THE SELKIRK RESERVATION. BY JAMES W. HUMPHREY.* The Selkirk or Selkrig Reservation is, or rather was, located on sections 20 and 28 in Wayland township, Allegan county, Michigan. In 1837 and 1838 the general government granted aid to the various churches that would establish missions to scattered bands of Indians in Western Michigan. Bishop McCoskey, of the Episcopal church, who was at the head of the western diocese, sought an opportunity through this governmental aid to bestow upon some tribe the blessings of Christian civilization. Around the shores of Gun lake was a band of Ottawas with their once proud chieftain, Sagamaw, and a few Pottawattamies. These two tribes, now destitute and degraded with their fellows, had once been the proud and undisputed owners of a large portion of the State. Gradually they had been forced back by the more intelligent and powerful whites. Their hunting grounds had been taken from them and were fast being transformed into beautiful farms. To these degraded fragments of once powerful tribes, which war and civilization had nearly destroyed, Rev. James Selkirk was sent in 1838 to offer them a "Mission Home." Securing the aid of Rev. Leonard Slater, an Indian missionary of the Baptist faith, located on Gull prairie, they met and held a conference with Sagamaw at his encampment. The plan of the mission-its location to the westward five or six miles, an undisturbed home, the protecting care of the church-all were explained to the wily chieftain, but he doubted the veracity of the pale-faced brother and required more time for thought upon the matter. A second meeting was agreed upon, to be held on the banks of the beautiful sheet of water now known as Selkirk lake. At the appointed time Sagamaw, with a goodly number of his braves, met Bishop McCoskey and Rev. Mr. Selkirk on the site of the proposed *James W. Humphrey was born in Powell, Delaware Co., Ohio, August 19, 1846. He attended the district school preparatory for the University. He enlisted in the 26th Ohio Infantry, saw active service in Tennessee and Georgia, was severely wounded at Kenesaw Mountain, June 18, 1864, but recovered sufficiently to take part in the battle of Nashville, which destroyed Hood's army. At the close of the war he accompanied his regiment as part of "Sheridan's Army of Observation" in Texas. Returning home he began his studies in the Ohio Wesleyan University. He came to Michigan in 1869, married Miss Beulah A. Sooy of Dorr that year, and since then has been engaged in educational work, having been a member of Allegan county school board for twenty-one years, six of which he was county school commissioner, and one year as teacher of pedagogy in Hope College, and for eight years teacher in the summer normal classes, and received from this institution the degree of M. A. He is the author of several valuable books for teachers, and is very much interested in church and Sunday-school work. He was a member of the Michigan Senate in 1899 and 1900. At present he is busily occupied as legislative superintendent and financial agent of the anti-saloon league. mission. At the close of this conference the Indians agreed to accept the offer made them and remove at once to the reservation. One hundred and sixty acres on section 20 was purchased from the government, and 200 acres on section 28 from Lawrence Van De Walker of Kalamazoo. The deed was made to Bishop McCoskey and his successors, in trust, in order that the Indians could not dispose of it and be left without homes. The following year, 1839, Rev. James Selkirk, with his family, consisting of his wife and three children, James E., Jeremiah, and Charles, moved to the mission-then called the "Griswold Mission." The first work was the building of a house, which would serve for a church, a schoolroom, and a home for himself and family. Under the direction of Rev. Mr. Selkirk a log house (wigwam) having a large arbor or bower house was built. In this arbor religious services were held on Sundays, which were well attended, not only by the Indians, but by many of the early pioneers. His sermons were delivered in English and interpreted by Adoniram Judson or Mawbere, an educated Ottawa, who was considered one of the best interpreters in the State. In the work of education, Bishop McCoskey sent a Miss Corbin who aided materially, not only in the week day school but in the Sunday services. The bishop also sent a farmer by the name of Pollard to the mission, who was to have charge of the farming interest, and to teach, or rather try to teach the Indians the art of agriculture. About 500 Ottawas and 150 Pottawattamies was the crude material which it was proposed to educate intellectually, morally, and in the arts of peace. A few years later Rev. Mr. Selkirk bought a farm adjoining the reservation, and built the house now known as "Old Mission Home." It was peculiarly constructed. The outer wall consisted of hewn timbers, tenoned at both ends, which were set upright and secured to both sills and plates by entering a continuous mortise and pinned together. His parlor was furnished by the skill of his own hands, not only from necessity's sake, but to teach the dignity and worth of labor. The furniture consisted of a sofa, two large rockers, one corner chair, a large arm-chair, with six others all of black walnut and very neatly upholstered, a center table, also his work. Rev. Mr. Selkirk was well fitted for the task assigned him. Having studied medicine, he was often called outside the reservation to the sick, there being no physician within 25 miles. For 14 years the work of the mission went forward under the fostering care of the Episcopal church, with government aid. But true progress in any line was meager. That an Indian can never appreciate the blessings of civilization seemed almost true of these. To hunt or to fish, while the squaw wove baskets for the industrious whites, seemed their natural desire of life. Among the Indians educated on the reservation and worthy of special mention, were David Foster and his son Charles, both able ministers, whose work among others of their tribe was very successful. In 1855 the government made a new treaty with the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Pottawattamie Indians, granting to each family 40 acres, and after remaining on the land five years a deed was to be given them. This land was located near Pentwater, Mich. All the Indians but about 25 families left the reservation and went to Pentwater. It took them about 15 years to get and lose possession of the land given them by the government, and in 1870 they returned to the reservation. Designing white men saw in the reservation desirable land, and told the Indians how it could be "all theirs." Taxes were not paid, and a tax title deed was granted to each family. Today only seven families are left on the reservation and they upon the poorest farms. The white man has again shown his superiority. For a team, or a horse and buggy and a little change, the Indian has parted with his home and gone farther north. Rev. James Selkirk, the leading spirit of the reservation, and who made it his home for 38 years, was held in high esteem by both the Indians and whites, and gave the best of his life to the seemingly fruitless task of inducing the Indians to conform to the usages of civilized life. He was a Mason, belonging to Carson lodge, Detroit. He received the 33rd degree in Scotland. He died October 5, 1877, at the age of 86, and was buried in the family cemetery. His son, Jeremiah, was killed by an Indian at Crow Wing, Minn., in 1858. His youngest son, Charles, fitted himself for the Episcopal ministry. He spoke several of the Indian languages fluently, and at the early age of 16 was interpreter for Rev. J. L. Breck, a missionary among the Ogipawa Indians in Minnesota. He died at Pentwater, where he was teaching an Indian school, November 19, 1860, at the age of 22. The eldest son, James E., died October 4, 1901, at his home in Wayland and was buried with Masonic honors in Elmwood cemetery. A PREHISTORIC FORT AT CLIMAX. BY F. HODGMAN.* I have been asked to write for the State Pioneer and Historical Society an account of a prehistoric fort at Climax. There is very little to be told beyond the statement that within the present limits of the village of Climax, there once existed something which, for want of a better name or of any knowledge of the object for which it was constructed, was called by the early settlers the "old fort." The village of Climax is situated on the prairie from which it took its name, in sections 2 and 3, township 3 south, range 9 west. It is nearly on the watershed between the valleys of the St. Joseph and Kalamazoo rivers and is said to be the highest point on the line of the Grand Trunk railroad between Port Huron and Chicago. The so-called fort occupied the crest of a knoll in the southwest part of the village. This knoll is probably the highest ground in the township and overlooks the surrounding country for a long distance in every direction. Its height does not vary much from 1,000 feet above sea level. The first settlements were made in this vicinity in 1831. At that time the country near by was all either prairie or oak openings, the undergrowth having been kept down by the annual fires set by the Indians to rid the ground of the dead grass and weeds, for the benefit of the green grass in the spring. The knoll was covered with good-sized oak trees. The open country around it showed everywhere the evidences of former cultivation. There were numerous mounds near by, nearly all of which have been destroyed and leveled with the earth. Some of them contained bones and other human relics. The so-called garden beds occupied most of the open ground for a mile around. They were marked by trenches or paths several inches deep and from one to three feet wide, which parted the land off into different tracts. The beds were from four to six feet wide and from two to ten rods long. They were irregular in size and shape and not laid in straight lines. They were also laid in various *Francis Hodgman was born in Climax, Michigan, November 18, 1839. He graduated at the Michigan Agricultural College in 1862. From 1857 to 1863 inclusive, he taught district schools during the winter terms. In 1863 and 1864 he was clerk in a jewelry and drug store in Littleton, N. H.. 1865 to 1868 was photographer in Galesburg, Michigan. He served as county surveyor of Kalamazoo county from 1868 to 1893, and was engineer in the location of Coldwater, Marshall and Mackinac R. R. in 1870 and 1871. Was chief of a party in the location and construction of Rio Grande Western R. R. in Utah in 1881 and 1882. Since then he has been civil engineer, farmer, author and publisher at Climax, Mich., editing the Michigan Engineer. Among his books are "Manual of Land Surveying," "Wandering Singer and his Songs." He was the originator of the "Climax" wheat. directions and at different angles with each other, as if the land had been parceled out to different persons and each worked up to the line in his own way. The paths were deep enough so the plow would run out of the ground in crossing them and their location could be plainly seen in the freshly plowed ground for many years after its settlement by the whites. The knoll rose in the midst of these "garden beds." I first knew of it in 1844. Nearly the entire field of 40 acres in which it stood was then covered with large oak timber and a thick undergrowth of hazels, oaks, and hickories, which had sprung up in the dozen years since the annual fires had been stopped. Around the summit of the knoll was a ditch two or three feet deep and ten or twelve feet wide with earth banked up along its sides, making it very plain and distinct and easily traced. Large trees were growing in its bottom and along the banks showing that a long time had elapsed since its construction. The first schoolhouse in town was only a few rods away where, a little boy of four years, I attended my first school, and where, as the years passed along, I got nearly all the common school education I ever had. In that field was our playground and it was a favorite sport of us schoolchildren to make believe we were Indians, make wigwams by binding the tops of the saplings together, and race and chase each other around and around that old ditch. Many were the speculations as to who dug it and what it was dug for, but nobody knew anything about it. Because of its form, and its commanding position, it was commonly called the "old fort." But that was a mere conjecture. The ground it occupied has been cleared and cultivated for many years. The old ditch is for the most part filled up. A few of us who knew every foot of the ground in our younger days can now go on the ground and trace out its location, but a stranger would fail to find it. It is now rarely mentioned in the village, and it is prob able that there are many people living within half a mile of the old fort who never knew there was such a thing there. About a quarter of a century ago I made a survey of the ditch and found that its form was that of a perfect ellipse, or oval, enclosing one and three-tenths of the summit of the hill. Its longest diameter was 330 feet, pointing 30 degrees east of north. The shorter diameter was 210 feet. In "Our Village," a local historical poem, written in 1879, the poet thus refers to the old fort: "The time's but an instant, a quick-fleeting breath, Laid the Mound-builders low, whose work we may still Men call it the fort; but can any one tell Why that circular ditch was there laid out so well? |