A

rounding plain,-perhaps not quite. We discovered nothing whatever,—no bones, no pottery, no implements or relics of any kind. little charcoal was all. The earth removed was a dark soil, apparently the surface soil of the adjacent plain. I don't think we derived any impressions or formed any conclusions on the subject, except that, possibly, had we dug deeper we might have found some relics; but we were tired of the work and quit it."

Various examinations have been made, and statements have gone abroad that human bones, arrow-heads, and beads have been found in the mound; but the statements cannot be satisfactorily verified. It was opened on the 4th of July, 1850, by Mr. A. J. Sheldon, with no other result than as stated by Mr. Brown; and it remains an open question to-day, What does the mound contain? The Pottawattomies, who had a principal village on the site of Kalamazoo, could give no information concerning it; but there is no doubt of its being the work of a vanished race. The material would appear to have been taken from the vegetable mould of the surrounding plain, and so evenly from a large area as to leave no depressions or other evidences of having been taken from any particular locality.*

WORKS ON CLIMAX PRAIRIE.

Mr. Little states that when the country was settled there was a mound situated on Climax Prairie, less than a mile east of the Corners, of about two-thirds the dimensions of the Kalamazoo mound. A dwelling was subsequently erected on its site, and it was largely cut away, but no relics were found. Situated to the south of this mound, in the edge of the timber, and on the top of an eminence, there was a circular work inclosing about one and a half acres of land. The circle included a parapet and ditch, the latter being about sixteen to twenty feet in width at the bottom, and some two or three feet deep. It has been conjectured that this work was a military fortification. When discovered by white men it was overgrown by large forest-trees.†

MOUNDS ON GULL PRAIRIE.

A number of small mounds formerly existed on Gull Prairie, but the cultivation of the soil has nearly obliterated them. There were two situated near the northeast corner of section 15. They were about twenty feet in diameter at the base, and apparently perfect counterparts of each other. When first seen by the whites they were surrounded by the forest. No relics were at any time found in them.

On the northwest corner of section 14, and near those last described, were four mounds, three of which were about forty feet in diameter, and the fourth less than twenty feet. A part of these were overgrown and surrounded with scattering timber; the others were on the edge of the prairie.

In 1837, Col. Isaac Barnes, then the owner of the land, caused one of these mounds to be entirely removed, to give place to the erection of a dwelling. While the man was engaged with his spade and wheelbarrow in its removal, I, with intense interest, carefully watched the operations from day to day. No relics were found, nor discoveries made, beyond the fact that the component parts of the superstruc

* It appears that for some time previous to 1841 an excavation in this mound was used as a cellar or root-house. About 1850 the mound was repaired and put in its original shape as nearly as possible. † See history of Climax.

There is a small mound on section 30, in this township. It is about twenty feet in diameter, and situated on timbered land upon the farm of Mr. A. R. Allen. A few years since this mound was opened, with quite remarkable results. Human bones (or at least supposed to be such), apparently thrown promiscuously together, were found, and it is claimed they were of more than ordinary size.

On section 16, according to Mr. Stoddard, the remains of three earthworks or fortifications were found, from which large quantities of human bones were taken by the early settlers. The residence of A. D. Chappel occupies one of these works. Another mound was on the "Governor Throop farm," east of the river. Flint spear- and arrowheads were found in the vicinity of these works.

MOUNDS IN COMSTOCK.

Mr. A. D. P. Van Buren describes a large mound situated on the island in the Kalamazoo River, principally on section 22, in Comstock township. It was diamond shaped and twenty feet high, and covered, by computation, an acre or more. A maple-tree, thirty inches in diameter, stood upon it in 1831. Another which he mentions was on section 13, and was first seen by Mr. Ralph Tuttle, upon whose land it stood, in 1830. It was circular in form, and had an altitude of two and a half feet above the general surface. It formed the frustrum of a cone, and was about twenty-five feet in diameter at the apex.

MOUNDS IN PAVILION.

Mr. Henry T. Smith, present county register, informs ust that there was formerly a small mound on the east half of the northwest quarter of section 30, in the town of Pavilion, and on the southeastern margin of Long Lake. It was about four feet in height and from twelve to twenty feet in diameter. Mr. Smith opened this mound in 1876, and found two human skeletons lying crosswise of each other and about eighteen inches apart, the lower one being a little below the original surface. Their heads were to the north and northeast. Beneath the lower one was found charcoal and ashes, upon a bed of coarse gravel, the latter apparently taken from the lake margin. The mound appeared to have been built over and around the bodies, and bore evidence of having once had a ditch surrounding it. An oak-tree, eighteen inches in diameter, and a smaller hickory-tree were growing upon it when first known to the settlers. The skeletons were much decayed, and mostly crumbled upon exposure. The skulls were very thick. No other relics were discovered.

GARDEN-BEDS.

These curious evidences of prehistoric occupation do not appear to have been plentifully found outside of Michigan. They are mentioned in notices of antiquities of Wisconsin,

Henry Little.

and, we believe, have been found sparingly in Indiana. They abounded in the valleys of the Grand, St. Joseph, and Kalamazoo Rivers, and covered sometimes hundreds of acres. They have been quite appropriately named "gardenbeds," from a real or fancied resemblance to the garden-beds of the present day. They are of various forms,-rectangular, triangular, circular, elliptical, and complex,—and evince, in many instances, a remarkable degree of mechanical skill, as well as cultivated taste. A large number of those observed in Kalamazoo County are laid out in regular parallelograms, precisely as a gardener of modern days arranges his beds. for onions and beets. The questions naturally arise, Were they actually garden-beds for the cultivation of vegetables? Could they have been extensive plats where flowers were raised for the supply of some great city on Lake Michigan or in the Ohio Valley? Were they botanical gardens? The accompanying diagrams illustrate some of the varieties. which were found in various parts of Kalamazoo County. They have all, or nearly all, disappeared under the white man's cultivation.

Henry R. Schoolcraft was probably the first writer to give accounts and descriptions of these peculiar relics of an earlier race in Michigan. They were mentioned in a French work as early as 1748.

Schoolcraft gave drawings and careful descriptions of them in 1827, and speaks of them as "forming by far the most striking characteristic antiquarian monuments of this district of country."

In 1839, John T. Blois, a citizen of this State, published in the "Gazetteer of Michigan" detailed descriptions, with diagrams, of one variety of the beds.

Bela Hubbard, Esq., of Detroit, divides the beds into eight classes, which he describes as follows:

"1. Wide convex beds, in parallel rows, without paths, composing independent plats. Width of beds, twelve feet; paths, none; length, seventy-four to one hundred and fifteen feet.

"2. Wide convex beds, in parallel rows, separated by paths of same width, in independent plats. Width of bed, twelve to sixteen feet; paths, the same; length seventy-four to one hundred and thirty-two feet.

"3. Wide parallel beds, separated by narrow paths, arranged in a series of plats longitudinal to each other. Width of beds, fourteen feet; paths, two feet; length, one hundred feet.

"4. Long, narrow beds, separated by narrower paths, and arranged in a series of longitudinal plats, each plat divided from the next by semicircular heads. Width of beds, five feet; paths, one foot and a half; length, one hundred feet; height, eighteen inches.

"5. Parallel beds, arranged in plats similar to Class 4, but divided by circular heads. Width of beds, six feet; paths, four feet; length, twelve to forty feet; height, eighteen inches.

6. Parallel beds, of varying widths and lengths, separated by narrow paths, and arranged in plats of two or more, at right angles (north, south, east, and west), to the plats adjacent. Width of beds, five to fourteen feet; paths, one to two feet; length, twelve to thirty feet; height, eight inches.

"7. Parallel beds, of uniform width and length, with narrow paths, arranged in plats or blocks, and single beds, at varying angles. Width of beds, six feet; paths, two feet; length, about thirty feet; height, ten to twelve inches.

"8. Wheel-shaped plats, consisting of a circular bed, with beds of uniform shape and size, radiating therefrom, all separated by narrow paths. Width of beds, six to twenty feet; paths, one foot; length, fourteen to twenty feet.'

The area covered by these cultivated plats varied, in different localities, from five to as many as three hundred

acres.

* These remarkable" gardens" were found by the first settlers about Schoolcraft, on Prairie Ronde, on Toland's Prairie, near Galesburg; on the burr-oak plains of Kalamazoo village, and elsewhere.

Henry Little, Esq., states that they covered as many as ten acres lying to the south of the Kalamazoo mound. Among these last were specimens of the wheel form. They were overgrown with burr-oak trees, of the same size as those scattered over the surrounding plain.

"On the farm of J. T. Cobb, section 7, town of Schoolcraft, the beds were quite numerous as late as 1860. There must have been fifteen acres of them on his land. The 'sets' would average five or six beds each. Neighbors put the number of acres covered with them in 1830, within the space of a mile, at one hundred."†

ZOO.

Hon. E. Lakin Brown corroborates these statements. The circular one in the diagram is from information furnished by Henry Little and A. T. Prouty, of KalamaThe triangular pointed one is from a drawing by H. M. Shafter, of Galesburg. Roswell Ransom, James R. Cumings, and A. D. P. Van Buren have also contributed interesting information upon this subject. The diagrams are copied from the American Antiquarian for April, 1878, in an article contributed by Bela Hubbard, Esq.

Mr. Van Buren furnishes some account of the "beds" first found on section 13, Comstock township, on lands purchased by C. C. White for William Toland, the first settler in the township. The beds in this locality covered some five acres, and were of the same general description as those before spoken of, and included parallelograms, circles, and triangles. Mr. Van Buren says J. R. Cumings remembers plowing some of these gardens, and says that the beds were so high above the intervening paths that the plow in crossing the latter ran out of the ground. He estimates the height from bottom of paths to top of bed, or ridge, at eighteen inches.

The antiquity of these "garden-beds" is a question about which there are different opinions. They were found in several instances covering the ancient mounds, and from this circumstance some writers have arrived at the conclusion that they were the work of a people who occupied the country long after the "Mound-Builders" had disappeared. This hypothesis may be the correct one, but is not necessarily so. There are people living to-day who have seen the burial-places of white men, if not cultivated, at least abandoned and turned into pasture lands for sheep and cattle. The burial-ground of the Strang Mormons at Voree, Walworth Co., Wis., was occupied, in 1873, as a barn-yard. Even if the mounds were the sacred burialplaces of those who erected them, it is quite possible that within a few generations they may have been occupied for purposes of agriculture, in common with the surrounding fields. But it is quite within the bounds of probability that the people who cultivated the "garden-beds" may have known as little of the builders of the mounds as the red Indians who succeeded them.

Both classes of antiquities date far beyond the knowledge of the savages, and were evidently the works of a more civilized race.

In examining human skulls taken from mounds near Spring Lake, Ottawa Co., Mich., Professor W. D. Gunning advanced the opinion, from the forms of the skulls, the accompanying relics (copper hatchets, needles, broken pottery, etc.), and from other evidence, that these remains date back two thousand years or more.

age

Mr. Bela Hubbard advances the opinion, in reference to the "garden-beds," that they may have been cultivated until within three or four centuries of the present time,—as that period would have sufficed for the growth of the largest forest-trees found upon them. It is altogether probable that the mounds were first constructed, and that their is not overestimated by Professor Gunning. Nothing resembling the garden-beds has ever been found, or certainly ever described, in the region where the mound-building architecture reached its culmination,-though the same system may have been in vogue at a much earlier day. The Michigan people may have belonged to a later period, or they may have been a colony from the central regions of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

RELICS.

These consist of hatchets and spear-heads of stone and copper, heavy stone axes, flint spear- and arrow-heads, chips of flint and chert, chisels, gouges, plumb-bobs, pottery, pipes, and many other things which are picked up in all parts of the country. In addition to these are the bones of human beings, mingled with fragments of charcoal, burnt animal bones, etc., all pointing to a race, or a succession of races, which has passed away.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE POTTAWATTOMIE INDIANS.*

Nationality and Original Habitat-Removals-Wars-Treaties-Massacre at Chicago-The Match-e-be-nash-e-wish Reservation-Villages and System of Cultivation-Removal in 1840-Missions. ACCORDING to the historian George Bancroft, and other prominent writers, Francis Parkman among the number, the Pottawattomie tribe or nation belonged to the great

* Of the origin of the Indian races of America no certain account can be given. Different nations gave each a different account, and each generally claimed to be the most important race of men in the world. When asked who they were, the Iroquois were wont to reply, "the Ongwe-Honwe," or men superior to all others. The Delaware Indians called themselves the Lenni Lenape, or original men. savages of the vast plains of Illinois when interrogated as to their origin answered, "We are Illeni," or men; as much as to say we are the only men; and a distinguished chieftain of a Wisconsin tribe, when the importance of his people was called in question, haughtily answered, striking his breast, "I am a Menominee !”

The

The Algonquins called themselves Nethowack; the Athabascans, Tinne; the Esquimeaux, Innuit; and the ancient peoples of Central and Southern America called themselves "the children of the sun." The Zulus of South Africa say that their national name signifies heaven, and they call themselves "the Celestials." The Pottawattomies called themselves "Nitch-e-nobbies," and the name, no doubt,

race.

Algonquin subdivision of the American copper-colored They were cousins-german to the Ojibwa nation. (now commonly written Chippewa), who occupied the greater part of the upper peninsula of the present State of Michigan at the date of the earliest French discoveries. Both the Ojibwas and Pottawattomies were met by Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jogues in the fall of 1641, at which time they visited the northern shores of Lake Huron and the country around the Sault St. Marie.

In 1660 they were again probably encountered by Father René Mesnard, in his journeyings along the southern coast of Lake Superior; and Father Claude Allouez passed through the same region in 1666. In 1668 the first permanent mission in the State was founded at the Sault, and in May, 1671, was held the great council at this point, at which all the Western Indians were ostentatiously taken under the protection of France. The Pottawattomies were present in force at this council, and occupy a prominent position in the records of the event.

In those early days they are believed to have been located in the neighborhood of Green Bay and on the islands at its opening into Lake Michigan. They were familiar to Marquette, Dablon, and Allouez, who visited them in 1668-71, and the two last named of whom founded a mission among them on Green Bay in 1669-70, called St. François Xavier. They were prominent among all the nations who came to trade with the French at the Sault St. Marie, at Mackinac, at Green Bay, and at Detroit. At the great council held at the Sault, in 1671, they represented, besides their own nation, the powerful nation of the Miamis, who dwelt south of Lake Michigan. They befriended Marquette and Joliet on their way to the Mississippi in the spring of 1673, and in the next year a band of them accompanied Marquette on a visit from Green Bay to the country of the Illinois, and remained with him in his encampment near Chicago for several months during the following winter, 1674-75.

They welcomed La Salle when, in September, 1679, his vessel-the "Griffin"-cast anchor near one of their islands in Green Bay, and one of their most famous chiefs became the fast friend of the great explorer. The furs with which his vessel was loaded for her return trip were no doubt largely purchased from them; and when La Salle and Hennepin continued their voyage in canoes towards the southern portion of the great lakes, they found friends among the Pottawattomies, from whom they purchased corn and other supplies when nearly wrecked and in a starving condition. This treatment was the more wonderful when we consider that the Outagamies,t whom they found in the neighborhood of Milwaukee, were treacherous and hostile.

When the gallant Tonti retreated from the little fort— Crèvecœur at the foot of Peoria Lake in the spring of

signified among them what Illeni and Ongwe-Honwe did among the savages of Illinois and New York.

The principal copper-colored races found in North America were the Esquimeaux, in the Arctic regions, the Algonquins, in the region of the great lakes and the St. Lawrence River, the Dacotahs, in the West, and the Mobilian nations, in the South. The belief is gaining ground that the American races were indigenous to the soil, but their beginnings we can only conjecture.

†The modern Foxes.