[1] Letters of Asa Gray, i., 72.

[2] This section, known as the Western Reserve, lying between parallels forty-one and forty-two, and a line one hundred and twenty miles west of the western line of Pennsylvania and parallel with it, was "reserved" to Connecticut when she ceded to the United States certain territory which she had received from the grant of Charles II. Of this territory Connecticut granted one half million of acres to such of her soldiers as had suffered from the British during the Revolution. The larger, if not the entire, part of the balance passed into the control of a private-public corporation, known as the Connecticut Land Company.

[3] Under treaty stipulations negro and Indian slaves were held until Michigan became a State. Detroit has always had to do with slavery questions. Before the Civil War it was an important station on the "Underground Railroad," and occasionally slaves were seized on our streets. Some of the conspicuous leaders of the party that secured the abolition of slavery lived at one time or another in Detroit. General Grant's home may still be seen. United States Senator Zachariah Chandler of "blood-letting letter" fame was one of our oldest merchants, and the notable "fire-in-the-rear" editorial appeared in a local paper.

[4] The gateway was located on what is now the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Griswold Street, and a bronze tablet there erected bears a representation of an Indian warrior and the following inscription:

"This Tablet designates the site of one of the gateways of Fort Detroit. The original stockade was known as Fort Pontchartrain and was erected when the city was founded in 1701.

"Through the gateway here located Pontiac, the Ottawa chief, with a band of Indians, passed on May seventh, intending to surprise and massacre the garrison.

"The exposure of his plot on the previous day caused the defeat of his plans and gave the English the supremacy in this region until the close of the Revolutionary War."

[5] The Post-office on Fort Street, which occupies a portion of the site of this fort, displays at its southerly entrance a tablet erected in 1896 which bears the following inscription:

"This Tablet designates the site of an English Fort erected in 1778 by Major R.B. Lernoult as a defense against the Americans. It was subsequently called Fort Shelby, in honor of Gov. Isaac Shelby of Kentucky, and was demolished in 1826.

The evacuation of this Fort by the British at 12 o'clock noon, July 11th, 1796, was the closing act of the War of Independence.

On that day the American Flag was for the first time raised over this soil, all of what was then known as the Western Territory becoming at that time part of the Federal Union."

[6] The deed for the Island, bought from its Indian owners in 1781 by George III. for £5000, was long in possession of Dr. John R. Bailey, Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel U.S.V., and author of a most interesting monograph on Mackinac. It is from its pages, and by his kind permission, that the Indian signatures to the document are here reproduced.

[7] For an admirable statement of the facts bearing upon this interesting problem, the reader is asked to turn to My Notebook of the French Revolution, by Mrs. Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer (A.C. McClurg & Co.). The book upon which Mrs. Latimer has chiefly based her account, The Lost Prince, by the Rev. Mr. Hanson, has long been out of print, and is almost inaccessible.

[8] La Salle, in drawing his maps, made the Ouabache to empty into the Mississippi at Cairo, According to him the Oyo (Ohio) was a tributary of the Ouabache. About 1702, one, M. Juchereau, sent to establish a post for the protection of the traders in peltries, reported that he had established a post about forty leagues above the mouth of the Ouabache. Some writers have taken that to mean Vincennes, and it is so recorded in some of the encyclopÆdias, but his post was on what is now called the Ohio, and not on the Wabash.

[9] Clark began at once to organize an expedition against Detroit, but it never started. Francis Vigo, who had let Clark have provisions and money for his expedition against Vincennes, aided in like manner in fitting out the new expedition, lending money to the amount of $8616, for which Clark gave him an order on Virginia. The order was never honored, and an appeal was made to Congress. Finally, in 1872, nearly a century after the debt was contracted, and nearly thirty-seven years after Vigo had died in extreme poverty, Congress referred the matter to the Court of Claims, which four years later allowed the claim, together with more than $41,000 in interest.

[10] Among the Sacs, "Checagau" was the name of one of their valiant warriors and colonizers, and meant "He that stands by the tree." Among the several tribes of the Algonquin group "Chekago," "Chicagong," etc., was pronounced in a variety of ways and had as many meanings.

[11] The Indian names now given to the lakes of this region are modern appellations; originally they were numbered First, Second, Third, and Fourth as they progressed towards the source—the order in which they were encountered by the federal surveyors in ascending the Catfish, a branch of Rock River, and the outlet of the lakes. Their present names, adopted in 1856, are Kegonsa, Waubesa, Monona, and Mendota, respectively.

[12] The author has, of course, omitted to say what many of his readers understand, that as secretary he has had a large share in giving the Wisconsin Historical Society its conspicuous position in the public mind.—Editor.

[13] The prediction was fulfilled the following year, when it became necessary to construct elaborate works to save the waterpower.

[14] In this account the directions are misleading, as they thought the river ran east and west instead of north and south at this point.

[15] See chapter on Salt Lake City.

[16] Some secular officials, such as marshals and other peace officers, had been chosen, but these were generally nominated by the Church leaders and elected or "sustained" by vote of the people in Church gatherings. The secular power exercised by the Church officials was expressly delegated to them by vote of the people.

[17] The reader will yet more vividly recall that The Man with the Hoe came out of San Francisco and will heartily approve the editor's selection of Mr. Markham to contribute this chapter to the volume.