Mackinaw

“ There were able and efficient men in abundance at Mackinaw, but for several days not one presented himself. If offers were made to any, they were listened to with a shake of the head. Should any one seem inclined to enlist, there were officious idlers and busybodies, of that class who are ever ready to dissuade others from any enterprise in which they themselves have no concern. ”

“ The Indian, become a citizen and a husband, no more thinks of playing the flute than one of the “settled down” members of our society would of choosing the “purple light of love” as dye-stuff for a surtout.
Mackinaw has been fully described by able pens, and I can only add my tribute to the exceeding beauty of the spot and its position. It is charming to be on an island so small that you can sail round it in an afternoon, yet large enough to admit of long secluded walks through its gentle groves. ”

“ This new city is to bear the name of the ancient fort and strait, and to be called Mackinaw. It will hold the key of all the northern lakes; and should its growth be marked by energy and enterprise, will command the trade of the greatest mining region in the world; be the chief depot of the northern fisheries; the outlet of an immense lumber trade; and the focus of a great network of railways, communicating with tropics on the south, and stretching out its iron arms, at no distant day, to the Atlantic on the east, and Pacific on the west. ”

“ A residence at Mackinaw is of itself calculated to beget, as it is to gratify, a taste for the prosecution of these inquiries. It is described by Miss Martineau as 'the wildest and tenderest piece of beauty that she had yet seen on God's earth.' It is indeed a spot of rare attractiveness. Standing upon the promontory, in the rear of the fort and town, the view embraces to the north the head waters of the Huron and the far-off isles of St. Martin, to the west Green Isle and the straits of Mackinaw, and to the east and south Bois Blanc and the Great Lake. ”

“ The man in the Mackinaw was lean-jawed, with keen gray eyes and wore a close-cropped mustache, while the other was smooth-faced. Although both were as red as Indians from wind and weather and had a week’s stubble of beard upon their faces, they wore an indefinable stamp of authority about them. ”

“ These they put in their hats, and thus figured about Mackinaw, assuming airs of vast importance, as "voyageurs in a new company, that was to eclipse the Northwest." The effect was complete. A French Canadian is too vain and mercurial a being to withstand the finery and ostentation of the feather. ”

“ Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; ”

“ The Aglaia figured with distinction in the great Mackinaw salvage-case. It was her first slip from virtue, and she learned how to change her name, but not her heart, and to run across the sea. As the Guiding Light she was very badly wanted in a South American port for the little matter of entering harbour at full speed, colliding with a coal-hulk and the State’s only man-of-war, just as that man-of-war was going to coal. ”

“ After 1689, the trading post and mission house was abandoned at Sault Ste. Marie, and Mackinaw became the central point for traders and missionaries.
In May, 1690, Governor Frontenac sent M. de Louvigny, a half-pay captain, to relieve Sieur du la Durantaye, at Mackinaw, and Nicholas Perrot accompanied him, with presents and messages for the upper nations. As a result of this visit, in August, five hundred of the upper Indians arrived at Montreal to trade, and the merchants rejoiced, as so large a number had not appeared for a long time. ”

“ Mary, in the steamer General Scott, on our return to Mackinaw. There were about forty passengers on board, men in search of copper-mines, and men in search of health, and travellers from curiosity, Virginians, New Yorkers, wanderers from Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, and I believe several other states. On reaching Mackinaw in the evening, our party took quarters in the Mansion House, the obliging host of which stretched his means to the utmost for our accommodation. Mackinaw is at the present moment crowded with strangers ”

“ To Mackinaw, then, during the winter, was brought every fact and fancy the savages could find out about the Great Water.
To these bartering Indians new waterways discovered meant new fur lands opened. New lands opened meant more traders coming. More traders coming meant more wealth for the Hurons, just as it did for their ruler, His Majesty the King, Louis XIV of France. ”

“ Turning to the immense territory north and northwest of Superior and the Straits, now constituting a portion of the British Dominions, and every part of which must be tributary to Mackinaw, we find that it affords, like Prussia and Poland, a fine agricultural region for all the breadstuffs and vegetables which are raised in the northern part of Europe. ”

“ The reputation of the Mackinaw has been admirably sustained by Mr. Taylor, whose firm is still engaged in their manufacture, with a constant demand for them. Probably no other straw hat ever introduced to the American public can show such a continued and extended sale. In 1868 Messrs. Wm. R. Cole & Co., predecessors of the present firm of Brigham, Hopkins & Co., commenced to produce these goods for the general trade,113 and it is to their efforts that much of the widespread popularity of the Mackinaw is due. ”

“ Here they returned laden with the spoils of the far West.
A long halt was made at Mackinaw to collect recruits, who were not easily met with. It was no joke, urged the redskins, to travel with these white men; they wanted you to go through wildernesses full of savage tribes, with whom they would have to fight, and if any of them escaped death at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, it would only be to starve in those desolate tracts on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. Why should our white man be so anxious to reach the Salt Lake (the sea) ? ”

“ There is (p. 134) a reef of rocks off this point where the steamer Queen City was wrecked. On a clear day this point may be seen from Fort Holmes, and it presents an enchanting view. The St. Martin's Islands are also in full view from this point.
In the southwestern part of the straits, about twenty miles distant from Mackinaw, is Fox Point. A light-house has been erected on a shoal extending out two miles into the lake. Moneto-pa-maw is a high bluff still further west, on the shore of Michigan, where there are fine fisheries, and is a place of considerable resort. ”

“ As the tide of emigration has rolled westward it has ever met that fiery counter-surge, and only overcome it by incessant battling and effort. And even now, as the distant shores of the Pacific are wellnigh reached, that resisting wave still gives forth its lurid flashes of conflict.
Mackinaw Island is only about three miles long and two in breadth, with a circuit of nine miles in all. It rises out of the lake to an average height of three hundred feet, and is heavily wooded with cedar, beech, maple, and yew. ”

“ After surmounting the many difficulties of the inland route which he had to take in order to avoid the Americans in the Lake Erie region, and after much hard work against the Lake Huron ice, he at last reached Mackinaw on the 18th of May. Some good fighting Indians joined him there; and towards the end of June he felt strong enough to send Colonel McKay against the American post at Prairie du Chien. McKay arrived at this post in the middle of July and captured the whole position—fort, guns, garrison, and a vessel on the Mississippi. ”

“ No further attempt was made, but part of the expedition uselessly remained [195] in the vicinity for some time, losing two armed vessels, which were taken, on 3rd and 6th September, by a small party of seamen and militia under Lieutenants Bulger and Worseley. No further fighting took place in this quarter, and Mackinaw remained in the hands of the British till the end of the war. ”

“ They went aboard the Kittiwake together and started out of the harbor. Until they made the turn toward Beaver Island, MacKinnon stood on the stern watching the ember that had been his Annabelle. Then he muttered,
“If it's so, you're as black a vixen as you seemed to be a white angel.”
And about that time a Mackinaw boat, which had been making her slow way up Thunder Bay all the afternoon, came to anchor off Alpena. An old man was sailing her alone. His hair was gray, his scraggly beard gray, his skin gray and drawn and wrinkled. ”

“ Nine days I passed alone at Mackinaw, except for occasional visits from kind and agreeable residents at the fort, and Mr. and Mrs. A. Mr. A., long engaged in the fur-trade, is gratefully remembered by many travellers. From Mrs. A., also, I received kind attentions, paid in the vivacious and graceful manner of her nation.
The society at the boarding house entertained, being of a kind entirely new to me. There were many traders from the remote stations, such as La Pointe, Arbre Croche, — men who had become half wild and wholly rude, by living in the wild ”

“ With the exception of a small portion of the mineral region, the agricultural advantages of Michigan, Upper Wisconsin, Minnesota, Canada West, and the Superior country, are at least equal, at the present time, to the district shipping at Chicago, while it is more extensive, and will have a large home market in a country affording diversity of employment. Nothing can be more obvious, than the superior advantages of Mackinaw, as a manufacturing point, over any other on the lake coast. ”

“ And, in the sunshine, it all quickly turned to dew, and glittered and sparkled in a million hues and tints like gems — like that handful of jewels she had poured into her father's joined palms — yesterday — there at the ghostly edge of Drowned Valley.
At the memory, and quite mechanically, she turned in her char and drew
Quintana's basket pack toward her.
First she lifted out his rifle, examined it, set it against the window sill. Then, one by one, she drew out two pistols, loaded; the murderous Spanish clasp-knife; an axe; a fry-pan and a tin pail, and the rolled-up mackinaw. ”

“ The traffic of that company lay principally in the high northern latitudes, while there were immense regions to the south and west, known to abound with valuable peltries; but which, as yet, had been but little explored by the fur trader. A new association of British merchants was therefore formed, to prosecute the trade in this direction. The chief factory was established at the old emporium of Michilimackinac, from which place the association took its name, and was commonly called the Mackinaw Company. ”

“ The other Indians made no attempt to check the Chippewas; on the contrary, the envoys of the Iroquois and Delawares made vain efforts to secure the release of the Chippewa prisoners. On the other hand, the generous gallantry of the British commander at Mackinaw was in some sort equalled by the action of the traders on the Maumee, who went to great expense in buying from the Shawnees Americans whom they had doomed to the terrible torture of death at the stake. ”

“ Heald, however, deemed it advisable to assemble the Indians and distribute the public property among them, and ask of them an escort thither, with the promise of a considerable sum of money to be paid on their safe arrival; adding, that he had perfect confidence in the friendly professions of the Indians, from whom, as well as from the soldiers, the capture of Mackinaw had studiously been concealed. From this time forward, the junior officers stood aloof from their commander, and, considering his project as little short of madness, conversed as little upon the subject as possible. ”

“ The conviction here livingly enforced of the superiority on the side of the white man, was thus expressed by the Indian orator at Mackinaw while we were there. After the customary compliments about sun, dew, &c., "This," said he, "is the difference between the white and the red man; the white man looks to the future and paves the way for posterity. The red man never thought of this." This is a statement uncommonly refined for an Indian; but one of the gentlemen present, who understood the Chippewa, vouched for it as a literal rendering of his phrases ”

“ Joseph, and, if possible, to get [Pg 358] possession of Michilimackinac, now called Mackinac, and pronounced Mackinaw, an island about nine miles in circumference, commanding the entrance from Lake Huron into Lake Michigan, on which the Americans had a fort with a captain in command, and a garrison of seventy-five men. Captain Roberts was aided by Mr. ”

“ They were not left much longer in doubt. The report of Mackay's powerful rifle broke the silence, they recognized it by the heavy charge of powder it fired and the series of shrill yells which answered it showed that the natives were still in the vicinity. Anon the anxious [Pg 223] pair heard the scrub break before the advance of some hurrying person, and the crunch, crunch of feet in the sand.
"Go back and mind the camels, Jack," they heard Mackay's decisive voice ring out. "I'll find Bob, if he's above ground, an' that reckless young rascal o' a Shadow too."
"But we ain't above ground!" ”