warriors for the capture of the American fort on the Island of Mackinac. It is probable that nearly the whole force of the Ottawa warriors of L'Arbre Croche and the scattered bands around Grand Traverse Bay were engaged in that enterprise. The affair ended in the complete suc cess of the British, happily without the shedding of blood. Two years later, when the Americans, under Col. Croghan, attempted to retake the fort, they were foiled, mainly by the large force of Indians the British commander had again been able to gather to his standard. In this attempt the Americans suffered severe loss. The most shocking barbarities were practiced on the bodies of the slain. They were literally cut to pieces by their savage conquerors. Their hearts and livers were taken out and cooked and eaten, and that, too, it is said, even in the quarters of the British officers. More than 40 years afterwards, when the Indians had become friendly towards the Americans, and the settlements of the latter had reached the Grand Traverse country, Asa-bun, an Indian of Old Mission, used to be pointed out as one who had been seen running about with a human heart in his hands, which he was devouring. Another, a chief by the name of Aish-qua-gwon-a-ba, was credited by the settlers, whether justly or not, with keeping a number of scalps, the trophies of his prowess at Mackinac, carefully hidden away in a certain trunk.

In reviewing the history of the Indian tribes of the United States, one cannot avoid the conclusion that the greatest hindrance to the increase of population, and, indirectly, to the development of an indigenous civilization, was not so much the privations incident to a peaceful savage state as to the destruction of life by constantly-recurring wars. There seems little doubt that if the number of deaths by violence during a given time could be ascertained, it would be found not to fall far below the number of births for the same period. This remark applies more especially to the Indians as the Europeans found them; not to those of the present time, where whites and Indians live in mingled or adjacent communities, in the border settlements. The sudden partial transition from their mode of life to that of their white neighbors and the adoption of many of the worst vices of the white men with few of their virtues, are doing more to hasten the extinction of the race than was done by all the Indian wars of which we have any knowledge.

If, as their tradition asserts, the Ottawas were at the height of their power and glory at the time of Pontiac's war, a later period was the golden age of those at L'Arbre Croche, with reference to the prosperity that comes from peaceful pursuits.

At the close of the war of 1812 the occupation of the warrior passed away. Quarrels with their Indian neighbors of the south and west, and with the Iroquois of the east, had already ceased. Thenceforth there was no opportunity to take an enemy's scalp. The arts of war gave place to the peaceful pursuits of savage life. There followed as much prosperity as savage life, improved by the first dawnings of civilization, in a country well fitted by nature for the habitation of a people in just that stage of advancement, was capable of producing. The lakes, streams, and forests, with their cultivated gardens of no mean extent, supplied an abundance of food; their peltries, bartered at Mackinac, procured various articles of comfort and luxury. The baleful effects of fire-water were yet but seldom felt; the ruinous influence of vicious white men had not yet begun to warp the Indian character. The concurrent testimony of witnesses still living goes to show that, previous to the time when the first adventurous white men erected their cabins in the Grand Traverse country, there was a degree of physical comfort, moral culture, and social and domestic happiness among the Indians far exceeding what the observation of a more recent period would lead one to believe. Their condition was much better than that of the ordinary American savage of the average historical writer.

Their principal and most permanent settlements were at Cross Village, Middle Village, Seven-Mile Point, and Little Traverse; but between the first and last of these places, wigwams, singly and in groups, were scattered at intervals all along the shore. A few families had their home at Bear creek, on the south side of Little Traverse bay. There were gardens on the height of land, a mile or more back from the shore not far south of the present village of Norwood, and a camping place, frequently occupied, on the shore. There were gardens on the peninsula in Grand Traverse bay and a village at Old Mission. West of the bay, a small band had their home on the point afterwards known as New Mission, and another on the shore of Lake Michigan, at or near the site of the present village of Leland.

Their dwellings were of various sizes and shapes, and were constructed of a variety of materials. The most substantial and permanent consisted of a frame of cedar poles, covered with cedar bark. One of these, called o-maw-gay-ko-gaw-mig, was square or oblong, with perpendicular walls, and a roof with a slope in opposite directions, like the simplest form of frame houses among white men. Another, the ke-no-day-we-gaw-mig, had perpendicular end walls, but the side walls in the upper part were bent inward, meeting along the middle line, thus forming the roof in the shape

of a broad arch. Houses of this kind were sometimes 50 or 60 feet long, and had places for three fires. The ne-saw-wah-e-gun and the wah-ge-nogawn were light but very serviceable houses, consisting of frames of poles covered with mats. The former was cone-shaped; the latter regularly convex at the top. The mats, ten or twelve feet long and three or four wide, were made of the long, slender leaves of the cat-tail flag (Typha), properly cured and carefully sewed together. When suitably adjusted on the frames, with the edges lapping, they made a serviceable roof. Being light, and when rolled up not inconvenient to carry, they were used for traveling tents. Houses of mats were often used for winter residences in the woods, and were not uncomfortable. The ah-go-beem-wah-gun was a small summer house for young men, usually constructed of cedar bark, on an elevated platform resting on posts, reached only by ascending a ladder. Winter houses in the woods were sometimes built of slabs or planks of split timber. They were often cone-shaped, and were made tight and warm. They were called pe-no-gawn. In the woods, even in winter, they sometimes lived in temporary wigwams of evergreen boughs, which they managed to make comfortable.

The fire was built

The Indian houses were without windows. upon the ground, in the center if the lodge was small; or there was a row of fires down the middle line, in a long ke-no-day-we-gaw-mig. A hole in the roof, above each fire, served for the escape of the smoke. A raised platform, a foot or a foot and a half high, covered with mats, along the sides of the room, served for a seat during the day and for a sleeping place at night. The mats, some of them beautifully ornamented with colors, were made of rushes found growing in shallow lakes, ingeniously woven together with twine manufactured from the bark of the slippery elm.

In their gardens they cultivated corn, pumpkins, beans, and potatoes. Apple trees, the seed for which was originally obtained from the whiteseither the Jesuit missionaries or the fur traders were planted in every clearing. Wild fruits, especially choice varieties of wild plums, were grown from seed introduced from their distant southern hunting grounds. At the time of the present writing, fruit trees of their planting are found growing wild in the young forests that have sprung up on abandoned fields. The gardens were frequently some distance from the villages. The owners resorted to them at the proper season to do the necessary work, living for the time in portable lodges or in temporary structures erected for the occasion.

Though they hunted more or less at all times, winter was the season devoted more especially to that pursuit. Then the greater part of the population left the villages and scattered through the forest. The chain of inland lakes in Antrim county, having its outlet at Elk Rapids, was a favorite resort, on account of the facilities for fishing, as well as for hunting and trapping. Many plunged into the deeper solitudes of the forest and fixed their winter abode on the Manistee, the Muskegon, or the Sauble. Others embarked in canoes, and coasted along Lake Michigan to its southern extremity, from there making their way to the marshes of the Kankakee and the hunting grounds of northern Indiana and Illinois. Several families had their favorite winter camping place on the northeastern shore of Boardman lake, within the present corporate limits of Traverse City. Here the women and children remained while the hunters made long trips in the woods, returning to camp with the spoils of the chase several times during the winter. One principal advantage of the location was the abundance of pickerel in the lake-an abundance that seems fabulous to the white fishermen of the present day. They were caught with spears through holes cut in the ice, and were an important addition to the winter supply of food.

In spring traders came from Mackinac, and sometimes from other places, to barter goods for furs. Not infrequently, however, the Indian hunter, accompanied by his wife and children, preferred to visit the center of trade with his peltries, in person. Then, sometimes, there was a brief but fearful indulgence of the Indian's appetite for strong drink. At home sobriety usually prevailed.

How long the Jesuits continued active work at L'Arbre Croche after the time of Father Jonois is not known. There seems to have been a long period during which the Indians were left to themselves. The great cedar cross remained standing on the brow of the bluff at Cross Village, a memorial of the devotion and zeal of the early missionaries, but their teachings had been forgotten. It is said that when the ground was afterwards reoccupied only one Indian could be found who could prove himself a Christian by making the sign of the cross.

In 1825 the Catholics sent a missionary to reoccupy the long-abandoned field. Seven-Mile Point was chosen as a center of operations, and a church was immediately built. The building was about 20 feet by 40 in size, constructed, like the better class of Indian houses, of the most suitable materials readily obtainable-cedar timbers for the frame, and for the covering cedar bark. Seven-Mile Point not proving a satisfactory location, in 1827 the mission was moved to Little Traverse. At the

latter place a church of cedar logs was built the following year. About the same time a similar church was built at Cross Village. The work of the missionaries was successful, a considerable number of Indians readily becoming Catholics.

About 1839 and 1840 the population was greatly diminished by a sudden exodus, caused by distrust of the Indian policy of the United States government. Fearing to be forcibly removed beyond the Mississippi, fully one-half of the Indians, it is said, took refuge in Canada.

In the preceding pages the author has endeavored to narrate succinctly the events known to have occurred in the Grand Traverse region while it was yet a strictly Indian country, and to portray truthfully the situation as it was when the first adventurous white men essayed to establish permanent homes within its borders. In those that follow, it will be our duty to trace, as faithfully as the material at hand will enable us to do, the varied fortunes of the early pioneers.

CHAPTER V.

The two Missionaries-Consultation With the Indians-Site for Mission Chosen at Elk River-The Track of a White Man's Horse-House Built-Sorrowful News-Visit From Indian Agent-Removal to Mission Harbor-School Opened-A Mixture of Races-Two Civilizing Agencies.

In May, 1839, a Mackinaw boat, with four men at the oars and two passengers, rounded the point that, jutting out from the peninsula into the east arm of Grand Traverse bay, forms the little cove known as Mission Harbor. The passengers were Rev. John Fleming and Rev. Peter Dougherty, missionaries of the Presbyterian board. They had spent the previous winter at Mackinac, and now came to the country of Grand Traverse bay, which to the white man was then almost a terra incognita, for the purpose of establishing a mission among the Indians. They had brought supplies from Mackinac, including doors and windows for a house.

On all sides the country was seen in its primeval wildness and beauty. The shores were fringed to the water's edge with foliage of various shades of green. In the crystal flood on which their frail craft floated, the shore scenes were reflected, as in a mirror of liquid silver. Of the presence