History of Hillsdale county. Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers.

HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

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from half a million to a million acres each. Of these shares,
five were to go to the Detroiters, six to Randall and his
associates, while the very liberal proportion of thirty shares
was to be assigned to members of Congress, in return for
their assistance in securing the passage of the necessary
laws. The part assigned to the Detroit men was to procure
the needful treaties granting the lands to them, which they
thought they could obtain by their influence over the Pottawattamie and Ottawa chiefs, with whom they were in the
habit of trading.
Thus it will be seen that some very illegitimate schemes
were concocted even in the "good old times" eighty years
ago. It must be admitted, however, that this one was not
as successful as some later ones have been, for it was thoroughly exposed, and some of the parties were brought before
Congress and fined.
In 1796 the British, after long negotiations, surrendered
Detroit and the other posts in the West, and then, and not
till then, did the Americans obtain any real power over
Michigan.
The same year Governor St. Clair formed by proclamation the county of Wayne, which extended from the Cuyahoga River in Ohio to the Mississippi, and northward to
Lake Superior. This was the first county which included
the present territory of Hillsdale within its limits, but its
jurisdiction here was entirely nominal, and the Pottawattamne chiefs still continued the magnates of this region.
The Pottawa ttamies were always a warlike tribe, and
although awed into peace with the United States were much
engaged in hostilities with other tribes, especially with the
Shawnees, who lived to the southward. Many interesting
legends regarding these tribes near the close of the last century are related by Judge Littlejohn in his work entitled
"Legends of Michigan and the old Northwest." The admixture of the romantic, however, is so great that we could
hardly give them a place in our sober history.
This county in rapid succession passed through several
changes of jurisdiction at this period, all merely nominal,
and in nowise interfering with the supremacy of the aboriginal lords of the soil. In 1800 the Territory of Indiana
was formed fiom the Northwest Territory. The east line
of the new Territory was the same as that of the present
State of Indiana, but it was continued northward through
the present State of Michigan to the Strait of Mackinaw.
The present county of Hillsdale was thus left in the Northwest Territory, except a strip a mile wide on the west side
of the townships of Camden, Reading, Allen, and Litchfield,
which was in Indiana. In 1802 the State of Ohio was
formed, at which time the eastern part of the present Michigan was also annexed to Indiana.
In February, 1805, the Territory of Michigan was organized, with Gen. William Hull as the first Governor, and
thus the ancient lands of the Pottawattamies became a portion of a Territory destined to become one of the great and
powerful States of the American Union.
In 1807 a treaty was made by Gen. Hull on the part of
the United States with the Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Chip

pewas, and Wyandots, by which those tribes ceded to the
government their claim to all'the land east of a line drawn
north from the mouth of the Auglaise River (which empties

into the Maumee at Defiance, Ohio), to a point near the
present south line of Michigan. This north and south line
was afterwards extended and made the principal meridian
for the government surveys in Michigan, finally becoming
the line between Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties.
Several other treaties were made with the Pottawattamies
and other tribes between 1800 and 1810. Most of them
were of little importance, though several provided for the
payment of annuities and goods of the United States to
the Indians. Nearly every treaty was headed by the name
of Topenabee (sometimes spelled " Tuthinepee" or " Topenipee"), who was always recognized as the head chief of the
tribe.
Two or three years later the Pottawattamies again began
to grow restless and hostile towards the people of the United
States. The Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, a forest hero of as
great ability as Pontiac, though less ferocious in disposition,
had, like him, conceived the idea of stopping the advancing
war of emigration, which seemed likely ere long to overwhelm the original inhabitants of the land, or drive them
into unknown deserts far beyond the Father of Waters.
Like Pontiac, he too hoped for foreign assistance; but the
hatred felt for the English by the great Ottawa had been
changed to love and admiration in the heart of his modern
imitator.
The reason is plain. In Pontiac's time the English were
one nation with the Americans, and together they were the
great colonizing, emigrating people of the world. Pontiac
hated them, largely because they wanted land, and preferred
the French, not only on account of their pleasant ways but
because they were poor colonizers, and did not want much
land. In Tecumseh's day the Americans were the ones
who threatened to overwhelm the Indians by emigration;
while the English, confined to a narrow belt of habitable
land in Canada, appeared far less dangerous.
Tecumseh knew that there were difficulties between the
United States and Great Britain which portended war; and
it is believed by many that he was directly encouraged by
the British officials to engage in hostilities against the
Americans. However that nay be, about the year 1810
the brave and eloquent Shawznee made desperate efforts to
form an alliance against the Americans of all the Indian
tribes from the Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior, and from
the frontier settlements of the whites to or beyond the
Mississippi. From tribe to tribe he made his rapid way,
gathering the chiefs and warriors in council, kindling their
passions by fierce invectives against the Americans, exciting their hopes by portraying the scalps and booty to be
obtained from the hated pale-faces, and quelling their fears
by promising them the protection of their father, the king
of Great Britain, who was ready to join hands with his
red children in punishing the insolence of the Yankees.
The Pottawattamies were quite ready to believe the flattering story, and they, like all Indians who live in the
vicinity of the whites, had had more or less difficulty with
them, which they were glad to avenge in the bloodiest
manner.

But the Indian policy was not deep enough to keep the
warriors quiet until all was ready for a deadly blow. Their
restive spirits showed themselves by frequent outrages, the