Doty, Esq., transmits (May 6th) from the vicinity of Martinsburg, New York, specimens of the geological structure of that neighborhood.
Austin's Colony.--"What you have said to me heretofore, concerning Mr. Austin's settlement in Texas, has rather turned my attention in that direction. Have you any means of communicating with your friend? What are your views of that country?"
11. This is evidently an allusion to St. Mary's, in Georgia, instead of Michigan.
CHAPTER IX.
Appointed an agent of Indian affairs for the United States at Saint Mary's--Reasons for the acceptance of the office--Journey to Detroit--Illness at that point--Arrival of a steamer with a battalion of infantry to establish a new military post at the foot of Lake Superior--Incidents of the voyage to that point--Reach our destination, and reception by the residents and Indians--A European and man of honor fled to the wilderness.
1822. At length Congress passed an act, which left Mr. Calhoun free to carry out his intentions respecting me, by the creation of a separate Indian agency for Florida. This enabled him to transfer one of the western agencies, namely, at Vincennes, Indiana, where the Indian business had ceased, to the foot of the basin of Lake Superior, at the ancient French village of Sault de Ste. Marie, Michigan. Had not this act passed, it would have been necessary to transfer this agency to Florida, for which Mr. Gad Humphreys was the recognized appointee. Mr. Monroe immediately sent in my nomination for this old agency to the Senate, by whom it was favorably acted on the 8th of May. The gentleman (Mr. J.B. Thomas, Senator from Illinois) whose boat I had been instrumental in saving in my descent of the Ohio in the spring of 1818, I believe, moved its confirmation. It was from him, at any rate, that I the same day obtained the information of the Senate's action.
I had now attained a fixed position; not such as I desired in the outset, and had striven for, but one that offered an interesting class of duties, in the performance of which there was a wide field for honorable exertion, and, if it was embraced, also of historical inquiry and research. The taste for natural history might certainly be transferred to that point, where the opportunity for discovery was the greatest. At any rate, the trial of a residence on that remote frontier might readily be made, and I may say it was in fact made only as a temporary matter. It was an ancient agency in which General Harrison had long exercised his superior authority over the fierce and wild tribes of the West, which was an additional stimulus to exertion, after its removal to Lake Superior.
I called the next day on Mr. Calhoun, to express my obligation, and to request instructions. For the latter object, he referred me to General Cass, of Detroit, who was the superintendent of Indian affairs on the North-Western frontier, and to whom the policy of pushing an agency and a military post to that point is, I believe, due.
I now turned my face to the North, made a brief stay in New York, hurried through the western part of that State to Buffalo, and ascended Lake Erie to Detroit. At this point I was attacked with fever and ague, which I supposed to have been contracted during a temporary landing at Sandusky. I directed my physician to treat it with renewed doses of mercury, in quick succession, which terminated the fever, but completely prostrated my strength, and induced, at first tic douloureux, and eventually a paralysis of the left cheek.
The troops destined for the new post arrived about the beginning of July. They consisted of a battalion of the 2d Regiment of Infantry, under Colonel Brady, from garrison duty at Sackett's Harbor, and they possessed every element of high discipline and the most efficient action, under active officers. Brady was himself an officer of Wayne's war against the Indians, and had looked danger steadily in the face on the Niagara frontier, in the Late War. In this condition, I hastily snatched up my instructions, and embarked on board the new steamer "Superior," which was chartered by the government for the occasion. It was now the 2d of July.
Before speaking of the voyage from this point, it may be well to refer to another matter. The probability of Professor Douglass publishing the joint results of our observations on the expedition of 1820, appeared now unfavorable. Among the causes of this, I regarded my withdrawal to a remote point as prominent but not decisive. Two years had already elapsed; the professor was completely absorbed in his new professorship, in which he was required to teach a new subject in a new language. Governor Cass, who had undertaken the Indian subject, had greatly enlarged the platform of his inquiries, which rendered it probable that there would be a delay. My memoir on the geology and mineralogy only was ready. Dr. Barnes had the conchology nearly ready, and the botany, which was in the hands of Dr. Torrey, was well advanced. But it required a degree of labor, zeal, and energy to push forward such a work, that admits of no abatements, and which was sufficient to absorb all the attention of the highest mind; and could not be expected from the professor, already overtasked.
Among the papers which were put in my hands at Detroit, I found a printed copy of Governor Cass's Indian queries, based on his promise to Douglass, by which I was gratified to perceive that his mind was earnestly engaged in the subject, which he sought a body of original materials to illustrate. I determined to be a laborer in this new field.
Our voyage up Lake Huron to Michilimackinack, and thence east to the entrance of the Straits of St. Mary's, at Detour, was one of pleasant excitement. We ascended the straits and river, through Muddy Lake and the narrow pass at Sailor's Encampment, to the foot of the great Nibeesh 12 rapids. Here the steamer came to anchor from an apprehension that the bar of Lake George 13 could not be crossed in the existing state of the water.
It was early in the morning of the 6th of July when this fact was announced. Colonel Brady determined to proceed with his staff in the ship's yawl, by the shorter passage of the boat channel, and invited me to a seat. Captain Rogers, of the steamer, himself took the helm. After a voyage of about four or five hours, we landed at St. Mary's at ten o'clock in the morning. Men, women, children, and dogs had collected to greet us at the old wharf opposite the Nolan House--the ancient "chateau" of the North-West Company. And the Indians, whose costume lent an air of the picturesque to the scene, saluted us with ball, firing over our heads as we landed. The Chemoquemon had indeed come! Thus the American flag was carried to this point, and it was soon hoisted on a tall staff in an open field east of Mr. Johnston's premises, where the troops, as they came up, marched with inspiring music, and regularly encamped. The roll of the drum was now the law for getting up and lying down. It might be 168 or 170 years since the French first landed at this point. It was just 59 since the British power had supervened, and 39 since the American right had been acknowledged by the sagacity of Dr. Franklin's treaty of 1783. But to the Indian, who stood in a contemplative and stoic attitude, wrapped in his fine blanket of broadcloth, viewing the spectacle, it must have been equally striking, and indicative that his reign in the North-West, that old hive of Indian hostility, was done. And, had he been a man of letters, he might have inscribed, with equal truth, as it was done for the ancient Persian monarch, "MENE, MENE, TEKEL."
To most persons on board, our voyage up these wide straits, after entering them at Point de Tour, had, in point of indefiniteness, been something like searching after the locality of the north pole. We wound about among groups of islands and through passages which looked so perfectly in the state of nature that, but for a few ruinous stone chimneys on St. Joseph's, it could not be told that the foot of man had ever trod the shores. The whole voyage, from Buffalo and Detroit, had indeed been a novel and fairy scene. We were now some 350 miles north-west of the latter city. We had been a couple of days on board, in the area of the sea-like Huron, before we entered the St. Mary's straits. The Superior, being the second steamer built on the Lakes,14 had proved herself a staunch boat.
The circumstances of this trip were peculiar, and the removal of a detachment of the army to so remote a point in a time of profound peace, had stimulated migratory enterprise.