squirrel, and ducks and geese and prairie chicken, which provided the foundation for many a feast, have decayed and mouldered into dust long ago. But speaking of feasts around the camp fires, the French, and the English as well, used to love their tea and there are many fragments of old pottery found here, decorated pottery, the designs on which date away back two or three hundred years. These pieces of china and earthenware were the cherished possessions of their owners who may have brought them from France years before, and what a shock it must have been when a cup was broken. It might have been mended temporarily, but not for long; and for that, they would have had to get a wild duck's egg to provide the white of egg for the mending. As for tea, they might have had a little, brought from the old country, by some recent arrival, but there were many substitutes, such as avens root, and New Jersey tea, and sassafrass, and spice bush, and peppermint, and spearmint, though the peppermint and spearmint, they wouldn't have had unless they bought the seed with them and raised the plants, for they are not natives of this country and have escaped from cultivation. There were blanket seals, which protected the owner of the roll of cloth from loss by pilferers, for the inner corner was drawn out and sealed by the lead seal to the outer corner, making all secure. And there were hooks and eyes, and brass and copper pins, and even safety pins, for some 39 clever fellow had invented them and they were in use, even then. And there were some of the couriers du bois, who loved music, and so did the Indians for that matter, "music hath charms to soothe the savage breast", and there are the remains of many jewsharps, the tongues are rusted away, but they were the instruments they used, as they lay about the campfire in the evening to play the old tunes and dream of the happy days in France which they might never know again. But campfires necessarily call for some way of lighting them, and the inventive genius of man had been at work. They had advanced far beyond the Indian method of twirling a stick to get a spark, and had originated the flint and steel. We find many of them here, just an oblong washer-like jigger that one thrust his fingers through, and then struck it on the flint. The resulting spark was caught on a piece of punk, which was usually the old dead wood from the inside of the maple tree and was quickly blown into a flame, That, with a few chips and shavings added, was soon the cheery campfire, with the kettle boiling over it. Here is where the pothooks came in handy for hanging the kettle over the fire, and pot scrapers, which were to keep the kettle clean, and not allow too great an accumulation of soup around the edges. And here is an odd thing, a bunch of beads, and silver crucifix all melted together in a lump. Evidently some one had leaned too far over the fire, to stir the soup, or poke the fire, and his string of beads broke and before they could be rescued, were melted together into this mass. Rings were found of all kinds; plain and set rings; religious and signet rings; friendship rings with hearts interwined, and seal and Masonic rings, and many others, mostly not of precious metals. There is much of sentiment attached to these old rings friendship, love, loyalty, honor, religious rings. I wonder how many of them are wedding rings, lost by some young bride, and searched for frantically, and last of all are baby rings, tiny things, for the chubby finger of some little prattler, long since grown to man or womanhood and dead and buried and the grave forgotten. There were silver charm boxes or spoon lockets. One of them was found by Cory Phelps, Payne Phelps' father, 40 somewhere around the foot of Bond street hill, and it had some bits of glass in it which he shook out, or he thought they were glass, but afterward he wondered, could they have been diamonds? But a search for them failed to find anything, they were hopelessly lost. The finding of shoe buckles and knee buckles, shows that some of those old Frenchmen and Englishmen had some class to them, and there were also belt buckles and belt hooks. And knives were found by the hundred, mostly scalping knives, and hunting knives. A knife was a very essential part of man's equipment in those days, and some of these may have had a very bloody history, if we could know it. There were other kinds of knives, too, large hunting knives, we call them bowie knives now, and pocket knives, that look much like those we carry today. Even a few case knives, and teaspoons and tablespoons so we know that some, at least, of the elite used to sit up to the table and spoon in their victuals, even though most of them just used their fingers. And axes, one has a piece welded on its edge, which looks as though the axeman had the misfortune to break it, and had to go to the blacksmith, and have it repaired. Tomahawks, one wonders how many heads were cracked by just one of them. Ox shoes, one to be nailed to each half of the hoof, these must date to about Revolutionary War times, when they began to have oxen here. Ornaments of silver were favored by the Indians, as one can see, for the most part, small pieces which were cut from large pieces such as arm and neck bands, and medalions. These small pieces were used as bangles,, ear rings, necklaces, and the like. There were some silver bracelets, and many of copper and brass, and some of just wire. Locks and handles were found for the little wooden chests, in which the traveler carried his personal belongings, and there were keys for the locks, but the locks were so rusty that a key wouldn't work in them. Sometimes the door to the cabin was hung on wooden hinges, but often iron was used, as these hinges and staples show. Nails, all hand wrought by a nail maker, such as La Salle took with him in 1678, he made small nails too and tacks, all hammered out on an anvil one at a time. The blacksmith made other things besides nails, fish 41 hooks for example, some big ones for catching sturgeon and other large fish, but all of them with a straight shank, for no one had thought at that time of making a hole in the end to tie the fishline to, and they had to bind the hook to the line with a piece of gut. The blacksmith looked after the guns of the Indians, and this was sometime no job for an amateur, for some of the guns were just trade guns, made of gas pipe, which would burst when the owner happened to get a little extra powder in his excitement when he had a dandy shot at something. But there were others that were real guns that could be depended on when a man's life was at stake. Some of these were highly ornamented with the stocks and locks engraved and chased, with brasslocks and ram rod guides and butt plates. Of course they were all flint locks in those times, for percussion locks were not invented until about 1840, so they had to have flints, which were imported from France, but were later made from flint secured in this country. One had to have a good sharp flint or it might not spark, and if it didn't spark, then the gunner was in bad, especially if his adversary happened to be quick on the trigger. Sometimes a bullet got stuck in the barrel, and then it had to be extracted which is what the bullet screws were used for. Scissors were not uncommon. There were several pairs found, and thimbles, some for the thumb, but that is the way they were originally worn, which accounts for the name, thumb bell. There were needles, some small ones, but mostly saddler's needles, three cornered, and curved, and with these they sewed up the bales of peltries, that were first pressed into as little space as possible. Trade beads were found in great quantities, which were shipped from Europe for trade with the Indians. These came largely from France and England, but other countries also furnished a share of them. It is said that the Thames river in England was at one time lined with warehouses filled with them for shipment to the colonies. They were of wonderful variety. Many small embroidery beads were used in beading the moccasins and sleeves and pouches, quivers and the like. There were large beads used for necklaces and hair decorations, and there were many materials used in making them. Glass predominated of course, but there were those made of silver, bone, shell and one or two were inlaid; hundreds of kinds, in fact. There is just one more specimen, and that a very interesting one, is a link and button device that looks much like a link cuff button, and bears the device of Good Queen Anne, the open rose, the thistle and crown, with the motto, "Semper eadem ",which means, "Always the same". The motto was that of Queen Elizabeth, and was adopted by Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714. Of course no one knows where this emblem came from, but it might have been lost in a scuffle at the time of Pontiacs' Rebellion, when the British, who then held the fort, were surprised and all but three of their number killed. There are many legends - one can hardly call them traditions - clinging about the river and the old trading ground that may or may not be true. One concerns the naming of the river. It was called "the Miami" by La Salle, when he came up it in 1679, but that was changed to St. Joseph when the mission was established in 1690. The Pottawatomies had called it the Sauk-wauk-silbuck long before La Salle came, and by the Miami it was known as the Sau-wau-see-bee. Just why no one seems to know, but they have a legend, which is fanciful, but that was a characteristic feature of the Indian race. It seems there were two twin Indian girls, they were beautiful, and as they wandered by the rvier, they were seen by the Spirit of the river and he was so enamoured of them that he claimed them for his own. They were found drowned by some of their fellow tribesmen, and ever since the river Spirit has taken at least two victims by drowning each year. But aside from the river and its name, there were stories of the old trading ground, one of which was that the garrison at one time was attacked, and so vigorously, that they were forced to abandon the fort and flee for their lives. As they were escaping across the river in their canoes, one of their peterieroes, as they called their little cannon, was accidently lost overboard, and was never recovered and is somewhere in the bottom of the river to this day. This may be a legend; on the other hand it might be true for they had peterieroes and they used them to frighten the Indians, more by their noise than for any damage 43 they might do otherwise, and one might have been lost. Old timers used to say that they knew just where it was and could recover it any time they wanted to, but the fact is they never did and now no one can even claim to know any thing about it. There was another story that sounds a bit more credible. It is based on an old newspaper clipping which is undated, but reads as follows, "Over half a century ago, Old Chief Bertrand, (after whom Bertrand township was named) told the editor of this paper that the old French post up the river from Niles near a mile, was stormed by Indians from Buffalo, and all but three of the French mission were put to death, the three who escaped returned to France. In the night time the band secreted themselves in a thicket near the river. The first killed was a woman, who came to the well to get a pail of water. An arrow pierced her and she fell dead near the well, which was situated near two crabapple trees. (Many now living here will remember those old large trees.) In the well was thrown a large amount of French sovereigns, and on the bank of the river, in the earth, was still more; the latter were supposed to be found by the man who drove the first coach for passengers to the Central railroad in 1848, Ransom Dorp. "He was known to work often on the river bank, with pick and shovel, and ceased suddenly. He bought large domains near Dowagiac, and became very wealthy. The well was filled up by floods soon after the massacre, and no trace of it was ever found, although many have hunted for it; the last one heard of being Robert Chambers, deceased, who tilled the premises." There were a few mistakes in this story as told to one of the first editors to get out a paper in Niles, but they are not of very great importance. For example, Bertrand is spoken of as "Old Chief Bertrand" when we all know he was a French trader, and had a trading post about four miles up the river at Park au Vasche, which was later called Bertrand. He married an Indian woman and they raised a family of children who, in their day, became prominent citizens. The massacre spoken of must have been Pontiacs, which took place in 1763, when all but three of the British, who held the fort, were massacred. The crabapple trees were seedling apple trees and stood on the side hill west 44 of the boulder. They were very old, and of great size. One that was measured by Mr. George Hoppin, was three feet in diameter. They were supposed to have been planted by Louis Chevalier who, after the British gave up the fort and withdrew their troops, acted as Kings Man and had charge of everything. In one of his letters he speaks of his orchards. There were the sovereigns,' too, which were called French, but which, if there were any at all, must have been British, as the British were in possession of the fort at the time, and the French had no sovereigns in their coinage. There is another version of the same story. In this version the well was used as a receptacle for valuables it was difficult for the people to take with them, in their flight, and they were thrown into the well and then it was filled up with stones, which, as far as any one knows, have never been removed. It is an interesting subject, and one has an urge to try his hand at digging for buried treasure, though there would be no doubloons and pieces of eight to dig for here, just sovereigns. Jacob Beeson came to Niles as a young man in 1829. He came on foot with two other men from St. Joseph, by a trail through the woods, which some previous traveller had blazed by nicking an occasional tree with his axe, to remove a piece of bark, thus making it possible to follow the trail by following the blazes without danger of getting lost. He had opened a store at St. Joseph, but he was dissatisfied with the location, and moved to Niles where he found a better market for his goods, and soon sold all that he had and returned to the east for another stock. He was supposed to have a dry goods store, but he carried crockery and other things in stock, and when he started back for new supplies, he had but one set of cups and saucers left. He planned on a trip by horseback, and bought a set of saddle bags in which to carry his money which was, for the most part, gold and silver coin, but there was also some U. S. bills. The customers for the new store came from far and near; from Door Prairie, 38 miles west, and from the whole north and northwest country, and from the country to the east which is now Cass but in those days was just woods 45 and little prairies with an occasional lake, and a few settlers living in log cabins. In 1833, Jacob Beeson and his brother, William, erected a warehouse at the foot of Sycamore street, the first warehouse erected in Niles, which was occupied by Job Beeson, who had arrived in the fall of 1830 in the conduct of a commission and forwarding business. Jacob Beeson was in the mercantile business in 1832, when he was joined by Wm. B. Beeson,, who continued in the business until 1849 when he sold out to Jacob and went to California. About 1844 or '45, Jacob was packing great quantities of pork, thousands of barrels, at the old warehouse on Front street that burned down in 1867 and Geo. N. Bond with his big cleaver would cut up a hog in three minutes and Ezra Chapman, (the old sheriff) would do the packing. The pork was bought for $2.00 to $2.50 per hundred pounds, came in from forty miles around, and was shipped by boat to St. Joseph, and then around the lakes to eastern markets. Mr. Jacob Beeson believed that every man owed a debt of service to his community so when, in 1840, he was elected to the office of president of the village of Niles, he accepted the responsibility and served to the best of his ability. He was the second to hold the office in the history of the town, the first incumbent being Erasmus Wilson, who was eiected in 1839. He had been elected as the first supervisor of Niles township in 1832. At that time Niles township included all of Berrien county. In those days, the building of roads was an all important task and many roads were projected, but not many were built. The legislative council of the Territory of Michigan, passed acts authorizing the laying out of these roads, and one was to begin at the village of Niles, in Berrien county, thence running in the most direct and eligible route through the county seat of Kalamazoo county to the village of Saginaw, in Saginaw county,. and Jacob Beeson was chosen as one of the commissioners, the others being Lucious Lyons and Ephriam Williams. That was in March and April 1833. On the seventh of March, 1834, a road was laid out and established from Niles on the most direct and eligible 46 route, to the mouth of the Galien river, and Jacob Beeson, Erasmus Winslow, and Benjamin Redding, were selected as commissioners. Mr. Beeson was one of the organizers of Trinity Episcopal church, and was one of the first vestrymen. He was also the president of Niles first bank. On the sixth of February, 1836, a meeting of citizens of Cass, Berrien and St. Joseph counties was held at the American hotel in Niles, and passed resolutions requesting the legislature of the state to grant a charter to a bank, to be known as the Bank of Niles, with a capital of $200,000 with the privilege of increasing to $500,000, and Jacob Beeson was elected president of the institution. It was a "wild-cat" bank,, however, and lasted for only three years. With his brother, William B. Beeson, he conducted a store on the northeast corner of Front and Main streets, where the brick store was later erected. They sold almost everything imaginable, at wholesale and retail. Among other things were wines and liquors, of which they kept a large stock, but about 1845 a temperance wave struck Niles and the demand for whiskey and other drinks fell off. Whiskey would not sell. Corn was up to 35c a bushel and the few that wanted whiskey exchanged corn for it, a bushel of corn for a gallon of whiskey. The distillers would not sell, except for cash, at 33c to 35c per gallon. The demand fell off so badly that Jacob, writing to his brother, William, who was on a trip to Europe at the time, said he had taken the faucets out of every barrel and keg of liquor in the store and when any one asked for a drink, told them that they were sold out. In 1834, Jacob Beeson built a house on Fifth street, on what is now the location of the Niles city hall. He lived here for about twenty-five years, but sold in 1859 and went to Detroit, where he had been appointed Collector of customs by President Buchanan. He sold to Mr. Reinhart, who was in the clothing business in Niles. Mr. Reinhart lived in the house for many years, the place being known as "The Old Reinhart House". It was moved in 1882 to a location on the north side of Broadway, between Fifth and Seventh streets. It was razed a few years ago, one of the oldest houses 47 in Niles. It was a typical colonial house, with tall columns. The columns were turned from whitewood tree trunks, and each column had a hole about four inches in diameter bored lengthwise through it, which allowed for the shrinking and swelling of the wood. The job of boring the columns was awarded to Moses Davis, who came here in 1834 and started a pump manufacturing shop at the foot of Main street, afterward the site of the wood working shop of Knott brothers. This was the first work he did after locating his pump shop in Niles. Mr. Beeson returned to Niles in 1859 and bought a farm south of Niles. It included within its limits, the grave of Father Allouez, on the bluff overlooking the river, and the site of the "Old Battle Ground," which was on the flat between the river and the bluff. The location was about a mile south of Main street, and here he built himself "a fine brick mansion", which was the scene of many gay dances and parties. The house burned a few years ago and another was built on the foundation walls. For more than a half a century it had stood there facing the west, overlooking the site of the "Old Battle Ground", the gently flowing river, and the golden sunlit hills of the "Reserve" across the valley. In 1867 there was a strong movement toward the construction of a dam at a site selected the previous year on which some work had been done, and a company was organized known as the Niles Manufacturing company. As a preliminary move, a number of citizens had contributed $1,000 each and bought the farm of Jacob Beeson, which lay at the east end of the proposed dam site, consisting of 113 acres, and Jacob Beeson moved to Detroit, thus ending his career as a citizen of Niles. In 1845 Thaddeus Hoppin, who was a native son of the state of Massachusetts, located on a farm just south of what is now Fort street, and adjacent to the Jacob Beeson farm. He had come to Niles in 1844, and had spent the time looking around for a place that suited him. He had quite a family of children, most of whom went to California, but George S. Hoppin stayed,! and succeeded his father in management of the farm. "In 1846 Thaddeus Hoppin cultivated a piece of land about half a mile west of his home, upon which an old 48 fort and mission had been located (this was Fort St. Joseph). The old earth works of the fort had not then been plowed up and old apple trees, still bearing, were growing on the land. The trunk of one of these apple trees which he measured was three feet in diameter, evidencing that the tree had been planted long before the first white settlers came here." (The above is quoted from the Coolidge History of Berrien County.) George S. Hoppin, who succeeded his father, lived and died on the place. The farm had been added to from time to time and at the time of his death contained more than 200 acres. He was supervisor in 1859, and again in 1872, and was an officer of the first Agricultural Society of Berrien County. John Hoppin, George's brother, also lived in this house but he got the gold fever and in 1851 he started for the gold fields of California. He had many exciting adventures. A letter of his, dated, "Divide of the Feather and Sacramento, Aug. 5th, 1951" tells some of them: "I have ended my journey over the plains. Good luck has attended me all the way. I am writing in a wagon under a fine white oak. Twenty-six 'apreas', or Mexican pack saddles, are in the form of a cross,, on the other side of the tree. The Feather river, with banks covered with fine oak trees, is but a few steps off. The water, though not so cool as the mountain ice water, is perfectly clear and good. Toward the distant timber of the Sacramento, the divide is a great meadow of dry hay and bulrushes. A herd of mules is resting in the shade. "Northerly and westerly, I see mountain tops. Some belong to the Sierra Nevada,, and some to the Coast range. The sun is hot here, 'mucho solo', as the Mexican muleteer said when I came here yesterday in the heat. But the sea breeze from the Pacific is always fanning the country. Every night is so cool that no effect of the preceding day's heat is felt. There are but three or four hot hours, no mist and no rot of vegetation to make the air foul. "It was the 28th of July when I reached Hangtown where the Carson route enters California. We had no wagons. I sold mine at Salt Lake City and for it, and other articles, got in exchange one of the largest and best mules, just the animal to carry Mike. I exchanged the Allen pony 49 for another excellent mule. "This was fortunate. A good mule will bring from $100 to $150. We got pack saddles with pads and straps for $3.00, took 75 lbs. of provisions each, and started June 29th, with 14 men in the company. All but two had guns at their saddle horns and good revolvers at their belts. We rested a week at Salt Lake City, and all the wagon trains had got the start of us. One train, that had a captain and had procured fresh mules at the lake,, thought that they would give us a hard race, but I have not seen them since the fifth or sixth day out. "When we came to wide stretches of poison water, we would trot off a long ride to good water and take a rest. When we were coming among the Digger Indians, we overtook nine Missourian Packers, and then had 27 men in company all the way where the Indians might be looked for. The men had quite a martial appearance as they rode over the hills and the rifles could be seen shining when the horses turned to the sun. At night we put our camp in clear places, and three men were on guard all the time. "Have had snow enough to cover the ground. This morning, for the first time, found the earth left in the washers a little stiffened by frost. Have seen no ice since crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains that exceeded a sixteenth of an inch in thickness. The valleys and hills, where vegetation grows, are covered with green foilage or grass. I cannot call the country unhealthy, but men are so much exposed to hardships and dampness that many will lose their health and lives in their anxiety to become rich. Mr. Morton, one of our room mates, after an illness of 29 days of protracted fever, has paid the debt of nature. We buried him on the last day of the year. Death in any country, or under any circumstances, is a melancholy event, but in this desolate region peculiarly so. We buried him in a coffin dug from a pine tree, on an eminence near our cabin, under the shade of two oak trees, far away from home and kindred where, had it not been for gold, no human foot, save the natives of the forest, would ever have been planted. Mr. Morton was a brother-in-law of Mr. Hammel, of Niles, a young man of about 25 years. He made a trip to the city with me for provisions, was taken with a chill the first day we left. I advised him to return 50 to camp and abandon the trip, but he thought it was nothing but common chills and he could stand it. "He did succeed in returning to camp, but disease had so strong a hold on his constitution that all efforts to remove it were in vain. He is the seventh man from Berrien county, who lost his life in the expedition. "Mr. Russell Chipman died on Feather river of scurvy. The particulars of his death we know nothing. The intelligence of his death away from home, and among strangers will, no doubt, be severely felt by relatives and friends of his own family in particular. "This, I hope, will be another link in the chain of evidence showing the folly of men who are well off at home starting on an expedition fraught with such dangers and difficulties. The Berrien county boys in this vicinity are in good health. "We sent to the city a few days since for letters, but the town was inundated with water. The postoffice was, like the rest of the dry weather town, in 10 or 15 feet of water. Flat and small sail boats are running up and down the streets. Those that remain in town occupy the upper story of their buildings. "Many are living in tents on a rise of ground near Sutters' fort. The rain had fallen by the quantity within the last two weeks. The storm has abated and the water is falling. Henry Jennison and Henry Dana are running a boat about the city. The steamboat, Senator, which plies from San Francisco to Sacramento, carried down 1,000 passengers at $50 per head. Flour at the city is worth $36 per ballel. Pork from thirty to thirty-two per ballel. "I should like to tell you, if I had time, about my trip to San Francisco in a small canoe or whaleboat. Sailing through bars which we knew nothing of, in the night, encountering heavy gales of wind, about being lost in the Bay of San Francisco for two days in a thick fog, without chart or compass, out of water and provisions, etc., at one time we thought we were in the Pacific ocean, but time will admit of nothing more at present. "Our room mates are A. M. Church, W. Compton, L. Wittenmeyer, H. R. Hall, and McRodgers, all from Berrien county. The adjoining room is occupied by E. Denniston, Samuel Gray, R. Willard, the three Gepharts and several 51 others who are strangers to you. "The bearer of my letter, is now ready, and I must close". J. H. Hoppin. Niles, June 8, 1852. It is said John Hoppin brought home with him $11,000 and he and the other boys have one-fourth of a 32,000 acre ranch besides "cattle on a thousand hills." Jacob Beeson. In 1847 Mr. George H. Jerome came to Niles. He was a native of the state of New York and a graduate of Hamilton college, and started a law office in the village of Niles, but in 1850 he moved to Chicago, where he engaged successfully in the real estate business until in 1856 when he moved to Iowa City, Iowa, where he was the proprietor and editor of the Iowa City Republican, and leading Republican journal of the state. He was also chairman of the Republican State Central committee, and at the personal request of President Lincoln, was appointed as assessor of Internal Revenue for twelve counties, a post which he held for four years when he resigned and returned to Niles. He bought a home, which was situated on South Third street, which he called Sabine Farm. "Sabine Farm" was just south of the home of Dr. Fred Bonine, which had been a part of the farm. A little brook ran through the grounds and formed a pool which was used as a trout pond. An early writer has this to say in describing it: "Sabine Farm, overlooking the city, and river and the magnificent highlands of the Pottawatomie reservation. "Here, like a Roman Patrician,, he established his villa and tower and, in great part with his own hands, embellished the surroundings with gardens, vineyards, cascades and fountains. Reposing from his toils, in the shadow of his broad oaks and gorgeous maples, he studied philosophy and the arts, and entertained the friends who sought him with elegant hospitality." In 1873, Mr. Jerome was appointed commissioner of state fisheries. Governor Bagley, in urging his acceptance, "seems to have had a serious purpose and an understanding of the fitness of the appointment", for it is as a fisherman that Mr. Jerome is to go down to posterity. 52 "No matter what honors or distinctions he may hereafter achieve in other directions, his fate is fixed. The smell of salmonidae is on his garments. "Once installed as superintendent of state fisheries, he entered upon his duties with his accustomed energy and zeal. Throwing aside the pruning hook, he grasped the trident of our inland seas where, like Neptune, 'He climbed the chariot seat, and rode upon the waves. The whales came forth from their deep haunts, and frolicked round his way; they knew their king.' "Addressing himself sedulously to his task, he soon made himself not only master of the science of icthyology but an expert in all the details of fish-culture. Abounding in fish of the choicest varieties in all her vast waters, Michigan had hitherto given no care to their culture or preservation. The field was an open one and success or failure depended upon him. He had great ends to accomplish with limited means. In glancing over his reports, one is amazed at the magnitude of his labors, and the economy of his expenditures. "It is too soon to estimate the exact value of what he has accomplished, but it is undeniable that he has placed Michigan in the front rank of fish growing states, and reared for himself a monument more enduring than brass, a fame as a naturalist, not to be forgotten as long as trout, white-fish or grayling swim in the blue waters around the beautiful peninsula." Mr. Jerome died many years ago; the house at "Sabine Farm," burned to the ground and was replaced by another; the orchards and vineyards are gone, as are the fountains and cascades, but "the good men do live after them", and the good Mr. Jerome did, in establishing The Michigan Fish Commission, is something every fisherman of today should remember and appreciate. The Bertrand Road, over which men have traveled on foot, on horseback,, by ox team, ox cart, by horse team and lumber wagon, and every conceivable sort of vehicle, from a wheelbarrow to a Cadillac. It was once an Indian trail, then a dirt road, and now it is a paved road, which has come at last to the village of Bertrand, which has a story of its own-a story which we hope to tell at some future time. 53 STORIES OF THE INDIANS OF THE ST. JOE VALLEY By Ralph Ballard In 1780, where a little flower-starred prairie slopes down to the St. Joseph river and the river sweeps in the great horse shoe bend known by the French as "Park-au-Vasche," or cow pastures, where the buffalo came down to drink or wallowed in muddy luxury in the springy spots in the prairie near at hand, a Frenchman, built a small log cabin and established a blacksmith shop. His name was LeClerc, and he had been sent by De Peyster, in command at Detroit, as an armourer to work among the Indians. Those in command endeavored to have a blacksmith at each of the important Indian encampments to keep their equipment in serviceable shape and attend to all the little matters that came up. He sharpened their tomahawks when they were dull, attended to the hoes that the Indian women used to plant their corn and beans, the axes they used to chop wood for their teepee fires, made the fish hooks they used to catch the fish that lurked in the deep pools along the river, and in a thousand ways made themselves useful to their Indian allies. It was a hard lonely life, one that few men would undertake, but LeClerc had not long to wait, for Joseph Bertrand, an Indian trader, decided to start a trading post close beside him, by the ford on the Old Sauk Trail from Chicago to Detroit. Bertrand built his cabin from the logs he brought up the river, that he salvaged from the chapel at Fort St. Joseph, which was the only building that was not burned by the Spanish when they took the fort only a short time before. The trading post existed for many years and eventually the little hamlet that sprung up around it took the name of Bertrand in honor of its founder. Bertrand married a Pottawatomie woman, and in the old cemetery, near the "Ox Bow", is a tombstone that records that the wife of Joseph Bertrand lies below. She was the daughter of Topinabee, the noted Pottawatomie chieftain. 54 At a spot about a mile west of the river at Bertrand where big springs gush forth to form the little Pokagon creek that empties into the river a little above the bridge that now spans the river, stood the village of Pokagon, just south of the "Old Sauk Trail". Here he erected a chapel, for he was deeply religious, and many "Black Robes" celebrated mass there. The old Indian burying ground is located just west of the river and north of Pokagon creek. The standard of the cross still stands to mark the spot where many of the Indians lie. When the spring approached and the sap began running in the maples Pokagon would move with his whole band to a camping ground, just north of where Sumnerville now stands, for the sugar making. John Lybrook, now deceased, used to tell of going to the camp when he was a little boy to play with the Indian children. On one occasion they were playing about a big tank of maple sap,, a section of a huge whitewood tree that had been hollowed out and used as a storage tank for the unboiled sap. One little boy had a dog and some of the larger boys were teasing him, and one of the boys picked the dog up and threw him into the tank of sap and then, amidst great hilarity, they picked up the boy and threw him in, too. Dog and boy both had to swim the length of the tank before they could get out, but the sap seemed not to be injured, and the boy's mother looked on in grinning complaisance. Leopold Pokagon was one of the great Pottawatomie chiefs, being the great Civil chief of all the Pottawatomies, and he it was that led his men to victory in the great battle at Three Rivers in 1798 when, aided by Ottawas from the Grand River and from Kalamazoo, they inflicted a crippling defeat on the Shawnees from Indiana who had planned to wrest from the Pottawatomies their traditional hunting grounds along the St. Joseph and force them to move elsewhere. But by the year 1811, the Shawnees had so far recovered in strength that under the leadership of Tecumseh, whose territory lay along the lower Wabash, they began again to make themselves felt. Tecumseh believed that the whole country was created 55 by the Great Spirit for the exclusive use of the Indians, and that all treaties heretofore made were null and void unless signed by all the Indians in the country. He collected a large force about him in support of this belief and in November, 1811, a battle was fought between the tribes under The Prophet, the twin brother of Tecumseh. Tecumseh was absent at the time, at Tippecanoe on the Wabash, where the American forces,, under Gen. William Henry Harrison, had a battle-which resulted in a disastrous defeat for the Indians. Tecumseh took refuge among the British in Canada. He was killed while fighting on the British side at the battle of The Thames, Oct. 6, 1813. Many Pottawatomies were among his adherents and many from the valley of the St. Joseph were present and fought at the battle of Tippecanoe. But to return to Pokagon. He was a truly great chief, and did much for his people. When "The Reserve", as the last land held by the Pottawatomies was called, the land lying west of the river St. Joseph, and extending from the Indiana line to Moccasins village north of Buchanan, was ceded to the government, Pokagon was the last to sign. As he took the pen and walked to the table to sign the tears ran down his cheeks and fell on his jacket, and on the paper as he said, "I would rather die than do this." He is buried beneath the chapel at Silver Creek. There were half a dozen leading chiefs among the Pottawatomies in the early years of the 1800's. Among them was Shavehead. His favorite home was Shavehead prairie, Cass county, and Shavehead lake bears his name. He was of a surly, quarrelsome disposition, and wore a bristling scalp lock, the rest of his head being shaved. His favorite boast was of the white scalps he had taken at Frenchtown on the river Raisin which he wore as trophies. The old Chicago Road, where it crossed the St. Joseph river at Mottville, was called "The Grand Traverse", and here at the crossing he would stand and demand toll of all who crossed the river. With no grist mill nearer than Pokagon, the settlers all went there to get their grists ground. On one occasion a settler, provoked beyond bounds when Shavehead stopped him at the ford, reached out and grasped him by the scalplock and, with his blacksnake whip in his other hand, 56 administered a threshing from which Shavehead never recovered. No one was ever called upon for toll again. In spite of his ugly disposition he had one friend, a white man, who hunted and fished with him, and drank the poor whiskey of the day. But game was beginning to become scarce and Shavehead was heard to say, "deer getting scarce, white man shoot too many, me stop white man shoot deer." The two old friends went out on a hunt together not long after, but at nightfall the white man returned alone, and Shavehead was never seen again. The mystery of his last resting place was never solved. Topanibee, who was Aniquiba's son, was next to Aniquiba himself, perhaps the greatest chieftain of the Pottawatomies. His village, Swoptock, was situated at the south end of Topinabee lake, afterward known as Gitchells lake. The lake in those days covered a much greater area than it does today, extending far to the north, covering what is now swamp and cultivated lands. Now it is only a weedy pond, choked with water-lilies and splatter-docks, where the grebes build their queer floating nests, and giant bull-frogs boom huskily through the long June nights. Topinabee was a trusted friend of the whites, his only fault being' his thirst for liquor, a habit which was his undoing. When, at the treaty of Chicago, Gen. Cass told him to keep sober so that he might secure a good bargain for himself and his people, he replied, "Father, we do not care for the land, nor the money,, nor the goods; what we want isi whiskey, give us whiskey." Topinabee, at the time of the Dearborn massacre, was in northern Michigan, but rode in great haste when he knew the massacre was on, but too late. Under cover of darkness the wounded commander, Captain Nathan Heald, was smuggled away in a canoe in which he eventually reached the little village of Topinabee, where his wife and the Kinzie family were awaiting him, they having been rescued through the efforts of friendly Indians and conveyed by boat to the village of Topinabee. Captain Heald and his wife were sent to Michilimackinac, where they surrendered to the British. Topinabee's good feeling toward the whites was shown by a little incident in his later life. Isaac Wells (who was the grandfather of Mrs. Clarence Gillette) came to Michigan when about a year old. His parents tried various places, eventually settling in Bertrand township. There were then but five white families residing in that vicinity, and nearly 500 Indians in that part of the "Indian Reserve". He played with the Indian boys and soon became familiar with the Indian language and was able to speak it fluently. When he was eight years old he was called upon to act as interpreter for the Indian Chief Topinabee, who lived near by. He accompanied him on a trip to Tippecanoe on the Wabash river, and was gone for ten days. Upon his return he was presented with gifts which were intended as an expression of gratitude. A fawn skin that had been skillfully tanned and finished was filled with wild honey and given him, and the Chief's son gave him a peace pipe, now in the Cassopolis museum. But the love of strong drink was too much for Topinabee and finally; while under its influence, he fell from his horse and was so badily injured that he died two days later, in July 1826. Liquor was the cause of much of the trouble the frontiersman had with the Indians. Old Chief Leopold Pokagon once said, "Had it not been for liquor there would have been no Fort Dearborn massacre." The great war chief of the Pottawatomies was Weesaw, whose village was in what we now call "the Bend of the River", north of the Carey Mission site, where the road meets the river. The majestic "Greys" bluff lies just to the east, with its crown of beautiful trees it towers up to dominate the river for miles in either direction. Weesaw made his summer home in Cass county. He was excessively fond of display and his costumes were notable for their wealth of adornment. Jimmerson, who wrote a book about the time of Weesaw's occupation of the "Reserve", says of him-"One warm winter day about the last of January, 1835, I stood at Beeson's corner in the village of Niles, looking down the street running parallel with the river (that would have been Front street) and saw a large crowd of men and boys coming toward me. "The central object was an Indian of more than ordinary consequence, apparently fifty or fifty-five years of age, 58 tall and straight as an arrow, with a countenance as grave and dignified as almost to amount to solemnity; he seemed to the sagacious lawmaker more than the swift footed warrior. "He wore a shirt of blue cotton stuff, with leggings and moccasins ornamented with many colored porcupine quills. On the outer edge of each legging was arranged a row of little bells, from the size of an ounce ball to that of a grape shot, the largest being placed at the thigh, the remainder decreasing in size as they reached the ankle. A snow white blanket with ornamented border hung loosely over his shoulders. A large silver broach,! nearly as large as a tea saucer, fastened his shirt at the throat; around his wrists, and also on his arms above the elbow, were elegantly worked silver bands; from his ears hung large silver drops of ear rings. "His head dress consisted of a white band of otter skin dressed with the fur on, and between it and his forehead was thrust a bunch of eagle feathers which, with the large silver crescent that assisted in confining them to their place, added greatly to his stately and dignified bearing. "This was Weesaw, the chief of the Pottawatomies. "As he walked along with his crowd of admirers to the village inn, ever and anon answering their inquiries with brief gutterals, with a dignity that bespoke one born to command, he seemed every inch a man; one in whose breast dwelt noble impulses, generous purposes. "But sad was the fate of this untutored red son of the forest; but a short time after I saw him in the streets of Niles, he was shot by one of his own band, (by his own son) while trying to pacify two of the quarrelsome drunken members. "The Reserve, as it was called, on the west bank of the St. Joseph, opposite Niles, belonged to this tribe. There they often met and joined in song and dance and feast, and there too assembled on these occasions those human vultures that hover over the receding track of the red man as he is pushed westward by the lawlessness and avarice of our race." And there were the Moccasins, Big Moccasin and Little Moccasin, whose village was just below Buchanan, at what is now "Moccasin Bluff," where eternal springs flow forth 59 from beneath the bluff-springs that tinge the stones in the pools they form with the red brown deposits of iron and sulphur. Matchkees village was on the west side of the river opposite the mouth of Dowagiac Creek. This a quiet, secluded spot beside the river, a level spot backed by the shelter of wooded bluffs. Chebass was another noted chief, the site of whose village is unknown; but there was an Indian village on the hill across the valley to the south of Carey Mission just above the group of springs, once called the "Babcock Springs;" they were a convenient and necessary source of water to the village on the hill above. On this site, the plow has turned up the blackened stones of Indian hearths. Numerous beads and other relics at one time abounded here. This may have been the village of Chebass. No one seems to know for sure, but in 1829 or '30, young Tom Huston used to come here to play with the Indian boys. One night he was invited to supper with the boys and looked forward to a nice stew provided by the Indian squaws, with whom he was a great favorite. But when he found the main dish was to be dog soup, his stomach rebelled and in the darkness he slipped away and beat a hasty retreat home. These chieftains, Shavehead, Pokagon, Topinabee, Weesaw, Moccasin, Matchkee, Chebass, and Aniquiba, were the men to whom was entrusted the leadership of the Pottawatomies in the early years of the nineteenth century. Aniquiba was the head chief of all the Pottawatomies, the Grand Sachem. He was a very old man, his span of years was almost run, but he still held his young warriors with a firm hand. His village was probably on the flats just north of Old Fort St. Joseph and the cross on the highland, beneath which Father Allouez sleeps. The clear waters of Silver Brook flow down to meet the river here, and it was an ideal camping spot much used by the Indians especially after the establishment of the mission, as they were close to its benefiting influences as well as being close to the trading post and blacksmith shop. Bertrand's trading post flourished. He was friendly with the Indians and generous with them in their business relations and his marriage with the daughter of Topinabee in 60 sured a continuance of this friendly feeling. After the abandonment of Fort Miami at the mouth of the river there is no record of traders in the valley until the close of the Revolution, when from New Jersey came one William Burnett, an independent trader who located near the mouth of the river, but who covered the entire valley of the St. Joseph, as well as the Kankakee, the Kalamazoo, Chicago, and extended even to the Illinois and Wabash in his transactions with the Indians. His success as a trader brought him into disfavor with the Commandant at Michilimackinac, and he was ordered to report to the post; he refused but being threatened, agreed to try living at the post for a year. However,, when he refused to stay longer, he was sent a prisoner to Montreal; when at last he managed to escape he returned as soon as possible to the St. Joseph to find his property had been almost entirely confiscated by his clerks and English traders had invaded his territory. But he was keen-witted and formed an alliance with the Indians by marrying the pretty daughter of the head Chief Aniquiba, the ancient head of the Pottawatomie tribes of the region. Two of Aniquiba's children have left indelible marks on the history of Michigan; Princess Kakima as Burnett's wife, and her brother, head chief Topanibee, who, next to Aniquiba was considered the greatest Pottawatomie chieftain. He was the signer of all the important treaties which granted to the whites great areas of Indian lands. Old chronicles picture the marriage of Burnett, the white trader, and his Indian princess as a ceremony of much pomp and circumstance by the Catholic missionary, Father La Vi Deaux, then missionary at this point, no pains being spared to make so important an occasion a memorable one. The marriage gave Burnett an influence among the Indians no British trader could undermine and for years he remained unmolested, seldom leaving his home, except to market his furs and secure supplies at Mackinac or Detroit. He loved his home which was on the west bank of the river, about two miles from the lake. It commanded a beautiful view across the river with its tree covered highlands, and the sweep of the river, in places covered with thickets of wild rice and rushes and cat tails, where hundreds of wild birds nested and brought up their young 61 through the long summer days. About his home he planted orchards of apple, plum and quince, orchards which endured as late as 1870, and some of whose fruit was exhibited at the state fair on that date. His wife, Kakima,! proved herself very efficient and she raised a family of boys and girls and attended to her household duties while he attended to the business of the post. Two of his old account books are still in existence and show an amazing amount of business, one year amounting to over $100,000. For the year 1796 and '7, they show the sale of 117 beaver skins, 97 fishers, 1591 deer, 3127 doe, 5091 muskrats, 160 bear, 250 wolves, 1250 redskins, 215 wild cats, 280 foxes, 517 mink, 2899 bucks, 430 otter, 22,032 raccoon, and 2680 "enfants du diable" (skunk). To show the extent of his business, on: Aug. 17, 1793 To sundries per J. Lalime, at Chicago To peltries, per J. Lalime, Chicago. May 25, 1793, To sundry merchandise, per G. Martin taken to Wabash. Jan. 9, 1798, To cash paid an Indian for carrying an express to Milwaky. Sept. 15, 1800, Jean Bte Ponstable Dr. to 7 bottles of spirits paid an Indian, Askie, for going express with the Spanish commandant and letters to Fort Wayne. And the following items show that he had attained some importance in the business and professional world: Mar. 12, 1792, To cash paid the Tailor. Aug. 21, 1792, To cash paid to the Doctor. Aug. 20, 1800, P. Lessen, Bought of Wm. Burnett, one cow, one calf and three large hogs for 550 pounds. There seems to be no record of his death,; but it is thought he may have been one of the victims of the Fort Dearborn massacre Aug. 15, 1812, for he was known to be there, and an Indian was looking for him to kill him. Furthermore records of his activities cease at about that time. He was an outstanding personality, and much of the comparative quiet among the Indians of the St. Joseph valley at the time is attributable to his ability to live with them in peace and harmony, as the Indians put it, "as a friend and older brother." The day of the red man in Michigan was fast drawing to a close. On Sept. 28, 1828, a treaty was signed at Carey 62 Mission by Gen. Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan Territory, and Pierre Menard, for the government, and with Topinabee, Pokagon, Weesaw, and other prominent chieftains signing for the Indians, by which all that portion described as follows, was deeded to the government: "Beginning at the mouth of the St. Joseph river of Lake Michigan, and thence running up said river to a point on same river, half way between La Vache qui pisse, and Moccasin village,, thence in a direct line to the nineteenth mile tree, on the northern boundary line of the state of Indiana; thence with the same, west to Lake Michigan; and thence with the shore of the lake to the place of beginning." This included all of Berrien county west of the river, except the portion lying between the river, the Indiana line, and the line drawn from the nineteenth mile tree, to the point on the river, halfway between Moccasin's village, and La Vasche qui pisse, which was a falling spring, situated a little up the river from Moccasin's village, and on the east side of the river. This treaty resulted in a greater concentration of the Indian population, as small contingents were required to move into this small area, which, although a very beautiful and desirable country was of insufficient size to afford adequate support for so many. Game, which had been plentiful, became more and more impoverished until on Sept. 26, 1833, the savages sorrowfully relinquished all property rights in this last refuge along the river which had been their highway of travel and had provided a large part of their food. In lieu thereof they received certain lands west of the Mississippi. They were to evacuate the lands within three years. They bitterly repented of this promise to leave, however,: and prayed the Great Father to permit them to remain on their ancient hunting grounds, and to be buried near the graves of their Fathers; but this prayer was refused, and in the fall of 1838 they were called together at the Carey Mission, or what had been the Carey Mission, for it had been removed some years before, for a "talk," which resulted in an order from the government agents, Godfrey and Kircheval, to prepare for removal on a certain day. On that day they were gathered (but not all of them) and, in charge of the agents, and accompanied by two compan 63 ies of United States troops, they moved out on the Old Chicago Road, some on foot, the more helpless loaded into wagons. With tear filled eyes, they looked for the last time on the scenes which had been their home from infancy; the streams where they had fished and swam and paddled their canoes; the glades where they had camped, and sat and smoked and watched their children playing in the red glow of their camp fires. Many of the feebler ones, unable to keep up with the main body, were left to die by the wayside, and some, who escaped the vigilance of the troops, wandered back to their old haunts, only to be gathered up the succeeding year by Alex. Coquillard and under his supervision, compelled to rejoin the tribe in Kansas. 64 THE STORY OF THE CAREY MISSION By Ralph Ballard The Carey Mission was founded in the year 1822 by the Rev. Isaac McCoy, who acted under a commission from the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions. It was located a mile west of the river St. Joseph, opposite the city of Niles, on the spot now marked with a boulder bearing the inscription: CAREY MISSION Founded in 1822 by Isaac McCoy This Tablet Placed in 1922 by The Fort St. Joseph Chapter, D.A.R. Within the period of five years from its commencement, there had been erected at this place, through the energy of its founder, twenty or more buildings consisting of dwellings, a school house, chapel, barns, work shop, stables, sheds, and a grist mill propelled by oxen. Two hundred acres of land had been cleared and fenced, and more than sixty Indian pupils had been collected and were supported and taught, wholly at the expense of the Mission. It became widely known and was, for a time, the most important point between Detroit and Chicago. To this point the early settlers from Ohio and Indiana directed their attention. A track had already been made for them through the forest for more than a hundred miles. Thompson and Kirke had but to follow the track which the heroic McCoy had made. They indeed might never have seen the St. Joseph had not one more daring than themselves pioneered the way and built his cabins and begun his school at Carey two years before they ventured to cross the Elkhart. It is true, nevertheless, that they were bold men even in daring to follow, and to settle with their families, in the midst of savages who had received British gold at Malden, in Canada, whose friendly disposition was at least questionable, and some of whom, hardly ten years before, had taken part against our country in the bloody battle of Tippecanoe and Brownstown. The massacre at Chicago was still fresh in their mem 65 ories; the inmates of many a cabin on the Wabash and the Ohio had been surprised and taken captive at night, and what security could the new comers to the St. Joseph have, that they too would not become victims of the savages? McCoy had already been two years in the service of the board at Fort Wayne, in the State of Indiana, where he had resided with his family, and had established and carried on a large mission school, when after long deliberations he resolved to remove his establishment farther west, and locate it among the Pottawatomies on the St. Joseph river, near the Great Lake. Accordingly, on the 14th of May, 1822, accompanied by three Frenchmen and Abraham, one of his Indian pupils, he set out on his journey in search of the people among whose villages he intended to fix his abode,' and to whose instruction he intended to devote his life. Their way was through the forest, a faint trace only having been made by Indian traders, across deep streams, through swamps and marshes, over which few white men had ever passed, cooking his supper at night from provisions which he carried with him. He slept on a piece of bark which he peeled from a tree, and which was spread on the ground, thus keeping him from its damps. He rose early on the fifteenth and after preparing and partaking of his breakfast, he resumed his journey and came to the Elkhart river; the water was deep, and with much difficulty he succeeded in crossing safely and halted and built a fire to dry himself and baggage which had been badly wet. Sleeping at night, as he had done on the previous one he arose in the rain on the sixteenth and at night, wet and weary, reached the French trading post of Joseph Bertrand at "Park au Vache," now called Bertrand, and here found, under the roof of this generous man, kind hospitality. Bertrand was a Frenchman of part Indian blood, and afterward became the true friend of McCoy. The chiefs whom he expected to have met at this place, had all gone to Lake Michigan to engage in a drunken frolic, a trader having landed there with a quantity of whiskey. It was necessary to consult these chiefs, and on the seventeenth of May Abraham was accordingly sent to urge their return,i and also to bring with him three children for 66 the school at Fort Wayne, which had previously been engaged to him. In the meantime, McCoy, accompanied by a Frenchman, rode out to view the ground which, he was informed, the Pottawatomies had selected for him to occupy. On their way they met, at a rude hut, a chief from a neighboring village who, with the rest of the company, was delighted with the prospect of having a teacher settling near them and by many crude expressions of friendship, welcomed McCoy to the country. Probably in this excursion he came down the river to where Niles now is, and forded it at the foot of Cedar street as this was the usual fording place where teams and horsemen were crossed down to the year 1835. On the eighteenth, McCoy rode to the village of Menominee and Pechecks, the former a chief of note who, the year before, had visited Fort Wayne to solicit the establishment of a school at their town, which must have been on or near Door prairie. Here he was welcomed with all the cordiality a crude and simple people could express. He stayed but a day with them and then returned to Park au Vache. Here he not only found Abraham, but also a Pottawatomie woman who had fled thither with her children for protection from the assaults of a murderous husband. Her oldest boy was already in the school at Fort Wayne and now, in deep sorrow, she gave her little girl to McCoy, to take to that place. On the twenty-first the whole party, including two little boys and this girl, mounted on ponies set out on their dreary journey homeward, where they arrived on the twenty-third. It was an act of pure benevolence on the part of the missionary to take, at much personal inconvenience, these children to a distant school expecting, as he must have done, to bring them back when he should remove to Carey the ensuing fall. Having decided to move his mission, and located the spot on the St. Joseph river on Dec. 9, 1822, McCoy, with his party of thirty-two persons, left Fort Wayne on their trek into the wilderness. There were three wagons drawn by oxen and one by four horses; there were five cows and fifty hogs. Imagine driv 67 ing one hog for fifty miles through the snow and ice, then multiply it by fifty, and the result is staggering. December seventeenth was cold and McCoy, who was sick, remained very much indisposed,, but he went ahead with two men and made a large fire on each side of the St. Joseph river. The stream was rapid and so deep that it almost ran into the wagon beds; the ice was running very thick, nevertheless, they all got safely across, with the exception of one hog, drowned as it swam the river. December nineteenth, they reached the mission, eleven days on the road. Winter was severe and food was scarce; the houses were unfinished, cold and uncomfortable, but they made the best of it, working at the houses, getting in a supply of fire wood, caring for their live stock, and getting the affairs of the mission in running order. But food became even more scarce as the winter advanced, and the cold became more intense. McCoy's journal of Feb. seventh says, "Ate our last bread for breakfast, which was so scarce that we had to divide it carefully, that everyone might take a little. We had saved a few pounds of flour for the small children, whose necessities were increased by want of the valuable article, milk." "Sent an Indian to endeavor to buy corn, who returned with about six quarts,, which was all he could get. "Feb. 8th, breakfasted upon the corn we had procured the preceeding day." It was very cold, and the snow was deep and McCoy was ill, but he borrowed a horse and started out to try to buy corn of the Indians. He was slowly working his way through the wilderness when he chanced to meet up with Bertrand, the French trader who, in his broken English, said "I got some corn, some flour. I give you half, suppose you die, I die too." On his return to the mission he found that an old Pottawatomie widow, who herself had not a thing to eat but her small stock of corn and beans, had sent the family enough sweet corn for a plentiful meal for the whole family; on the same day, four other Indian women and a boy brought them on their backs three bushels of potatoes; then, as his journal records-"with grateful hearts we 68 wrote in our journal, Newton's excellent stanza: The birds without barn or storehouse are fed, From them let us learn to trust for our bread, The Saints, what is fitting, shall ne'er be denied, So long as 'tis written,, the Lord will provide. There was great activity at the mission in the spring of 1823, the school was in full operation, and the daily cares of the household were heavy. It was no trifling matter to look after the never ending routine of labor in the kitchen, where food was prepared for sixty people, and a new farm was to be cleared, fenced, plowed and planted. In the month of May, 1823, Major Long, of the U. S. Army, called at the mission, on his way to explore the sources of the St. Peters. In his report he says: "The spot was covered with a very dense forest seven months before we visited it, but by the great activity of the superintendent, he has succeeded in building six good log houses, four of which afford comfortable residences for the inmates of the establishment; the fifth is used as a school room, and the sixth forms a commodious blacksmith shop. In addition to this, they have cleared about fifty acres of land, which is enclosed with a substantial fence. Forty acres have already been plowed and planted with maize, and every step taken to place the establishment on an independent footing. "The school consists of from forty to sixty children, and it is contemplated that it will soon be increased to one hundred. The plan adopted appears to be a very judicious one; it is to unite a practical and intellectual education. The boys are instructed in the English language-reading, writing, and arithmetic; they are made to attend to the usual occupations of a farm and perform every operation connected with it, such as plowing, planting, harrowing, etc. In these pursuits they appear to take great delight. "The girls receive the same instruction as the boys, and in addition are taught spinning, knitting, weaving and sewing, both plain and ornamental. "They are also made to attend to the pursuits of the dairy, such as milking cows, making butter, etc." 69 On the 15th of June, a drove of 121 cattle arrived at Carey. The stock was now increased to about 150 head, and with cows for their dairy, made large quantities of butter and cheese. It was commonly reported that they had about 200 cattle, 300 sheep, and an immense herd of swine; the latter subsisted, most of the time, on nuts and roots which they found in the woods, and were in fine condition. The mission was now in full operation. New scholars were coming in, and new teachers were added. Miss Fannie Goodridge, of Lexington, Ky., arrived and was followed by Miss Wright and Miss Purchase, of Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Polk of Indiana, and Mr. Brittain, were among these. Chas. Noble, Esq., of Monroe, was commissioned by Gov. Lewis Cass, to make a report on the conditions at the mission, which he did, and in a letter to McCoy, dated Dec. 1st, 1823, Gov. Cass says-"Your report, and that of Mr. Noble, are entirely satisfactory. The affairs of your agency appear to be in the best condition, and if the experiment is ever successful, I am satisfied you will make it so." The year had been one of prosperity, they had harvested 900 bushels of corn, as well as large quantities of vegetables, but they had as yet planted no wheat, and flour was brought from Ohio by wagon. They needed clothing, and they were in debt several hundred dollars for supplies for the mission, so it was thought best for Mr. McCoy to make a trip east to solicit aid for the mission. Accordingly, on Dec. 20th, he left Carey on his long trip to Washington, a trip which eventually took him to Philadelphia, New York,, Boston, and other places, where he received a generous response to his appeals, and he received large quantities of clothing, books, goods and more than $2,000 in cash. On the twenty-fifth of May, he left Buffalo, on a schooner bound for Detroit and the mouth of the St. Joseph. He had on board boxes of clothing, goods, and books, and 100 barrels of flour, 24 of salt and 30 bushels of wheat for seed. He left the boat at Detroit, and came across country on horse back, reaching Carey on the eleventh of June, having been gone five months. He found everything in good condition, the spring work moving along well, but he found their stock of flour, was again almost exhausted, and no 70 more to be obtained until the vessel arrived at the mouth of the river. Quoting again from his journal, "on the sixteenth, we had exhausted all our flour, except a few pounds reserved for the small children and the sick. All but myself, were in good spirits in regard to food, hourly expecting the arrival of the vessel. "I feared that contrary winds, or other hindrances might cause us to suffer, but concealed my anxiety. "On the 18th we had only corn enough for one day, but our merciful God was still near us. "The harbor at which the vessel would stop (this was the harbor at St. Joe) was without inhabitant, and we had sent two of our Indian pupils to build and keep up a fire at the place, in order that the smoke, by being seen from the vessel, might point out the place of landing. The boys were directed to open a barrel of flour immediately on the landing of the vessel and hasten to us, a distance of 25 miles, with what they could bring. "On the evening of the 18th, to our great joy, and mine in particular, one of the young men arrived with a mule packed with flour. We brought our property from St. Joseph to the station upon the river in pirouges." From that time on the mission did not suffer for bread. The mission prospered during the next two years. The number of pupils increased, the farm was greatly enlarged, more than 200 acres being enclosed with a substantial fence. About 300 bushels of wheat was harvested in 1824, no small job when one considers that it all had to be cut with a hand sickle. In 1825 a flouring mill as erected, which was worked by horses or oxen, the animals working in the first story, with the mill itself in the second. This was the first mill built west of Tecumseh or Ann Arbor and was a great comfort and convenience to the mission, as prior to its erection the corn had been ground on a hand mill, which required the constant labor of one man to grind sufficient meal for all of the people for one day. John L. Lieb, of Detroit, whose duty it was to visit all the Indian schools in the Territory of Michigan and report to Gov. Cass, visited the mission in August, 1826, and made his report from which the following extracts are made: 71 "On the 15th of August I proceeded to the Carey establishment on the St. Joseph, where I arrived on the 21st, and was gratified with the improvement in all its departments. It is a world in miniature, and presents the most cheerful and consoling appearance. "It has become a familiar resort of the natives, and from the benefits derived from it, in various shapes, they begin to feel a dependence on, and resource in it at all times, and especially in difficult and trying occasions. There is not a day, I may say hardly an hour, in which new faces were not to be seen. "The smithery affords them incalculable facilities, and is constantly filled with applicants for some essential service. It is a touching spectacle to see them, at the time of prayer, fall in with the members of the institution which they do spontaneously and cheerfully, and with a certain animation depicted on their countenances, exhibiting their internal satisfaction. "There are at present 70 scholars, 42 males and 28 females, in various stages of improvement. "Eight of the alumni of this institution, having completed the first rudiments of education, have been transferred to academies in New Jersey and New York. Two of the boys are learning the trades of blacksmithing and shoemaking and the remainder of sufficient size, are employed occasionally on the farm. "The girls are engaged in spinning, knitting and weaving, the loom having produced 185 yards of cloth this year. "Two hundred and three acres are now enclosed by fence, of which 15 are in wheat, 50 in Indian corn, eight in potatoes and vegetables, and the residue in pasture. "There have been added to the buildings a house and a most excellent grist mill, worked by horse power. "The usefulness of this mill can scarcely be appreciated, as there is no other of any kind within 100 miles at least, of the establishment and here, as benevolence is the preponderating principle, all the surrounding population is benefitted. "Numerous Indian families have since my last visit settled themselves around, and have from the encouragement, countenance, and assistance of the missionary family made considerable progress in agriculture; indeed,, a whole village 72 has been formed within six miles of it. (This was Chief Topinabee's village at the south end of Gitchell's lake. He had lived at Topinabee where the Plym and Barber homes now stand, but had moved to Gitchell's lake.) "To good fences, with which many of their grounds are enclosed succeed domestic animals, and you now see oxen, cows and swine grazing around their dwellings without danger of destroying their crops. Here are the strongest evidences of their improvement, and not the least of the benefits arising from the neighborhood of this blessed abode of the virtuous inmates of Carey." Carey had now reached its full growth. It was a scene of peaceful industry, broad acres of cultivated and pasture lands were spread around it, they had early planted peaches, and now had an orchard of two or three hundred trees coming into bearing, and by searching in the brush around deserted Indian villages, and trading houses, they found here and there a few apple trees and eventually had a hundred growing on the farm. I can remember hearing old timers tell of going to the mission for peaches, and finding the ground covered with the luscious fruit, and can still recall seeing a few scattered trees left of the old apple orchard. One of them was at the old Hoadley place, where there was a tree that bore seven different kinds of apples, which was accomplished by setting seven small trees together and as they grew they were wound together to form one trunk. It is thought this may have been the first peach orchard to be planted in the peach belt of Michigan. But it had long been known that in a few years, at least, the affairs of the mission must come to a close. The removal of the Indians westward was in contemplation even then. Accordingly preparations were being made to bring it to a close, and make another move, this time to a location beyond the Mississippi, and in 1832 the mission at Carey was finally abandoned. Capt. Henry Coolidge, who came here in 1835 and shortly afterward bought of the government the site of Carey mission, tore down twenty-seven buildings, consisting of log cabins which had been occupied by the school, a chapel, a blacksmith shop, grist mill, and living quarters for the family and helpers. 73 In 1878, John C. McCoy, of Wilder, Kansas, a son of Rev. Isaac McCoy, wrote a letter to Rev. G. H. Bailey, of Niles, in which he details some incidents of striking historical interest in connection with the Polke Family. He says: My mother's maiden name was Christiana Polke, one of the younger children of Chas. Polke. In Jefferson's Notes, a small book by Pres. Jefferson, is a certificate from the same Chas. Polke, to prove the charge against Cresap, for the murder of the family of the celebrated Indian Chief Logan. He then lived in southwestern Pennsylvania. He afterward moved to Nelson county, Ky., where my mother was born. Before the birth of my mother the Indians captured the stockade Fort Kitchelors' Station, in which the settlers were collected, (most of the men being absent at the time), killed the few men, and many of the women and children, destroying everything, and carried away the surviving women and children as prisoners. Among these were the wife and three children of my grandfather, Chas. Polke. These children were Judge William Polke, afterwards a prominent man, in Indiana; Nancy, Ruby, and Eleanor Hollingsworth. They were taken to Detroit, where the British held possession, and where she (Mrs. Hollingsworth), was delivered of another baby (Thomas), who died about one year ago (1877), a wealthy citizen of Texas. My grandmother was ransomed from the Indians, by some benevolent British officer, and remained for about three years in Detroit, supporting herself and child by her needle. The three other children were carried off by the Pottawatomie Indians to the St. Joseph river, probably in the vicinity of the Carey mission, at Niles. For three long years my grandfather supposed they had all been slain in the massacre at the burning fort. At last my grandmother found means to send him word of their condition. He traveled alone on foot through the trackless wilderness,, 300 miles, in search of his lost ones, whom God had spared. He was treated with great kindness by the British officials, who gave him such aid for the recovery of his children as he desired. He went alone and at last found them, 74 two with one family of the Pottawatomies and one with another, by whom they had been adopted. When grandfather found the two first, William and Eleanor, they ran and hid themselves. They had forgotten their native tongue, and it was with difficulty that he finally induced their foster parents to give them up or them to accompany him. This transpired certainly within a few miles of the old Carey mission, where years afterward another child, and sister, of those lost captives, went through toil and tempest to repay the very same people, (many of whom were still living) not with vengeance or injury, but with gifts of richer and more enduring value than gold." 75 THE STORY OF THE BLACKHAWK WAR By Ralph Ballard May 19, 1832,, broke bright and clear, on the little hamlet of Niles. The inhabitants went about their usual work, or paused for a bit of gossip as they were on their way to or from the store, which may have meant that of Walling and Lacey, which was in a log building, the first erected in the village, by Mr. Bonnell, just west of the southwest corner of Main and Front streets. Or it might have been the store of Isaac Grey, which was a double house of hewn logs, two stories in height, in which the family lived in onehalf, and the other was used as a store. It was near the bank of the river south of Main street and eventually the lumber yard of Mr. Tuttle was to occupy the land between it and Main street. Mr. Grey had been appointed postmaster in 1830, to succeed Obed Lacey, who had handled the mail until that time at his store. The town was called "Pogwatigue," an Indian name meaning "Running Water," but it was changed to Niles, when the village was laid out, in honor of Hezekiah Niles, who was the editor of the Niles Register, a paper printed at Baltimore, of which Mr. Lacey was a great admirer. The ford, which was called "The Crossing" or "Pawating" by the early settlers, started just above where the Main street bridge now stands, and went at an angle across to where a huge cotton-wood stood at what is now the west end of Broadway bridge, where it came out on a low bench of land which lay along the river, and then by a steep ascent, the trail led in a south westerly direction to the plains above. On this May day, a man on horseback suddenly came into view on the edge of the bluff opposite the little village, rattled down the steep path that led to the ford, urged his horse into the water and splashed noisily across, and without a moment's delay made his way to the little log house, on the bank of the river, just north of Main street, that was occupied by Col. Huston. The Colonel had come to the village in 1828 as a peddler 76 and Indian trader, but had bought a house of Mr. Justice which was near the river, and had soon fitted it up for a tavern. On the east side he made a frame addition, part of which was occupied as a barroom. It was here the horseman pulled up, his horse steaming with sweat, for he had not spared him in his mad dash from "The Door," as the prairie that lay to the west, in Indiana, was called. He was met,. almost at the entrance by Col. Huston, to whom he gave the letters that he bore from Arba Heald. May 19, 1832 Col. Huston: This letter was received from Chicago by express last night, as you may see, to this prairie, for the inhabitants to prepare to meet the foe. In addition to this, Col. Owen, Indian agent at Chicago, has given intelligence agreeing with the letter. We wish you to forward the news immediately to White Pigeon for the Michigan militia to be put in motion to meet the Indians without delay. Arba Heald. The letter to which Mr. Heald referred read as follows: Chicago, Illinois, May 18, 1832. Mr. Henry Clybawn: Sir-The Sax and Fox Indians have had one battle with our militia, which were sent against them, and have proved victorious, and have since that time, murdered some families on the Fox river and are making their march toward this place. They no doubt intend trying to get to Canady, and will do as much damage to the frontier settlers as possible. I think you are all in much danger on that prairie and also at the St. Josephs. You had better fortify and be prepared to defend yourselves as long as possible. Give intelligence to all the settlers as quick as 77 possible, this whole neighborhood are forting and will be able to defend against a considerable body of Indians. Lose no time in making yourself safe. Yours, A. Clybawn. Consternation ran rampant, the word was passed from settler to settler that Black Hawk had passed the Mississippi, and with his horde of Sacs and Foxes was sweeping all before them. But Col. Huston was an unterrified,; stern and determined man, and he met the duties of his position as commanding officer as such an officer should, bravely and systematically. He sent word post haste to Brigadier General Brown at Jonesville of the exigencies of the occasion; he sent intelligence of the danger to the settlers in every direction and with the following order in mind, he called out the men at his disposal. Col. Huston: From the within instruction, you are ordered to call out your regiment forthwith, with ten days provisions and equipment as the law directs and have them rendevous at Niles, subject to the order of the General Government. Send report to me when they are ready. I have the honor to be your obedient servant, J. Stewart, Indian Agent. In the meantime, the excitement was growing. What stand the hundreds of Pottawatomies on "The Reserve" west of the river might take was unknown. Almost every able bodied man in southwestern Michigan, capable of bearing arms, had joined the troops, thus leaving the old men, women, and children in a state of utter defenselessness. Dismay prevailed, for how were they to know at what minute a troop of burly savages might massacre and scalp their helpless little ones. Expresses continued to come in 78 LaPorte, Door Prairie. May 25, 1832. I have been through the Hickory Creek country and find there is nothing to prevent the Indians from coming to this place, and we are in the most imminent danger, we have fortified but we have no men. We solicit your forces for our safety. Yours very respectfully, Arba Heald. Chicago, 18th May, 1832. Dr. Sir, The hostile Sacs are in this vicinity, and committing depredations of a terrible nature on the frontiers, and it is expected they will strike at this place and proceed in that direction-will you endeavor to procure a force of some magnitude, and despatch them by Col. Huston's boat to our relief. From all accounts this post and all the frontiers are in the most imminent danger. In haste, no time to be lost, Th. J. V. Owen, Indian Agent. However fear was somewhat allayed by the following letter, Fort Dearborn, May 27, 1832. Col. J. Stewart, SirYour despatch of the 19th inst. is received. The nature of the intelligence communicated on the night of the 17th to me, was of that alarming character which made it proper that prompt means should be taken to insure the safety of the people and the country, hence the reason for sending the express of the eighteenth. We have however, on this evening, ascertained that some of the intelligence was greatly exaggerated and much of it the mere visions of fancy produced by the fears of a few individuals, and nearly 79 the whole of the surrounding country being now within the walls of the Fort, with about 200 wellarmed men, and competant to withstand any force that may probably venture to attack. Consequently it is unnecessary for the Michigan Militia to proceed to this place, and I presume the regular troops from Michigan will be here in due time. I would advise the people of St. Joseph to remain in a state of preparation for defense, for a short period at least. Should anything occur you will be apprised of it without delay. For your promptness in this business, accept my thanks. The disposition to aid us, by our neighbors of Michigan, is highly appreciated, I have the honor, to be Sir, Your obedient servant, Th. J. V. Owen, Indian Agent. But before this letter could be despatched, the following communication was added to it, Since writing the foregoing, Mr. Kerchival, Indian Agent, has arrived from Rock River, and confirms the report of a skirmish having taken place near the mouth of the Kishwakee, on Rock River, on the night of the 14th inst. instead of near the Paw-paw grove and our militia defeated, with the loss of eleven killed and three wounded. The loss of the enemy five killed. The Michigan Militia, will therefore hold themselves in readiness to march at a moment's warning, as it is expected that another battle will take place tomorrow, about 80 miles northwest of this place. Very respectfully, Sir, Your ob'd't ser'vt. Th. J. V. Owen, Indian Agent. The call for the militia to muster at Niles had been made and they were coming in singly or by twos and threes to unite in companies. Job Brookfield's company hailed from Niles, and they were first to report for duty, with James B. Finch, as En 80 sign; Wiley Smith, 1st Sergeant; Rowland Clark, 2nd Sergeant; Priestly Pickett, Aziel Smith, Samuel Bertrand, H. J. Slater, Hezekiah Grimes, John D. Vesey, privates. Isaac Shurte was Captain of a company from Cassopolis, with Gamalel Townsend, for Lieutenant; Isaac Pedigrue, Ensign; Eli P. Bunnell, 1st Sergeant; John Clifton, 2nd Sergeant; and Abram Titsort, 3rd Sergeant. Captain John White's company, from north of Niles, had Thomas Kirk, Lieutenant, and Abner Kelsey, Ensign. Joseph Gardners company, from Sumnerville, and thereabouts, included Joseph Garwood, William Kirk, Joseph Wells, Christopher Ribble, Lewis Edwards, William Garwood, William Buck, John Clark, and Jacob Solerday. Fowler Preston, captain of a company from north of Niles, had Benjamin Hoyt, Lieutenant; Edward Smith, Ensign; Nathaniel B. Starkweather, 1st Sergeant; Horace Godfrey, 2nd Sergeant; John McCall, 3rd Sergeant, and Jeheil Enos, 4th Sergeant. An effort was made to form them into a brigade but with indifferent success. Darius Brown was Quartermaster, with headquarters at the "Pavillion," which was in an unfinished condition, but habitable. It stood on the southeast corner of Main and 1st streets, and was a pretentious building, which was to be a hotel. A large Dutch-oven was constructed to bake bread for the soldiers, and all the flour at Niles, Berrien Springs and St. Joseph was confiscated to provide material for baking. General Williams arrived and took up his headquarters at the "Old Diggins," which was used as a hotel, and was on the ground now occupied by the Redding house, on the north side of Main street west of Front. A regiment composed of four companies, each containing about 60 men, came from Schoolcraft and Kalamazoo. The officers were David E. Brown, colonel; Isaac Barnes, lieut. colonel; and H. B. Huston,i major. A regiment arrived from Detroit and as they wished to go to Chicago by boat, Tom Huston, a boy of fifteen who was aide to his brother Col. Almapson Huston, and was the mail carrier from Niles to St. Joseph, was commissioned to carry word to St. Joseph, to hold some vessels in port until the troops had time to arrive. 81 It was a ticklish job for a boy of Tom's age, for no one knew about the Indians, how many he would meet on the trail, nor what their attitude might be regarding the war. But he was not afraid of Indians; he had played and hunted with them, and he thought he knew them, so he started off in high spirits. Once, on the trail which led for the most part through the thick woods, he started a doe and her fawn, from where they had been feeding in a grassy swale, and watched them as they bounded off through the forest, the white flag of the doe visable for a long time. But he reached his destination safely along toward night and found the boats, one just weighing anchor, and the other already across the bar and out on the lake, but not so far but she could be signaled to return, and did so. One of the boats was the William Penn, a steamer that was making her first stop at the harbor of St. Joseph. Night was fast approaching,, and a storm was coming up from the northwest across the lake. With his mission performed, Tom was preparing to return, but the officer in charge urged him to stay for the night. It would be dark long before he could get home, and with the storm coming, which by now had assumed a frightening aspect, he must stay, but he was firm in his determination. He must go to tell the waiting troops that the boats would be ready for them. In after years Tom said that he never saw a storm that had such a fearful appearance as it came, but he started on his pony and was on the trail through the woods when the storm broke. It came, a furious wind that whipped the trees, breaking off great limbs that crashed all about him. Rain fell in torrents, and then came the hail with stones as large as hens eggs; they hurt, but there was no shelter, there seemed to be nothing to do but take it. Huge trees were uprooted and fell across the trail. The thunder and lightning were incessant and so intense at times as to make the woods as bright as day. When he came to a place where a great tree had fallen across the trail he found it necessary to dismount and feel his way around until he again reached the trail on the other side of the log; this happened not only once but many times; but gradually the storm spent itself, the thunder died 82 away in the distance and the lightning became a faint flicker now and then in the southeast. But now a new terror came to haunt him; far to the left came a long drawn howl, and he knew what it meant; a timber wolf had caught his scent, and was calling to his mates to come to the kill, for singly a wolf is a cowardly beast; it is only when they gather in a pack that they gather courage and become a menace. Tom knew this and he hoped that it might be only one but he had not long to wait. Far off to the right another answering howl, while up ahead still another took up the chorus until it seemed as though the woods were full of the howling brutes. They closed in coming closer and closer, until there were six of the great beasts following him, their green eyes shining through the dark in anticipation. But Tom had heard some of the old trappers say that if a man stuck to his horse, wolves would not attack him; and this he did mile after mile, with the hungry brutes howling and snarling close beside him. It seemed an endless, way through the swampy rain soaked woods before he reached the river bank opposite Berrien Springs, and it seemed hours before he succeeded in attracting the attention of the men at the post, but at last they heard him, and a man came across in a boat and took him and his tired pony, who had to swim for it, across to the safety of the log cabin which stood at the base of the bluff beside the river. The troops had marched across country, and reached the camp at dusk; they made much of Tom and his wet tattered garments were changed for dry ones. They were men's clothes, much too large for a boy, and Tom was embarrassed at their awkwardness and as soon as he could get away he slipped out in the deepening twilight. The commander of the troops came out not long after for a stroll and a quiet smoke. The baffled wolves were still howling across the river, the officer listened and then asked Tom what that was? "It's wolves," Tom said, "they followed me for miles." "By George lad, I wouldn't have done what you did tonight for a thousand dollars," and Tom, happy and sleepy, went in the house and to bed. The troops, in the morning, went aboard the Matilda 83 Barney and by transferring to the William Penn at St. Joseph were in Chicago the next day. Reports of Indian depredations, continued to come in: Fort Dearborn, Chicago, May 25th, 1832 Col. Huston, Dear SirOur scouting party under the command of Gen. J. B. Brown, returned last evening and reported that the whole country around the Desplaines, twelve miles from here, to the Fox River is one vast scene of waste and desolation. Our party went as far as Indian Creek and there found fifteen persons, men, women and children, who had been murdered in the most shocking manner that humanity can conceive of. I have consulted with some of the principle men of this place, and now deem it my duty to request you to send say 300 mounted militia to our assistance. The Indians are gathering about forty miles from this place and unless repulsed soon, may cause us much trouble for some time. I refer you to Col. Owens letter to Col. Stewart and if you conclude to send us aid, you cannot be too quick about it. Yours truly, Col. J. S. C. Hogan. Fort Dearborn, 24 May, 1832. Col. HustonSir, At a crisis like this we deem it important to give you such intelligence of the movements of the hostile Indians as we are able from time to time to gather. On day before yesterday Mr. D. Lawton in company with seven friendly Pottawatomies, was surprised by a party of about thirty hostile Sacs and Kickapoos which were found in an ambush in one of the groves of timber on the waters of the Fox River, and were made prisoners. Mr. Lawton, however, from the circumstance of 84 finding among them, some with whom he had long been acquainted, and from his known character among the Indians generally, together with the aid of some duplicity, prevailed upon them after detaining him and party about two hours, to let them go. I have seen and conversed with Mr. Lawton, he says that they told him distinctly that they had not yet killed any person, but had burned some houses, and declared their intentions to commit further depredations on our frontiers. A man returned from our horse party last night, he says, six houses burned on this side of the Fox River, and it was reported that three men were killed on Indian Creek. We do not apprehend any immediate attack upon this post, but until the party of horsemen under Gen. Brown returns are unable to form anything like a correct opinion on the subject. In the meantime we would admonish you to be on the watch and hold in readiness 200 or 300 effective mounted men, well armed, to march to this place in the event we should find it necessary to despatch an express for them. We have the honor to be Very respectfully, Sir, Your o'b'dt servants Th. J. V. Owen, Ind. Agent. J. S. C. Hogan, Capt. Com. Fort Dearborn. Brigade Order, 3rd Brigade Head Quarters, Niles, May 28, 1832. From information sent by express from Chicago, it appears that the Western Indians are committing hostilities on our frontiers and murdering the defenceless inhabitants, and laying the whole country in waste and desolation, west of Chicago, and that there is great and immediate danger to all about us particularly at Chicago and vicinity. I do hereby order Col. A. Huston to forthwith assemble his regiment at Niles, armed and equipped for actual service, 85 It is expected that the above order will be promptly obeyed and that the least deviation from military subordination will be severely punished. By order of J. W. Brown, Brig. Gen'l 13rd Brig. M.M. The soldiers appropriated a large number of blankets from the stock of Isaac Grey and Obed Lacey, taking note of the fact nothing was paid on them, closed his store. The soldiers marched around the store in single file snapping their priming at it, but he saved his blankets. Late in May the brigade being as nearly organized as it was possible, started for the seat of war, over the old Chicago Trail to the west. Gen. Williams was first in command, with Col. Almanson Huston next; David Wilson, Major. Dr. E. Winslow, was chief surgeon, with Wm. B. Beeson as assistant. At Laporte, word came that Black Hawk was defeated and his band of Indians was killed or captured or forced to retreat across the Mississippi, and that it would be unnecessary in consequence, for the troops to go to Chicago. They were forthwith disbanded, but Gen. Williams was anxious to go to Chicago and called volunteers. Capt. Ben Finch soon had a company of seventy-five. Capt. Gardner, raised a smaller company in Cass county. These composed the brigade that, under command of Gen. Williams, Huston and Winslow started for Chicago. At Door prairie, the privates decided they had had enough of the haughty overbearing methods of Col. A. Hus-- ton, and he was superseded by the election of Col. Ed Edwards to succeed him. Major Wilson was also sent home, Geo. Hoffman being elected in his place. The companies went to Chicago, and a few went as far as the Illinois river but they saw no Indians, and thoroughly disgusted with the whole business, returned home. Among those who enlisted were Jacob K. Brown, A. L. Burke, G. H. Claypoole, Daniel Johnson, Wm. Kinzie, Sam Rogers and Henry Drew. The war was ended. Black Hawk had retreated across the Mississippi, and the militia, surfeited with their efforts to overtake a foe that was always not less than 200 miles 86 away, had returned to the comfort and peace of their own firesides. Never again would that peace be broken, for within a few years the last of the Indian tribes were to be removed far beyond the Mississippi. 87 STORIES OF THE WILD LIFE OF THE ST. JOE VALLEY By Ralph Ballard "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man, hath not where to lay his head." Math. 8th, 20th verse. This must have seemed literally true to those saintly Fathers who wandered, homeless, in the wilderness, striving for the betterment of the savages, and to save their souls from perdition. It is difficult for us to realize the hardship and trials, often tortures, to which these early messengers of the Faith were subjected, yet they carried on, often wandering from camp to camp for years without the sight of a friendly white face, serene in their belief that service and devotion were the keys to life everlasting. They had to live, and often their food would be the meager rations of their red brothers, frequently starvation rations, but at other times food would be plentiful, and at such times life would be prosperous and would seem full of divine blessings. The Indians were adept in the chase and when game was to be had, they would have it. The birds of the air and the beasts of the field were all in the same class; to them they were food and, as such, went into the same pot. The first accounts of the birds and animals of the new world are found in the letters which Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix wrote, about 1721, to his patroness in France, Madame la Duchesse de Lesdeguieres. His observations on the habits of the various birds and beasts are quaint, to say the least, that concerning the screech owl which, he says, "is good to eat, and many prefer it to a fowl," but its provision for winter causes the modern observer to wonder just when 'nature faking,' actually began, or did he really believe the tales he was told of the wonders of nature. Anyway, he says, "Its provision for winter is field mice, whose feet it breaks, and then nourishes and fattens them with care till it has occasion to feed upon them." 83 "The falcon, goshawk, and tassel, are the same as in France, also a second sort of falcon that lives entirely on fish-Partridges are of three kinds, grey, red,' and black. Snipes are excellent, also woodcock, and M. Denys asserts that the crows of Canada are as good to eat as a fowl. The bat is bigger than in France. Blackbirds and swallows are here birds of passage; three sorts of larks, the smallest the size of a sparrow. "The sparrow has the same inclinations as ours, but has an ugly sort of look, and we see a prodigious quantity of ducks, they reckon twenty-two different species; the most beautiful, and those whose flesh is most delicate, are called branch ducks, because they perch on branches of trees" (probably the wood duck, which nests in the holes in trees, often forty or fifty feet from the ground.) ) "Swans, cranes, waterhens, turkeys, teal, geese, bussards, and other great river birds swarm everywhere,, except in the neighborhood of habitations." "Cranes are of two colors, some white and some gridelin are viewed from a utilitarian stand point, for all make excellent soup." "Our woodpeckers are very beautiful; they are some which are of all colors, others are a black or a dark brown all over except the head and neck, which are a fine red." "The nightengale is much the same as that of France in shape, but has only half its song; the wren has robbed it of the other half." "The woods are full of a little bird about the bigness of a linnett which has a pretty note, but its song is very short, and not varied. It is yellow all over, being called the yellow bird." "A kind of ortolon, whose plumage is of an ash color on its back, and white under its belly, which they call the white bird, is the best songster of all the inhabitants of the wood. It is a little inferior to the nightengale of France, but only the male sings. "It is always the first to return in spring. As soon as the snow is melted in some places, they come in great flocks, and we take as many as we please. "A hundred leagues south we see the cardinal bird; the sweetness of its song, the brilliancy of its plumage, which is a fine scarlet, a little tuft of feathers upon the head, 89 uJ which pretty well resembles the crowns which painters give to Indian kings, seem to conform to them the empire of the air." His observations on the humming bird, which he calls the fly bird, are very interesting, but here again we find inaccuracies, probably because he depended more or less on second hand information. "The fly bird is but little bigger than the common May bug or chaffer, and is so called from its size and the pretty loud humming of its wings which is much like that of a large fly. Its legs, which are about an inch long, are like two needles. Its bill is the same and it puts out of it a little trunk which it thrusts into flowers to draw out their juice, upon. which it feeds. The female has nothing brilliant, a pretty fine white under the belly, and an ash color on the rest of her body is all its ornament, but the male is a perfect beauty. It has on the top of its head a little tuft of a beautiful black, the throat red, the belly white, the back of the wings and the tail green like those of rose leaves; a tinge of gold spread over all its plumage gives it a great brilliancy, and a little imperceptible down gives it the finest shades that can be seen. "The bird has a very strong wing, and flies with surprising swiftness; you see it upon a flower, and in a moment it rises up to a great height in the air almost perpendicular. It is an enemy of the crow, and a dangerous one too. I heard one say, who was worthy of credit,, that he had seen one suddenly quit a flower it was sucking, rise up swiftly as lightning, and go and thrust its self under the wing of a crow that was floating in the air with its wings spread out, and piercing it with its trunk, made it fall down dead, either killed by the fall or the wound. "The fly bird seeks flowers which have the strongest smell, and it sucks them keeping always on the fluttering but it rests itself from time to time, and then one may view it perfectly. "They have been kept some time upon sugared water and flowers. I kept one formerly for twenty-four hours. "It suffered itself to be taken and handled, and feigned itself dead. As soon as I let it go, it took its flight and kept fluttering around my window. I made a present of it to one of my friends who, the next morning, found it dead, and D0 that night there had been a little frost. These little animals take care to shun the first cold weather. It is very probable that they return toward Carolina, and it is assured that they are not there but in winter. "They make their nests in Canada, where they hang them to the branch of a tree and turn them in such a manner that they are sheltered from all injuries of the weather. Nothing is so neat as these nests. The bottom is made of very little bits of wood platted like a basket; and the inside is lined with I know not what sort of down which appears like silk. The eggs are about the bigness of a pea, and have yellow spots upon a white ground. They say they have commonly three and sometimes five eggs." Charlevoix has this to say about the elk, which is interesting, if true: "What they call here, the 'Original' is what, in Germany, Poland, and Muscovy, they call the elk or Great Beast. "They say that the Original is subject to epilepsy, and when the fits seize him, he gets over them, by scratching his ear with his left hind foot till he draws blood, which has made the hoof of this foot be esteemed as a specific for Falling sickness." The pioneers depended in a large measure upon the skill of the head of the family as a hunter, for their sustenance. Having little in the shape of food, excepting the small amount of maize which they were able to raise and which had to go to feed the few animals they wintered over, the killing of a bear or deer meant that the family would be fed for a time at least. Game was as a rule plentiful, especially in the spring when the long wedges of wild geese honked their way northward to far nesting grounds, or in fall winged southward to winter feeding places. Swans, too, in large flocks, and sand hill cranes, and countless other birds joined the great migration lines that might be seen, any night against the moon, an endless parade of whispering wings, bound for the sunny south land. The passenger pigeons, too, were on the wing and in great flocks, millions in number,, darkened the sun for hours at a time as they made their way to the beech woods 91 of Michigan, to feed upon the nuts or breed, depending on the time of year. The newspapers of the day, had much to say of these flights and a few items may be of interest. "Jan. 16, 1842. We understand that the woods are alive with pigeons at Berrien, the trees on about a thousand acres are covered with them and the thunder of their wings can be heard at a great distance. "April 2, 1843. Warm weather has brought innumerable quantities of pigeons, the air is filled with them, and in the morning so densely that they darken the sun. A continuous firing of guns is kept up and a graceless scamp was heard singing the following: When I can shoot my rifle clear, To pigeons in the skies, I'll bid farewell to pork and beans, And live on good pot pies. "May 6, 1843. A gentleman from Berrien informs us that about three miles and a half from that village the pigeons have taken possession of the woods, about five miles square, where they are nesting, and that there are from ten to seventy-five nests on each tree. "Large branches are broken by them, and the ground is strewn with eggs. On approaching the spot one would imagine that he was near the falls of Niagara, so incessant and loud is their thunder. "Nov. 4, 1846. Pigeons in vast numbers have been flying north for the last few days, and we learn that the beech woods between this and Lake Michigan are literally lined with them. This is the first season since 1829 that they have been noticed so far north at this season of the year. In that year they wintered in the neighboring woods. Prognosticators predict a mild winter. "Dec. 12, 1846. Snow-winter is upon us, but not with its accustomed severity. The ground was covered with snow on Thursday morning, and what is singular, the air was filled with pigeons making their way north. They have left their southern harbors in the wrong time, and it is probable they will all perish. "April 12, 1851. Our friends from the north are continually sending us word that an immense number of pigeons have congregated near the lake shore. 92 "April 20, 1850. Some of the pigeon roosts cover the forests for miles, destroying the timber. A letter from Laurel says, 'I am completely worn down. The pigeons are roosting all through our woods, and the roost extends for miles. Our neighbors and ourselves have for several days had to build large fires, and keep up reports of firearms to scare them off. While I write, within a quarter of a mile, there are thirty guns firing. The pigeons come in such large quantities as to destroy a large deal of timber, break off large limbs, and even tear up some by the roots. The woods are covered with dead pigeons, and the hogs are getting fat on them.' "Sept. 1, 1853. The pigeons have appeared in this section in vast numbers, many farmers have to employ men with guns to keep them off their fields until the wheat can be dragged in. During Monday and Tuesday we captured 300 which will supply our table for a few weeks. "April 20, 1850. We lately spread the pigeon net over not less than 500 pigeons and they took up net, hooks and all and left in double quick time." When the pigeons were flying every imaginable means was employed for killing them. Guns were of course the principal weapon but nets were used and poles and even clubs were employed to knock them down by hundreds. Quantities of them were barreled up and shipped to Chicago and other markets, feather beds were made from the breast feathers, hogs were fed on them, and because they were so plentiful they were shot and allowed to lie where they fell, no one bothering to pick them up. But these great flights of pigeons gradually became less and less in numbers, until in the early part of the twentieth century they became a thing of the past. Now the bird is extinct, not even a single individual having been seen for many years, and the mystery of the disappearance of the passenger pigeon remains one of the unsolved secrets. There are in the Fort St. Joseph museum two individuals, a male and a female, which came from the Clement L. Barron collection, and two sets of eggs, which were collected by Dr. F. N. Bonine when he was a boy, at a roost somewhere east of Barron lake. In those days, when game was plentiful,, a great deal depended not only upon a hunter's proficiency with his 93 rifle, but also, the rifle itself. An accurate rifle was a man's most cherished possession. A good gunsmith was something to be desired in any community and Niles had one in the person of George A. Howe, who for many years worked at his trade here, with no other gunsmith in any way comparable with him. As the local paper put it, "George A. Howe is one of the most ingenious men in any country. He has got hold of all the improvements in gun manufacturing, and by his own mechanical genius added thereto, can get up a most superior article." Even with a good gun not every man was a good shot, but Calvin Wilson was. He was a colored man, a barber, and it was said he had been a slave in his early years. "A pigeon head, just on top, between the eyes, stands no chance at all, at a distance of fifteen yards, he will drop them every time with his rifle, off hand." In 1850, a party of Niles hunters at Grand Marais, which is south of St. Joseph on the lake shore,, and which they describe as being "the greatest bear and deer country in all North America," started a deer, which was shot by George Kimmel, with his 'Old Kildeer', as he called his rifle, when one of his companions complimented him upon his marksmanship, he replied, "Oh fie, that is nothing, do you see that turkey buzzard," pointing to one about 40 rods away, "Where shall I hit him?" "Plug him in the eyes." Crack went his rifle, and off flew the head of the buzzard. "Well, well," said Mr. Kimmel, "missed that one, should have passed the ball from eye to eye, and left the top of his head. Guess my hind sight was a hair too low for the distance." "Mr. Henry Keats recently shot at 18 shots, 784 pigeons that had alighted on a sandbar for water. "In 1850, our friend Hendrick killed 50 pigeons at four shots." "Only 50 at four shots? Dr. Richardson, of our town, last week killed 42 at one shot with a double-barreled shot gun, discharging both barrels at once." And "Oct. 18, 1851, Clark Boss of Berrien, over 70 years of age, killed one day this week 30 ducks at three shots, 6 at one shot, 8 at another, and 16 at another. "On one occasion people were advised to get their guns ready, for 'the farmers say that tens of thousands of black 94 squirrels are coming in from the north and many corn fields are being destroyed;' and Nov. 11, 1852, 'Our woods are full of game of every description, bears have made their appearance, and deer and wild turkeys are very abundant. As for squirrels and small game, no hunter thinks about them; they are on almost every limb.' At Berrien 22 hunters went out and came in with six hundred and ninety black and gray squirrels." "Oct. 4, 1851. Turkeys have seldom been more abundant; deer too are said to be more numerous than usual." And, "Oct. 18th. Some fellows from St. Joseph surrounded a flock of wild turkeys, fired upon them,, killing two, and drove the whole flock into the lake. Seventeen lit in the water about 30 rods from shore, and with boats they captured the whole flock." The Richmond Whig, whose editor is an old hunter, says: "Squirrels, hares, oppossums; in this game the whole country abounds, and we are satisfied that we are to have an unusually hard winter, from the immense number of these animals and the great supplies of grapes, chinquipins, acorns, hickory nuts, and persimmons provides for them by nature." Oct. 25, 1845. "According to the Cass County Advocate, a bear has been killed in the village of Cassopolis which measured six feet in length and weighed 300 pounds." Bears at times became quite troublesome to the pioneers, having a taste for fresh pork that was difficult to thwart. Often attempts were made to build stys that would be bear proof, by roofing them over with logs set far enough apart to prevent the bear from entering, but even this was often unsuccessful, as the bear would be of such strength that he would tear the logs apart and trot off with a squealing pig. When they became too troublesome,, often a hunt would be put on, "All persons wishing to join in a hunt, will meet at Orin Derby's saloon on Monday at candle light, to make arrangements." "A bear made his appearance upon the wheat field of John Best about five miles from this village on last Thursday morning. A young man mounted a horse and chased him about a mile, when bruin took to a tree from which he was shot. He weighed 330 pounds." 95 Oct. 11, 1845. "Three black bears have been killed in Buchanan township, and several have been seen in this locality. They seem to be traveling south; a good sign of a hard winter." Oct. 1847. "Bears made their appearance in great numbers this fall; the Indians north of Grand Rapids have killed 38, whites and Indians between Yankee Springs and Kalamazoo have killed 28, and 15 have been killed between LaGrange and Edwardsburg, and a great many have been shot in this county." "Oct. 4, 1851. A large black bear made his appearance within a few rods of our village limit this week. "He was seen three days in succession by different ones. Hunters were after him on Tuesday, but without success; on Wednesday with equal success he was hunted. "His hind foot leaves a track ten inches long. "Several bears have been seen lately, this and next month is the only season in which they make their appearance from the deep tangled marshes and forests." The most dreaded wild beast which, fortunately, was not so common, was the panther. These cats often grew to be eight feet or more from nose to tip of its long tail and they were powerful and dangerous animals. The cry of the panther was unlike that of any other wild animal, being like that of a wailing woman, and it was an eerie sound, sometimes late at night, after the candles had been put out, the fire in the fireplace banked for the night, and the folks had retired to the comforts of the feather bed, to hear the wailing cry of a panther as it slunk around the little cabin in the wilderness. But they had them, as this entry in the local paper shows. "June 9, 1842, Two large panthers have been frequently seen and heard in this vicinity, during the past two months, and Saturday, next, is the day appointed for a general hunt." They were very destructive of game, as indicated by the following: "A panther has been seen in the Galien woods, about twelve miles this side of New Buffalo. "Various places have been found, where he has killed deer." 96 Wolves, too, were troublesome, especially in the late winter, when food became scarce and they were hungry. Then, emboldened by starvation, they would sneak up around the farm yard to pick up a chicken, or a goose, or maybe a lamb that strayed too far from the flock, and the farmer had to be constantly on his guard to prevent their depredations. In the fall of 1830, Eber Griswold came from Lockport, N. Y. and built a log house on Sycamore street, midway of the block between First and Second streets. All the land north to what is now the railroad, was swamp, where the marsh grasses grew high in the summer, and where, almost every day, some over confident cow would have to be pulled out of the mud where she had mired. That same fall he sent a team by Edwin Huston to Detroit to meet his family of a wife and seven children, Harmon, Almira, Harrison, Benjamin, Edwin, Jerome, and Juliet. It took eight days to reach Niles on the old trail road, and some of the children walked all the way. There were only five or six log cabins here then. The family lived on corn bread, Indian sugar, maple sugar and potatoes, and such wild game as they could get. Edward and Benjamin, with a bag of corn, would cross the river in a canoe and carry it on a pole to Carey mission to get it ground, where they had a mill turned by four yoke of oxen. They cut their hay on the marsh north of Main street and as they had no place to store it except a small cellar owned by Hiram Chilson; most of the hay was left in cocks on the marsh. The snow was two feet deep that winter and the wolves would sleep on the hay cocks. One morning Tommy Deniston, Harrison, Harmon and Edward, for amusement, took guns to surround the wolves and capture them. Harmon was to make the first fire and drive them out, which he did, and the wolves started. All had shots but not a wolf was touched. Even Uncle Tommy Deniston, who was a good shot, did not hit one. 1- 4 It was about 18z or '4#, that a story got around that a panther had been heard wailing around Jeromes lake, which is south-east of Niles, a little lake surrounded most of the 97 way by groves of scrub oaks, its borders by Ilex, or Christmas holly bushes, that in fall flame with red berries that last 'till the first real freeze. On one side of the lake was a cranberry bog. Its trailing vines, thick with dark red fruit, was a favorite place for the neighbors to gather their cranberries for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We knew about the panther from our school mates, who lived out that way, the Prebles, who lived on the north side of the C. W. and M. railroad. On the other side and farther on, where the ground breaks to drop into the valley of the Brandywine, lived George Wray in a little house with three or four old pines sheltering it. George lived with an old aunt, his parents being dead, who cared for him as best she could, which was not very good as she was desperately poor, and down in the hollow by the creek at the old Woodford place lived a man named Stubbs, who married one of the Goldie girls, Viola. Hattabelle. When we first heard of the panther, the Preble boys told how it wailed at night, no one ever saw it, but they heard it and they were frightened. George Wray didn't have much to say about it, which seemed rather strange, as he lived in the neighborhood and Drobablv would have heard it if anyone would. Well, it went on for several days, and then one morning the Preble boys came to school just running over with excitement. It seemed that the night before their father, who was a broom maker, had been in town and was walking home rather late along the C. W. and M. right of way, and as he got to a place where there was a little grove of trees by the side of the track all at once, right almost beside him, there came that awful wail. It wailed two or three times, but Mr. Preble didn't stop to hear it, he started to run, expecting every minute the beast would be upon him. He said afterward that "you could have set the dining table on his coat tails." Well, he got home all right, but he was all out of breath from running so hard and being so scared. Well, even then George didn't say anything, but there was a little sparkle in his eyes that made some of us wonder a little. Well, it went along for a week or so, and then, o8 one morning, it was Saturday, for that was the day we had no school, Billy Preble had to go over to the Stubbs place on an errand, and while he was there he saw the panther, yes actually saw it, for there by the side of the wood pile it lay. It was a nail keg from which both heads had been removed, and over one end was stretched a piece of green cow hide. This had dried until it was tight as a drum, and on the inside of the keg a handfull of horse hair was fastened to the middle of the drum head, and that was well rosined, and when a fellow pulled his fingers down that rosined horse hair it let out a most gosh-awful wail that could be heard a mile, and by turning the mouth of the keg one way or another the sound would come from close at hand, or away off somewhere. Well, were the Preble boys mad when they saw it. It seems the Wrays and Stubbs families had a chance at all the cranberries that year, for the other neighbors were too scared to go after them. They just didn't speak to each other for the longest time. I don't know that they ever did get over it, for George, when his aunt died, went to California and died there, and that was the last panther scare we ever had, and that makes me think of a bear story, but that happened a long time after the wailing panther. This was about 1916 or '17, and a prominent farmer that lived west of town a couple or three miles, was driving to town in his lumber wagon. He had gotten close to the Ballard woods,, on what is now M-60, when his team began to sniff the air and they got more and more fractious as they got nearer the woods, until at last it was hard for him to hold them. Well, when he got alongside the woods he saw what the trouble was. There were a couple of men there dressing out some animal, and were just hanging it up as he came along. It proved to be Al Stock, who lived in a house opposite the woods and who was a butcher, and Hoopie Freed was helping him. Well, the man stopped his team, which by that time was acting like Sancho because they smelled the blood, and hailing the men, asked what they had there, and Al said, "A bear." "A bear," said the farmer, "where would a bear come from in these woods?" "Well", Al said, "he was headed this way from down toward the river when I shot him." "Well what are you going to do with him?" "Oh, going to sell him down to the market." Well, that was enough for the farmer, and he let his team go, they had become almost unmanageable by that time, and they didn't lose any time getting the rest of the way to town. He hitched his team to the hitching posts in front of Wells store,, and then he got busy. The first person he met, he asked if he had heard about the bear that was shot up in Ballards woods, and of course he hadn't and didn't give much credence to the tale, but the farmer said it was so, he saw it himself, and went on to tell his story to very one who would listen. By and by he managed to stir up quite a commotion, and folks began to get wrought up to the point that they would go and get the old mare and the buggy and drive out to Ballards woods, to see for themselves. The farmer was the hero of the day, until those who went out to see began to straggle back to town, and then what a laugh they had. It seemed that Hoopy Freed, who had been in the show business and had a dog and pony show, had decided to quit business, and he sold off everything he could, but he had his trained bear left and couldn't sell him, so he decided he would get Al Stock to butcher him and sell him in his market. So that was just what he did and they took the bear over in the woods and shot and dressed him there, the last bear to be shot in this vicinity. When the warm spring days came to the St. Joseph valley and the red and silver maples were bursting into bloom along the river, then the fish felt the urge to spawn and the water would be thick with them as they pushed their way upward to the shallows of the creeks, and of the river, there to reproduce and then, after a time, to return to the blue waters of the lake. Sturgeon, bass, redhorse, mullet, pickerel, trout, suckers, and a host of others made the pilgrimage, and it was at this time of the year that the early settlers, armed with seins and dip nets, stationed themselves along the river at favorable locations to lay in a supply of fish for the ensuing year. 100 Great stories are told of the fishing in those early days, and if the big ones did get away those that were left were large enough to form the basis for a very satisfactory fish story. Of all the fish that have made our river famous, the sturgeon is the largest, and in early times, it was very plentiful, and captures of specimans ten feet long were not uncommon, and some of even twelve feet long were taken. The Indians had a way of taking these great fish that was interesting, and near South Bend there was still visible, not many years ago, a series of flat rocks in the river, placed like stepping stones, from one bank to the other. Upon these a number of Indians, armed with spears would station themselves, while another with paddles, for threshing the water to scare the fish, would be stationed at a distance up the river. At a signal these would start slapping the water with the flat of their paddles, creating a great commotion to drive the fish back toward the waiting spearmen, who in turn would endeavor to spear them, which they often did. Then a battle royal would follow which might or might not result in victory for the Indians and the landing of the fish, but anyway it was great sport. It used to be said that there was such a causeway here at Niles, but if there was it probably was covered by the water when the dam was built. After the construction of the dam, there being no fish ladders to aid the fish in getting over it, the migration was halted at the dam, and in consequence the waters below was crowded with fish of every description and fishermen lined the banks for two or three miles north with seines and dip nets. Indiana people were forced to come here to secure a supply which they had always been able to get at almost any place upstream. At one time a man named Hess used to draw his seine at the foot of Bond street hill. He seined many sturgeon eight feet and more long, and kept them impounded in Silver Brook creek, which falls into the river at this place, by driving stakes into the bed of the creek closely enough 101 together to prevent their escape, but allowing for a free flow of water. He took them in spring, when they were going up the river to spawn, and removed the eggs from the females, and these were shipped to Russia for caviar. Some boys had built a dam, higher up the brook, and someone told Hess about it and suggested that if it happened to go out it might take all his sturgeon with it. Hess, in a great rage, started up the stream to see about it. He made such a demonstration, cursing and threatening, that the boys thoroughly frightened, broke holes in their dam, and the consequent flood did just what he had feared, and liberated all his precious sturgeon. The old McOmber distillery stood at the foot of the Bond street hill. On March 31, 1849: "The river is full of fish-lake suckers, sturgeon, pickerel, etc., but owing to the high water, few have been taken. Mr. Carberry speared a pickerel that weighed twenty-three and a half pounds." Feb. 26, 1853: "Col Gephart, with his seine, took eighteen bushels of suckers at one haul from the eddy in the river, just below the foot of Main street." Sometimes the mill wheel at the Dakota mills would become so clogged with eels, that it would be stopped and this, considering that eels propogate far off in the Atlantic ocean, near the Sargasso sea, and must make a trip of thousands of miles in order that they may clog the mill wheel at Niles, Mich., is some story. On May 5th, 1855, it was reported about town, that sturgeon were to be found in Dowagiac creek. In consequence, several men equipped with spears and nets went to the creek to see about it and in half a day captured about 150 of the monsters. "Darius B. Cook, speared and took out twenty-three, the heaviest weighing eighty pounds, the whole making a heavy load for two horses." In March 1857, the story came that fishing on the Calumet was wonderful and a reporter for the paper was sent to investigate. "The first thing that met our view was a huge pile of fish, about two cords. "Here a hole had been cut in the ice, about three rods long by two rods wide, at the mouth of a small creek. "A small seine was carried around on the edge of the ice and dropped in, the first haul brought out about thirty 102 barrels of pickerel, bass,i sunfish, and dogfish. There were many pickerel and bass of monstrous size, some of which we purchased and brought home with us. "Mr. McCharger will realize not less than $1,500 out of this little hole for the month of March." April, 1868: This seemed to be a year for the big ones. "The largest sturgeon of the season was fished out of the river near the dam. It measured seven feet in length and weighed one hundred and eighty-six pounds. "Eleven of these monstrous fish were caught at one time. "Mr. Loshbaugh, the fisherman, says he once caught in this river a sturgeon weighing over three hundred pounds." Probably the largest sturgeon that was caught that year was one caught at the dam that measured seven and a half feet long and weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. It was about 1840. The long hot summer days were upon them, and the boys of the town thought that anything more strenuous than going fishing was something unheard of, so that is just what they did and with a fish line and a pocket full of worms sought the seclusion of a great tree that hung far out over the water just above the Main street bridge, only the bridge wasn't there then. That wasn't built until 1845. Here one could find a seat among the branches and, dangling his feet, really take comfort. The pool beneath was shady and deep and cool, a favorite place for the fish, and many a fine bass or chubb or sunfish was hooked there. But old Uncle Tommy Deniston (he wasn't really so old, but every one called him that) saw the boys there and thought that would be a good place for him to try his luck. Accordingly one day he took his fish line and a can of bait and went down and made the boys, greatly to their displeasure, come in from the tree top, and he took their place. Really, that first day he was quite successful and caught a good mess, enough so it called for another try at it, but the boys were not to give up so easily,, and they counseled among themselves on what to do about it and finally Cass Chapman hit on a scheme that seemed feasible. He would get his father's saw and they would saw the tree top almost 103 off leaving just enough so that when anyone stepped on it it would break off. So he got the saw and after Uncle Tommy left they began to saw. It was hard work and it took them some time, but at last they had it cut until they were afraid to cut it any more for fear it would break before they wanted it to. Well, the next morning, bright and early, here came Uncle Tommy, with his pipe, prepared for a glorious day of fishing. It was just the day for it, and all around, secreted in the brush, were the boys, prepared to make the most of it. Tommy got up on the log very carefully and edged his way along toward the far end of the tree and then, all at once, the tree gave way under him and, with a yell you could have heard a mile, he went heels over head, down into the water beneath. What a whoop went up, and Tommy, puffing and blowing, finally managed to get ashore, but he had to get a new pipe. He lost his old one when he opened his mouth to yell,, and it is there somewhere at the bottom of the St. Joe to this day. And the boys? Well, they had a lot of fun over the way Old Tommy yelled, just before he struck the water, and they lived to tell the tale in after years, and some of them made their mark in the history of the town. Cass Chapman was a carpenter and later an architect and he it was that was the architect and builder of the Catholic church at the corner of Lincoln avenue and Clay Streets, that was called St. Francis when it was built and was changed to St. Mary's later. For many years it had no steeple, and years later when Old Father Cappon received an inheritance from Holland, and decided to put a steeple on his church, he got Cass Chapman, then one of Chicago's foremost architects who planned many of the great churches and buildings that went up after the great Chicago fire, to come over and put up the steeple, with its gleaming gold cross, that now graces St. Mary's church. The dam was completed in 1868, and in 1869, April 15, the local paper says, "Since the completion of the dam across the river the business of fishing has become quite an important item of trade in this city. 104 "It is estimated that not less than 40,000 fish have been caught here this spring. Gephart and Loshbaugh have caught 15,000; of these 2931 were caught in one day and 407 were brought up at one haul of the seine." And the next year, 1870, "Some fifteen or sixteen seines and any number of dip nets are employed and the shores on either bank of the river, from the dam to a point two miles below, are occupied by fishermen. Bass, walleyed pike, pickerel, redhorse, mullet, lake suckers, and sturgeon are the principle varieties caught." And in 1871, "Ward and Fowler, at one draw of the net on Thursday last, caught more than 3,000 fish. "The first attempt was a failure, the immense weight snapping the net." 105 NA,4 'ýý -- -7 " Z '.ý' S4 v MA, i R. 'SIN ILL. 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