Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1899-12-01

white wood) island is passed on the Star
board quarter; the long lookedfor straits
of Mackinac appear on the port side glis-
teniug like silver in the rays of the setting
sun; while directly in front stands Macki-
nae island with the snow white fort and
barracks on the heights of the government
reserves; with rows of beautiful cottages
and dozen hotels, small and large, scat
tered over the sloping hillside; with stores,
shops, offices and piers crowded with peo-
pie, coming and going on fleet of steam
ers, the island seems to rise from the
wilderness of waters around like brilliant
oasis touched by the wand of the Infinite.
Four Trumpet Blasts.
There are few locations on this continent
that have had a more intensely tragic and
varied history than the island straits, and
the two points of land of the lower and
upper peninsulas of Michigan, called by the
Indians Michilimackinac (the place of the
giant fairies). The island was known and
occupied by the aboriginees who inhabited
the borders of the great lakes centuries
earlier than tradition can authenticate.
When Pere Nicolet visited the island in
1886, the different tribes of Indians were
accustomed to meet there from hundreds
of miles distant in all directions. Formal
possession for the French king and the
church was made at Point Iroquois, now
st. Ignace, by Father Marquette in 1870,
and we are told "a celestial trumpet
sounded when he pronounced the benedic.
ton" French usurpers, consorting with
the Indians in their wild and disgusting
habits, tramped over the wilderness in pur-
suit of the fur bearing beaver and sable.
The emblem of him who had proclaimed
"peace on earth and good will to man"
was erected at each new trading post,
while the brethren in Canada were sending
their Indian converts, with scaping knife
and tomahawk, to hunt other game in the
fertile valleys of New England. This
blending of European and Indian savagery
continued until 1853, when, on the plains of
Abraham, a second trumpet sounded. There
was in reality no radical change in the ami
mus of the dominant element of power in
the Middle West until the echoes from the
guns of Perry and Harrison had reverber-
ated through forest and over lake to the
home of the giant fairies-then a third
trumpet sounded. In 1895 the war depart
ment at Washington proposed loaning to
the state of Michigan all its real and per-
sonal property ON Mackinac island, includ-
ing the fort and all the barracks and Off
GERS quarters with the 103 acres of the res
ervation, to be kept as a public park, the
state to assume all expense of policing and
care of the property. The offer was ac-
cepted by the legislature in 1897 and this
historic old military post is now open to all
the thousands who visit the island. Now
the fourth trumpet has sounded.
There are many cottages erected on the
reservation, the owners paying one dollar
per year for the privilege. These nice sum-
mer homes are owned by families living in
Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland
and other Ohio cities. Thousands of tour
lists are entertained every summer at the
several hotels and boarding houses on the
island. There are many old buildings and
relics in and near the village to interest the
tourist. One in particular is worthy of
mention. In 1909 the American Fur COM
panv was organized by John j. Aston of
New York and became an immense trust,
absorbing all the fur trade in the North.
west except the Hudson Bay district. The
company employed 2O00 voyageurs, 400
clerks and owned extensive buildings on
the island which are still in as good order
as when the business was suspended in
1884. The room Mr.. Aston occupied when
at the company's offices is shown, to-
gether with the furnishings of the apart
ments and account books in Mr.. Astor's
handwriting. For several years he was
able, after paying all expenses, to save
100000 per year, which, invested in farm
lands, in what is now New York city, at
$50 per acre, has netted a fair income to
the present date. 1 noticed pungent odor
within these old Aston buildings which re-
calls like experience when in the grand
salons of the Waldorf-Astoria in New York,
and l now realize that the New York end
of this perfume came, originally, from the
dried muskrat peltries at Mackinac.