History of Ottawa County, Michigan with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers.

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HISTORY OF OTTAWA COUNTY.

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wholly Indian invention, and which the white man has never been
able to improve-a combination, having the qualities of strength
without weight, buoyancy with stability, speed with capacity-the
bark canoe, or canoe alleye. These crafts are from 36 to 40 feet long,
about four feet wide and about two and one-half feet deep. The
material is birch bark and cedar, the whole fastened or sewed with
a peculiar root, and the seams gummed. Not a nail or bit of iron
or other metal is used in its construction. So light are they that a
man at each end may pick up and carry this canoe with perfect
ease, a weight merely of one hundred and fifty pounds, and yet they
will carry safely two thousand pounds, not in smooth water only
but in any ordinary weather on the lake with a good roll of a sea.
Paddles are used for its propulsion, and when manned by its crew of
ten men and steersman it will attain a speed of from ten to twelve
miles per hour-or much more than that for a short distance. In
such crafts as these the lakes were navigated by the earlier adventurers, and Governor Cass made his periodical tours in a bark
canoe.
Perhaps several days after the departure of the batteaux the
trader himself, with his family and personal effects embarked in
one of these swift crafts, and with a crew of picked men, expert in
its management, would skim over the route to his destination with
astonishing speed. This was the passenger steamer, or the fast
mail train of those days.
In an old book, published in 1827, we find from the pen of
Henry R. Schoolcraft, one of the Indian agents of the time, the
following versification.
THE BIRCHEN CANOE.
In the region of lakes where the blue waters sleep,
Our beautiful fabric was built;
Light cedar supported its weight on the deep,
And its sides with the sunbeams were gilt.
The bright leafy bark of the betula tree,
A flexible sheathing provides:
And the fir's thready roots drew the parts to agree,
And bound down its high-swelling sides.
No compass or gavel was used on the bark,
No art but the simplest degree;
But the structure was finished, and trim to remark,
And as light as a Sylph's could be.
Its rim was with tender young roots woven round
Like a pattern of wicker-work rare;
And it passed on the waves with as lightsome a bound
As a basket suspended in air.
The heav'ns in their brightness and glory below
Were reflected quite plain to the view;
And it move d like a swan-with as graceful a show,
Our beautiful birchen canoe.
The trees on the shore as we glided along
Seemed moving a contrary way;
And our voyagers lightened their toil with a song,
That caused every heart to be gay.
* * * * * * *
Oh, long will we think of those silver bright lakes.
And the scenes they exposed to our view;
Our friends-and the wishes we formed for their sakes
And our bright, yellow, birchen canoe.
Mr. Robinson, the pioneer, was present at the principal treaties
(before referred to) with the Indians of the Northwest, and became

so proficient in the use of the several Indian languages as to establish a reputation, which by their own statement was that (, he could
talk Indian better than the Indians could themselves." We cannot
refrain from noting here some peculiarities of the Indian languages.
There are certain modes of expression and certain w'ords in all the
Indian languages that are only used by the women, and other expressions and words only used by the men. In some tribes' these

peculiarities are very marked and have a wide scope of exclusiveness,
in others more limited.
The Natchez Indians in the South have three separate and
distinct languages-one spoken only by the chiefs or rulers, one by
the warriors or hunters, and one by the women; each having a language of their own, entirely unlike in philology or etymology, involving a system of education certainly within the family that
would seem to us almost impossible to be maintained, and yet it was
inviolably perpetuated.
An amusing illustration of this occurred at the treaty of Grand
Rapids, Michigan, in 1835. Rev. Mr. Slater was selected as interpreter between the government authorities and the Ottawa Indians.
He had acquired the Indian language from these Indians, but principally its vernacular from the women who were inmates of his
family and the most devoted and exemplary members of his mission
church. He had translated into the Indian several books for school
use and portions of the gospels and the psalms or hymns for religious exercises. He was deemed quite a linguist of that kind.
When the Indian agent had given his talk to the assembled
council of Indian dignitaries, Mr. Slater addressed himself to them
by putting into Indian the speech of the Government official. No
reply was made to it by the Indians-they listened patiently and
that was all. This unaccountable and provoking silence was at last
broken by one of the lesser chiefs in rank, who said: ( If you came
here to talk with men why don't you use the tongue of a man, and
not speak to us the ' words of a woman?'" Mr. Slater, to his great
mortification, had to " step down and out," and another interpreter
had to be selected before the treaty could be again attempted, whose
knowledge of the Indian language had developed a proper discrimination between, the perquisites in words pertaining to each sex.
Another peculiarity of Indian languages is that nothing of the
nature of profanity call find expression in their vernacular. Whatever of this phase of speech the Indian has occasion to use, he
must do it in English, French or Spanish. In their intercourse
with the whites they might in truth say as did Caliban to Prospezo:
"You taught me your language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language."
Many an incident of Rix Robinson's experience could be repeated,
as related by him, of his wonderful life not only among the Indians
of the Northwest, but with those of Michigan and Ottawa
County. The part he has taken in the development of business projects with varying results, of more or less prominence,
will be referred to in this continuous sketch, as we bring down our
history to the present. In 1875, at his home in Ada, Kent
County, his eventful life ended. Through a long life he maintained
a front rank in the history of this State. A man of unswerving,
sterling integrity, with a wonderfully magnetic control of those with
whom he moved, he was an honored and esteemed representative of
that enterprising class of men who, more than sixty years ago, dared
all to open the way for civilization in the Northwest; leaving a home
where refinement and education had smoothed the way to a- life of
Comparative freedom from toil and privations, for the burdens, the
dangers and excitements, the novelties and uncertainties attendant
upon a life on the frontier.
To his control of the savage tribes that occupied this portion of
Michigan, is mainly attributable the welcome they gave the early

settlers, whose encroachments and occupancy so surely augured
their own removal and ultimate extinction. The same wealth of
mind and purity of private life that distinguished him above the
mass of what were then termed "traders," gave him prominence as
civilization passed along westward. His name stands one of the
foremost of those who have occupied positions of trust and honor in

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