History of Saginaw county, Michigan; together with ... portraits ... and biographies ... History of Michigan ...

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

57

soldier with clubbed rifle raised to strike, his head felt as if it were
pierced with red-hot iron, and he went down from a heavy saber-cut.
All knowledge ceased from this time until many moons afterward,
when he fouhd himself being nursed by the squaws of his friends,
who had found him on the battle-field two or three days afterward.
The squaws thought all were dead, but upon moving the bodies of
Okemos and his cousin, signs of life appeared, and they were taken
to a place of safety and finally restored to partial health. Okemos
never afterward took part in war, this battle having satisfied him
that " white man was a heap powerful."
Shortly after his recovery he solicited Col. Godfroy to intercede
with Gen. Cass, and he and other chiefs made a treaty with the
Americans, which was faithfully kept.
The next we hear of the old chieftain, he had settled with his
tribe on the banks of the Shiawassee, near the place of his birth,
where for many years, up to 1837-'8, he was engaged in the peacefuil vocation of hunting, fishing and trading with the white man.
About this time the small-pox broke out in his tribe, which,
together with the influx of white settlers who destroyed their hunting-grounds, scattered their bands. The plaintive, soft notes of the
wooing young hunter's flute, made of red alder, and the sound of
the tom-tom at council fires and village feasts were heard no more
along the banks of our inland streams. Okermos became a mendicant, and many a hearty meal has the old Indian received from his
friends among the whites. He was five feet four inches high, lithe,
wiry, active, intelligent and possessed undoubted bravery; but in conversation he hesitated and mumbled his words. Previous to the
breaking up of his band in 1837-'8, his usual dress consisted of a
blanket coat with belt, steel pipe, hatchet, tomahawk and a heavy,
long, English hunting-knife stuck in his belt in front, with a large
bone handle prominent outside the sheath. He painted his cheeks
and forehead with vermilion, wore a shawl around his head turban
fashion, and leggins. He died at his wigwam a few miles from
Lansing, and was buried Dec. 5, 1858, at Shimnicon, an Indian
settlement in Ionia county. His coffin was extremely rude, and in
it were placed a pipe, tobacco, hunting-knife, bird's wings, provisions, etc. An ambrotype picture was taken of this eminent
Indian in 1857, and has ever since been in the possession of O. A.
Jenison at Lansing, from whom we obtain the above account.
HULL'S SURRENDER.
Now we have to record an unexplained mystery, which no historian of Michigan can omit, namely, the surrender of Detroit to
the British by Gen. Hull, when his forces were not in action and
were far more powerful than the enemy. He was either a coward
or a traitor, or both. The commander of the British forces, Gen.
Brock, triumphantly took possession of the fort, left a small garrison under Col. Proctor, and returned to the seat of his government.