Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River, in 1820. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

at the city of Detroit, at twelve o'clock P. M., thus completing the passage in sixty-two hours.

      The next morning, an official from the Executive of the Michigan Territory came on board with inquiries respecting Captain Douglass and myself, and we soon found ourselves in a circle where we were received with marked respect and attention. It was pleasing to behold that this respect arose, in a great degree, from the high interest which was manifested, in all classes, for the objects of the expedition, and the influence which its exploratory labors were expected to have on the development of the resources and prosperity of the country at large.

      General Cass, who was to lead the expedition, received us cordially, and let us know that we were in season, as some days would still elapse before the preparations could be completed, and that the canoes in which we were to travel had not yet reached Detroit. We were also cordially welcomed by General Macomb, commanding the military district, Major John Biddle, commanding officer of the fort, and by the citizens generally. I was now, by the computations, about seven hundred and fifty miles from my starting-point at New York. We took up our lodgings at the old stone house occupied by Major Whipple, which, from its prominent position on the banks of the river, had sustained a random cannonade during the late war. We were here introduced to Dr. Alexander Wolcot, who filled the post of physician to the expedition, and to Lieutenant Eneas Mackey, United States artillery, commanding the escort, Major Robert A. Forsyth, private secretary of the Executive, and commissary of the expedition, and superintendent of embarkation; and to James D. Doty and Charles C. Trowbridge, Esqs., who occupied, respectively, the situations of official secretary and assistant topographer.

      Detroit, the point to which I have now been conducted, is eligibly situated on the south bank of the straits of the same name, and enjoys the advantage of a regular plan and spacious streets, which have been introduced since the burning of the old French town in 1805, not a building of which, within the walls, was saved. Its main street, Jefferson Avenue, is elevated about forty feet above the river. The town consists of about two hundred and fifty houses of all descriptions, public and private, and has a population of fourteen hundred and fifty, [10] exclusive of the garrison.

      To the historian it is a point of great interest. It was the site of an Indian village called Teuchsagondie in 1620, the date of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Quebec was founded in 1608; Albany in 1614. But no regular settlement or occupancy took place here, till the close of the seventeenth century. In June, 1687, the French took formal possession of the straits by erecting the arms of France. On the 24th of July, 1701, M. Cadillac established the first military post. Charlevoix, who landed here in 1721, found it the site of Fort Pontchartrain.

      In 1763 the garrison, being then under British colors, sustained a notable siege from the confederate Indians under Pontiac. It remained under English rule till the close of the American Revolution, and was not finally surrendered to the United States until 1790, the year following Wayne's treaty at Greenville. Surrendered by Hull in 1812, it was reoccupied by General Harrison in October, 1813. It received a city charter 24th October, 1815. Indeed, the prominent civil and military events of which Detroit has been the theatre, confer on it a just celebrity, and it is gratifying to behold that to these events it adds the charm of a beautiful local site and fertile surrounding country. A cursory view of the map of the United States, will indicate its importance as a central military and commercial position. Situated on the great chain of lakes, connecting with the waters of the Ohio, Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Hudson, and Red River of the North, and communicating with the Atlantic at so many points, and with a harbor free of entrance at all times, its business capacities and means of expansion are very great. And when the natural channels of communication of the great lake chain shall be improved, it will afford a choice of markets between the most distant points of the Atlantic seaboard. It is thus destined to be to the regions of the northwest, what St. Louis is rapidly becoming to the southwest, the seat of its commerce, the repository of its wealth, and the grand focus of its moral, political, and physical energies. [11]

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      Preparations for the expedition—Constitution of the party—Mode of travel in canoes—Embarkation, and incidents of the journey across the Lake, and up the River St. Clair—Head winds encountered on Lake Huron—Point aux barques—Cross Saganaw Bay—Delays in ascending the Huron coast—Its geology and natural history—Reach Michilimackinac.

      From the moment of our arrival at Detroit, we devoted ourselves, with intensity, to the preparation necessary for entering the wilderness. We were to travel, from this point, by a new mode of conveyance, namely, the Indian bark canoe, called a chimaun, a vehicle not less novel than curious. Constructed of large and thick sheets of the rind of the betula papyracea, or northern birch, which are cut in garment-like folds, and sewed together with the thin fibrous roots of the spruce, on a thin framework of cedar ribs, and having gunwales, with a sheathing of the same material, interposed between the bark and ribs. The seams are carefully gummed with the pitch of the pine. The largest of these canoes are thirty-six feet in length, and seven feet wide in the centre, tapering to a point each way. They carry a mast and sail, and are steered and propelled with light cedar paddles. They are at once light, so as to be readily carried over the portages, and so strong as to bear very considerable burdens. Those intended for us, were ordered from the Chippewas of Lake Huron, near Saganaw Bay. It was necessary to have mosquito-bars, portfolios, knapsacks, and various contrivances, and to make baggage of every sort assume the least possible bulk and space. The public armorer had orders to furnish me suitable hammers and other minerological apparatus for preparing and packing specimens. The expedition was quite an event in a remote town, and everybody seemed to take an interest in the preparation. A fortnight passed away in these preparations, and in awaiting the arrival of the canoes, respecting which there was some delay. It was the 24th of May before we were ready to embark. Besides the gentlemen mentioned as constituting the travelling party, ten Canadian voyageurs were taken to manage the canoes, ten United States soldiers to serve as an escort, and ten Ottowa, Chippewa, and Shawnee Indians to act as hunters, under the directions of James Riley, an Anglo-American, and Joseph Parks, a Shawnee captive (at present, head chief of the Shawnee nation), as interpreters. This canoe contained a chief called Kewaygooshkum, a sedate and respectable man, who, a year afterwards, played an important part at the treaty of Chicago.

      The grand point of departure and leave-taking, was at Grose Point, at the foot of Lake St. Clair, a spot nine miles distant. For this point, horses and carriages, with the numerous friends of Gov. Cass, pushed forward at an early hour; and there was as much enthusiasm manifested, by all classes, as if a new world was about to be discovered. I had a strong wish to witness the mode of canoe travelling, and, declining an opportunity to join the cavalcade by land, took my seat beside Major Forsyth in the Governor's canoe. The Canadians immediately struck up one of their animating canoe songs, the military escort at the same moment displayed its flag and left the shore, and the auxiliary Indians, fired with the animation of the scene, handled their paddles briskly, and shot their canoe rapidly by us. A boat-race was the consequence. The Indians at first kept their advantage, but the firmer and more enduring nerves of the Canadians soon began to tell on our speed, and as we finally passed them, the Indians gracefully yielded the contest. We were two hours in going to Grose Point, with the wind slightly ahead.

      The banks of the River Detroit present continuous settlements, in which the appearance of large old orchards and windmills, among farm-houses and smooth cultivated fields, reminds the visitor that the country has been long settled. And he will not be long in observing, by the peculiarity of architecture, dress, manners, and language, that the basis of the population is French. We found our land party had preceded us, and as the winds were adverse, we encamped in linen tents along the open shore. The next day the wind increased, blowing quite a gale down the Lake. I busied myself by making some meteorological and geological observations. The shores of Lake St. Clair are formed of a fertile alluvium, resting on drift. There are some heavy boulders of primitive rock resting on this, which denote a vast field of former drift action around the shores of these lakes.

      The wind abated about eleven o'clock on the morning of the