St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-01-07
A BRIEF REVIEW OF MICHIGAN
HISTORY.
For The CaledOnian.


of the United States were as follows
At st. Augustine, Florida, in 1865, at
jamestown, Virginia, in 1907 and at ST.
Ignace, Michigan, in 1911.
In 1918 a fleet of several barges la
dened with miscellaneous assortment
of merchandise with their compliments
of vOyagers, soldiers and priests under
the direction of Champlain, passed
from Montreal, up the Ottawa river,
over the Georgian bay and across
Lake Huron, landed at Thunder bay
where a temporary structure was erect
ed, on which the French flag was rails
ed, and a memorial service was had.
Then and there in the solitude and
stiffness of sublime nature, in the pres
ence of that select company of loyal
Frenchmen and wondering Indians,
accompanied with booming cannon
and waving flags, Samuel de Cham
plain, Governor general of New France,
in the most solemn and imposing man
ner, took formal possession of the
country with all its visible and invis-
IDLE belongings, in the name and by
the authority of his most sublime and
gracious majesty, Louis thirteenth,
king of France, who by right of pos
session will have and hold said cOun-
try, for his own honor and behOOf. At
the end of the service the priests
poured their sacred libatiOns on the
ground, which they blessed and cOnse-
Grated to the Catholic church.
At the conclusion of those impress
sive ceremonies the company again
embarked and sailed in a northwestern
ly direction and at length arrived near
st. Ignace, they were welcomed with
the firing of cannon, etc. At that time
the settlement at st. Ignace was in four
distinct and separate departments.
There were the garrison soldiers, the
missionary priests, the merchants who
exchanged their goods with the Indi-
ans for furs, and great collection of
Indian wigwams with their swarming
inmates. Each department occupied
quarters by itself
At about that time (l6l5) it was de-
cided that st. Ignace would no longer
be missionary station and that the
same be removed to and permanently
established at Mackinaw, and be I'M
der the supervision of four French Je-
suit priests. 1t appears by the church
records kept at Mackinaw that the
rite of baptism was administered to
different subjects at that place in 1916.
Printed books of a much earlier date,
having antique forms and bindings,
which had been used there in those
early times were shown me and also
curious ancient relics. In process of
time more priests arrived from Canada.
They were sent out by twos escorted
by Indian guides and dogs and visited
the different Indian villages, at each
of which they stopped few days. At
ter an absence of a few weeks they re-
turned to headquarters at Mackinaw
to regain their lost energies and pre-
pare their report, which was carefully
revised and condensed before it went
upon record. The French people had
a happy faculty of gaining the conf
dence and lasting good will of the In
dams. In 1641 missionary station,
auxiliary to the one at Mackinaw, was
established at the falls of st. Mary,
but no other regular missionary sta
tiOns existed in Michigan during the
first $50 years of it's history. That old
Mackinaw college was long the cele-
brated seat of learning for the French
catholic students. All the travel from
Montreal to Michigan was by the way
of the Ottawa river for more than so
years, because of the fearful rapids i'm
the st. Lawrence river at and above
Montreal.
Detroit received it's first white in
habitants French Canadians) in 1870,
being 50 years after the beginning at
st. Ignace, and the first successful at
tempt to reach Michigan by way of the
ST. Lawrence and the lower lakes. |
The Detroit pioneers divided the land
into small hOmesteads of few rods i'm
width on the river and extending back
from one to two miles. They had one
street running parallel with the river
and few from it, so that as the owner
of each lot built his house on the |
street, each and all had near neighbOrs.
There were few inhabitants scatter
ed along near the river above Detroit
and also below as far as FrenchtOwn,
now Monroe. Michigan was under the
jurisdiction of France from 1911 to
1853, 152 years, and under British rule
from 1868 to 1884, 81 years. 1t belong
ed to the United States from 1884 to
1912, and was again under British dom
nation from 1912 to 1913. Since
then it has been an integral part of the
United States. At the close of the
war in 1915 Detroit although AS years
old was still a small town and had
sparse settlements on the bank of the
river in its vicinity, but there were no
in the interior of the terri
tory except the French fur traders at
4 few places. But they never erected
buildings nor cultivated
The land, having their provisions sup
Piled by the Indians.
United States commissioners were
,lore and carefully examine the lands