MICHIGAN

PIONEER AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

ANNUAL MEETING, JUNE 17, 18, 1885.

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT.

BY FRANCIS A. DEWEY, OF CAMBRIDGE.

Pioneers, Friends, and Citizens of Michigan :

It is with cheer and good-will we meet this evening, and in behalf of the Pioneer Society I give to all a cordial welcome. With advancing age it is oftimes a pleasure to review the former scenes in the history of our beautiful State, and to gather from those who were actual participants in those scenes such facts and reminiscences as they are able to present. Especially are we encouraged when we notice with what interest our efforts to collect these facts and reminiscences for preservation, ere it be too late, are appreciated by the people of the State. Here, to-night, we are met by an intelligent assembly, composed of such persons as are ready to assist, as they may be able, in making this annual meeting a very pleasant and profitable one; and among them we see the sons and daughters of song, who have come to cheer us with admirable music music which thrills us with delight as we sit in this beautiful temple dedicated to the worship of the true and only God. It is an appropriate custom, handed down to us from the earliest age, frequently to celebrate the scenes of former times, and to set apart certain days to gatherings in memory of the past; and thus we have met to take a retrospective view of the primitive days in Michigan-days when the wild, primeval forest stretched unbroken for miles around, while the habitations of the white man were, "like angels' visits, few and far between." I will ask your indulgence for a brief moment while I refer you to the unhospitable shores of Massachusetts, where the feeble band on Plymouth Rock faced midwinter in the year 1620, having as neighbors not only fierce wild beasts, but the more hostile savages as well, while the remoteness of human succor, and the slenderness of the ties which stretched in invisible lines across the wild waste of Atlantic waters, rendered their condition still more unpleasant. They met cruel disappointment and wasting sickness, yet like the lofty pine, storm-topped, they struck root at length, even in the stony soil of bleak New England, and laid deep the firm foundations of a great and glorious commonwealth. We can most truly say that among the genuine stock of New England and the Middle States the people of Michigan claim a large share of their ancestry.

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

During the year 1819 Governor Cass made a treaty at Saginaw with the Chippewa Indians, in which lands were obtained in Michigan embracing about six millions of acres. As we review the early days of Michigan, we find that but a small part of the interior was settled by those who cleared the forest or plowed the ground previous to the year 1824. Then a few remote

settlements began north and west from Detroit and Monroe. In the year 1825 the Erie Canal was opened to Buffalo, and then the enterprising families from New York and other Eastern States led the way, for ten or twenty successive years, to Michigan. Men in search of lands and new homes came into most every township and county.

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

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

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

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

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

A large share of our honored and historic pioneers have left us to be here no more; it is with sadness we review the record of the departed, and we are reminded that in a few more years there will be no one here to recount the early history of this State. Very excellent and well written historical papers have been received for publication in the volumes of Pioneer Collec