In Search of Sibouin

by Tristen Woodruff

When working on historical projects, the need to conduct at least some minimal sleuthing is part and parcel within the line of work. This sleuthing can range from the simple fact check, to a slightly more in-depth academic journal cross reference. Rarely, however, is the rabbit hole of research followed to its proverbial wonderland. In the case of the search for the a set of islands in the Great Lakes, however, the journey to wonderland became the only way to determine the facts of the matter.

While working on the metadata for the letters of noted Civil War officer Orlando M. Poe, I was drawn down this path. Prior to the Civil War and his promotion to Major General, Orlando Poe served as Second Lieutenant of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. The Topographical Engineers were a part of a large survey of the Great Lakes region prior to the War and were notable for the many islands and shorelines they mapped during this time. During the summer of 1857, Poe was assigned to chart and map the eastern portions of the Saginaw Bay. This would lead to a direction from his commander, George G. Meade, to map a set of islands identified by Meade.

Meade's longhand: "the ??? islands"

The problem was that, in Meade’s longhand, what were the name of the islands. Did they begin with an L, or an I? Was the second letter an E? The word ends in “o-u-i-n,” but what islands in and around Saginaw Bay end in “o-u-i-n”?

Saginaw Bay from J.H. Colton's
Map of Michigan, 1857.
Click to enlarge.

Looking at a map today, the letters on the page seemed odd because there are no contemporary islands on current maps with similar letters. When looking into maps of the 1850s, a name that seemed similar to Meade’s writing did not appear, either. Thus began the spiral into figuring out the true name of these islands. The first place needed to look was in the official reports of the Great Lakes Survey that the Corps released a few years after Poe was first instructed to map these islands. In these reports, I searched for Poe’s name to see the location where Meade reported that he sent Poe. With this, there was, in fact, a location that Poe was sent with the name ‘Sibouin’ Islands. But, there was no map to point to them.

The only known location of these mystery islands, based on the letters and the report, was that they were in the eastern portion of the Saginaw Bay. Naturally, knowing the general location of the islands, I attempted to search the national and local newspapers to find them, including the millions of scanned pages available through the the Library of Congress and the Clarke Historical Library, but to no avail. Surely then, they would exist in the national archives! Still no such luck. Even looking at the amazing collection of maps provided by the David Rumsey Map Collection, no islands named ‘Sibouin’ were mapped in the eastern Saginaw Bay. Finally, I searched “Sibouin” in Hathi Trust, which includes numerous US and State of Michigan government reports among the 17+ million digitized volumes in the database, and there was only one document about a set of islands in the Great Lakes with the name “Sibouin” – Meade’s report mentioning where he sent Poe.

Armed with the knowledge that George Meade was the only person referring to these islands with the name “Sibouin,” I returned back to the report for more clues. Near these islands, Poe was instructed to map the wider “Wild Fowl Bay.” This was helpful as it even further narrowed our search, but there was still no record of the mystery islands in Wild Fowl Bay. I then moved to the amazing Hathi Trust again in search of “Sibouin” (or variations of the spelling). Here would be the key to this whole mystery, the Report of the Chief of Engineers of 1860 had a reference to the “Sebouin Islands.” The report also listed latitude and longitude for the mystery islands, finally!

Map of Fairhaven Township,
from the Atlas of Huron County,
Michigan, 1890. Click to enlarge.

Using the maps of David Rumsey, current map websites, and the coordinates of the Chief of Engineers report, I could divine a location. The answer was revealed, hiding in plain sight right in Wild Fowl Bay. The Sibouin Islands were in fact the modern day Maisou Islands of Huron County. These islands are now apart of the Wild Fowl Bay State Wildlife Area and are no longer owned privately, but back in the 1850s they had been called Kate Chai Island and North Island. These islands had gone through many name changes since the 1850s, and that had done a good job of obfuscating their prior titles. These name changes, however, would eventually be peeled back, due in large part to the help and skills of Bryan Whitledge, without whose guidance I would not have fully figured out even the name of these mystery islands that seem to exist only now as ghosts of the documents of the 1850s.

Tales of Hauntings in Michigan

by Aubrey Dickens and Sara Daniels

With Halloween soon approaching, there are many fun ways to celebrate the holiday. And if you're a fan of scary stories, Michigan has countless spooky attractions to get your thrills.

Grand Rapids is one of Michigan’s most beloved cities. A hub for art and culture, this city in Western Michigan has plenty to offer, including something for haunted house enthusiasts.

Once located where the Bell Telephone Company currently stands, the Judd-White house was home to young married couple Warren and Vashti Rowland. Having married in 1907, their tragic story in Grand Rapids began when Warren started a job at G.R. and Indiana Railroad, where he lost his leg in a gruesome railroad accident. After Warren’s accident, he was fitted with a wooden leg, a piece of him that would later contribute to the couple’s tragic end.

As the Grand Rapid Press of July 10, 1909 (pictured at right) reports, those who knew the couple said that Warren and Vashti never appeared to be happy with each other. Vashti’s sister expressed a long-held fear that Warren would murder her sister, recalling once seeing Warren chase Vashti down the street with a razor. After months of the couple living unhappily together, the two separated, leaving their residence at the Judd-White house vacant. This would be the last time the room would have any peace.

A short time after the couple separated, Warren called upon Vashti, presumably to make peace with his estranged wife. But the opposite came true.

As Warren and Vashti made their way into their former home, Warren removed his wooden leg and beat Vashti over the head. As Vashti was lying on the floor, unconscious, Warren locked the door to the room and began to seal the windows with towels to close any gaps to make the room airtight. He then went to the gas fixture on the wall and began to fill the room with a noxious gas. Warren, however, was not finished with his task. Using a razor, he attempted to kill himself.

When their bodies were discovered two weeks later, reports show that Warren had not cut himself badly enough to kill himself, and instead most likely passed from the fumes. After hearing of the tragic story, locals speculated that Warren was a mad man who became angry and jealous after believing his wife was seeing someone else. The public maintained this opinion. According to the Grand Rapids Press article, “No note of farewell to the world was found in the room, nor any clue regarding the motive of the crime.”

After their death, the room remained vacant for some time, with no one wanting to stay there due to its horrid past. In 1920, the Judd-White house was torn down, and in its place stands the Michigan Bell Telephone Company building. Although the house is gone, people claim that the spirits of Warren and Vashti Rowland are still there today.

**********

Among the repertoire of haunted places, mental asylums are infamous for being severely haunted by former patients and staff who lived within their walls. In Michigan, Traverse City State Hospital is one of these abandoned places, with a history of suffering and horror that has outlived the hospital itself.

In 1885, Traverse City State Hospital was opened and remained so for a little over a century before it was closed and abandoned.

Northern Michigan Asylum Report, 1908

The stigma of mental health remains an obstacle even now, as it was during the 19th century, when mental hospitals were still in their infancy in the U.S. Although these hospitals aimed for the greater good, many patients suffered cruelty at the hands of doctors and staff who ran these institutions. The practice of lobotomy, the use of straight jackets, and periods of isolation were common in mental hospitals, with the belief that they would help the patient. However, thanks to our better understanding of modern psychology, it is now known these practices created more harm than good.

As the years passed and the state hospital became more decrepit, the building became a spot for vandals and those curious to explore. From these visits come the stories of the ghosts who haunt the building. It is reported that individuals have seen faces appear through windows, radios emit nothing but static, or people sense the feeling of someone lurking. Many patient deaths occurred at the hospital, with the common forms of death being disease and suicide.

Throughout the years, horror stories of the abandoned hospital have emerged. An internet urban legend tells of the story of two young boys who were patients at the hospital and how one disappeared.

Northern Michigan Asylum Tunnels

The two boys were outside playing and had begun to wander. As their trek across the grounds continued, they ventured into the underground tunnels that traveled beneath the buildings. As they continued to walk down the tunnels, they encountered a man who was an escaped patient of the hospital and had been living in the tunnels ever since his escape. Terrified of the man, the boys ran out of the tunnels, but sadly only one would make it out. Having run for some time, one of the boys looked behind for his friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. After reporting the incident to the hospital staff, they searched for the missing boy but could find no trace of him other than his St. Raphael necklace. Over a month later, the boy’s remains were found at what now is known as the hippie tree–a name created from the delinquent activities that took place there.

Northern Michigan Asylum Report, 1908
(click to enlarge)

While this urban legend does not give the time of this incident, looking into a report from the Board of Trustees of Traverse City State Hospital, fourteen men were discharged from the hospital in an unimproved mental state in 1908. Earlier in the report, it is also stated that of 505 patients admitted, “15 were homicidal or had threatened homicidal assaults.” Is it possible that one of the men discharged was also the murderous man in the tunnel? While legend says he escaped, is it possible that he could have taken refuge in the tunnels after being discharged?

**********

Before even the nation’s first mental hospital opened its doors, and before Michigan became an official state, the territory in the Great Lakes region saw both violence and sweeping changes. Like with the case of Warren and Vashti Rowland and the chilling conditions of Michigan’s mental asylums, colonization and the conflicts between settlers and Indigenous peoples are remembered not just through history books, but through hauntings.

From the book, Haunted Houses of Grand Rapids, comes the tale of Big John, an Ottawa fur trapper from the 1850s. In 1936, Grand Rapids homeowners Lillian and Tom Rush encountered a ghostly figure in their basement. While firing guns at their in-home firing range, Lillian saw a man emerge from the furnace, “tall and somber, with a high-crown hat of the type worn by bad men in old western movies” (p. 11-12). Wearing two long black braids and a watch chain, the specter of Big John stood silently in their basement before disappearing as abruptly as he had appeared.

Big John’s apparition was a remnant of the Michigan fur trade. He once lived in a wooden house located where Lillian and Tom’s abode later stood, where he trapped beavers, mink, lynx, wolves, and bears alongside his wife and two sons. In 1857, Big John’s family was rumored to have fought over the furs, a fight that ended in John’s mysterious disappearance. While his body was never found, people of Grand Rapids believe he haunts the area to this day.

Aerial View of Grand Rapids, circa 1910 

Murder-suicides, asylums, disappearances, and apparitions—Michigan has countless chilling tales to offer this October. But its ghost stories also get at something deeper than just raising goosebumps. Our ghost stories serve as ways of trying to understand our struggles through history. Beneath the spectacle of many of these stories lies real lives: women facing violence like Vashti, Michiganders struggling with stigma surrounding mental health before modern psychology, and the bloody history of colonization.

***********

Bibliography

 

Don Farrant and Gary Eberle, Haunted Houses of Grand Rapids: chilling, authentic local ghost stories .... Ada, Mich.: Ivystone Publications. ca. 1979-82.

 

Northern Michigan Asylum, Report of the Board of Trustees." Lansing, Michigan: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Company, State Printers. 1908.

"Used Wooden Leg To Stun His Wife," Grand Rapids Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. July 10, 1909.

“One of the most wonderful things”: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Detroit Walk to Freedom

by Gillian Macdonald

As we celebrate and commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many will recall the 1963 March on Washington, but we highlight the Walk to Freedom in Detroit that happened two months prior.

Detroit Tribune front page, June 29, 1963

Detroit has a rich history of civil rights activism. Famously, Detroiters donated around $35,000 to the Montgomery Bus Boycott—a crucial moment in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s emergence as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. The Detroit chapter of the NAACP was particularly active in the ‘40s and ‘50s—on various occasions African American autoworkers worked with the chapter to uphold anti-discrimination laws. In 1949, protestors led sit-ins along Woodward Avenue demonstrating against the illegal discrimination practiced by restaurants against Black people.[1] Leading the fight against the American Automobile Association for equal employment laws, the Detroit chapter of CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) was pivotal rallying white support for Civil Rights.

By the 1960s, there was stalwart support throughout southeastern Michigan for the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King made a trip to the University of Michigan in 1962 in support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s advocacy for student civil disobedience.[2] And in the summer of 1963, ahead of the March on Washington and King’s momentous “I Have a Dream” speech, Detroit played host to the Walk to Freedom in Detroit, which was a formative event for the Civil Rights Movement and inspired thousands of Detroiters.

In 1963, CORE, the NAACP, and Rev. Albert Cleage and Rev. Clarence L. Franklin—Civil Rights leaders in Detroit--came together to propose a large, organized event or demonstration in Detroit. What emerged from this convergence of leadership was the Detroit Council for Human Rights (DCHR), the organization that was largely responsible for that auspicious day in June 1963. The Walk to Freedom in Detroit—after some initial debate—was open to all participants. The purpose of the march, the date of which was chosen to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Detroit race riot of 1943 [3], was to admonish discrimination, brutality against activists, and segregation policies across the United States.

Contained within the program was, “The Declaration of Detroit,” which stipulated the terms and purpose of the march. The document declared “before God and all men this 17th day of May in the Year of Our Lord 1963, that we will no longer abide, tolerate or countenance this manifest injustice.” The program added that all Detroiters should know that the march organizers pledged to support—both in numbers and financial aid—to “alleviate those intolerable conditions about which we have complained in vain for too many years.” The program for the day included various speakers and artistic shows, but the esteemed guest was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was to meet the march and then speak at Cobo Arena.

As one of the largest demonstrations to date, the Detroit Walk to Freedom saw approximately 125,000 people march from Woodward Avenue to Cobo Hall. The Free Press reported that only Labor Day demonstrations of the 1930s and a 1936 rally in support of President Franklin Roosevelt attracted anywhere near the numbers seen with the Walk to Freedom. Among the marchers were the Detroit Civil Rights leaders Rev. Albert Cleage, Rev. C. L. Franklin (Chairman of the DCHR), Benjamin McFall (Director of DCHR), State Auditor General Billie S. Farnum, UAW President Walter Reuther, Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh, former Governor John B. Swainson, Congressman Charles Diggs, representatives of the then-Governor George Romney, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself.

The Detroit Free Press front page on the morning of the event reported on the plans for the demonstration alongside a photograph of singing protestors in Dearborn, Michigan: “Thousands of Detroiters will march down Woodward” in support of the racial equality. [4] Governor Romney—who could not attend the march because of his religious commitments—decreed the Sunday as “Freedom March Day in Michigan.”

Detroit Free Press front page, June 24, 1963

Photos of Walk to Freedom
from Detroit Free Press,
June 24, 1963, p. 13

After the rally, both the Detroit Tribune and the Free Press commented on the success of the day. Packed from pavement to pavement, the Detroit Tribune front page reported that the “tremendous participation” signaled to the globe that African Americans would not be left behind by the united progressive action in Michigan. The “NEW DAY” was here, and Detroit would never be the same. The Detroit Free Press hailed the demonstration on its front page as a “record rights plea.” [5] The front page detailed that the march with its 125,000 participants and 15,000 spectators was the “largest civil rights demonstration in the nation’s history.” After the march, 25,000 people, 95% of whom were Black, packed Cobo Hall “to hear a rousing speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

In addition to Dr. King, the program was packed full of dignitaries of the state, African American business leaders, Civil Rights leaders, and public officials. Rev. Cleage began the speaking with a speech pledging to boycott all Detroit A&P and Kroger stores for failing to hire African Americans. Governor Romney’s message of support was booed for his failure to show up. The climax was King’s appearance, which electrified the crowds and many burst into song and cheers of “God Bless America.” After being introduced by Charles C. Diggs, Dr. King began by remarking that the peaceful march was a “magnificent demonstration of our commitment to non-violence.”

What is most often remembered about Dr. King’s speech in Detroit is that it was an early version of his monumental “I Have a Dream” speech: 

“And so this afternoon, I have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day, right down in Georgia and Mississippi and Alabama, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to live together as brothers. 

I have a dream this afternoon that one day, one day little white children and little N---- children will be able to join hands as brothers and sisters. 

I have a dream this afternoon that one day, one day men will no longer burn down houses and the church of God simply because people want to be free. 

I have a dream this afternoon, that we will no longer face the atrocities that Emmett Till had to face or Medgar Evers had to face, that all men can live with dignity. 

I have a dream this afternoon that my four little children, that my four little children will not come up in the same young days that I came up within, but they will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not the color of their skin. 

I have a dream this afternoon, that one day right here in Detroit, N------ will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere that their money will carry them and they will be able to get a job. […] 

And with this faith I will go out and carve a tunnel of hope through the mountain of despair. With this faith, I will go out with you and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. With this faith, we will be able to achieve this new day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing with the N------ in the spiritual of old: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”[6]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. greeted at the airport,
Detroit Free Press, June 24, 1963, p. 3

Dr. King said that the demonstration and rally in Detroit, Michigan, on that June day in 1963 was “one of the most wonderful things that had happened in America” (Detroit Free Press, June 24, 1963, p. 3). Directly after the Walk to Freedom, Dr. King went to New York for the all-important meeting for the March on Washington. The Detroit “Great March” might have been smaller, but it was a crucial part of the Civil Rights Movement, and is often cited as the test-run for the historic March on Washington, which was highlighted by Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

For more information on the Detroit March to Freedom, children’s books about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights in Detroit, Senator Robert P. Griffin’s thoughts on Dr. King, and the history of Detroit in the 1960s, please visit the Clarke Historical Library.

[1] Rise Up North: Detroit, https://riseupdetroit.org/chapters/chapter-3/part-1/the-national-civil-rights-movement-in-detroit/

[2] In 2012, David Erdody of the Bentley Historical Library found photo negatives depicting King’s visit to Ann Arbor archived in the Bentley’s holdings.

[3] View a recording of Rachel Williams’ discussing about her graphic novel about the 1943 Detroit Uprising, Run Home if You Don’t Want to Be Killed.  

[4] View the June 23, 1963 Detroit Free Press on ProQuest, free at subscribing libraries. 

[5] View the June 24, 1963 Detroit Free Press on ProQuest, free at subscribing libraries.

[6] Full text of the speech available via links in the 2017 Michigan Radio article: https://www.michiganradio.org/offbeat/2017-01-16/before-i-have-a-dream-there-was-the-great-walk-to-freedom-in-detroit. See also Fox 2 Detroit's article about the Walk to Freedom speech: https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/listen-martin-luther-king-jr-s-dream-speech-delivered-in-detroit-in-1963

A Fall of Fires: The 150th Anniversary of the Peshtigo and Great Michigan Fires

by Gillian Macdonald

Headline from East Shore News,
October 13, 1871

October 8 marks the 150th Anniversary of world’s deadliest forest fire. In our evermore climate-conscious community, a look back at this devastating event shows the sheer power of the environment.

On Sunday, October 8, 1871, the Peshtigo Fire leveled a broad swath of Wisconsin and Michigan. Cast in the shadow of the Great Fire of Chicago at that same time, the fires at Peshtigo, Holland, Manistee, Port Huron, and beyond swept through the Midwest devastating and eliminating towns in Wisconsin and in the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. The Peshtigo Fire has largely been forgotten as a result of the notoriety of the Chicago Fire, despite being more deadly. The unnaturally dry conditions in the fall of 1871 created conditions ripe for fires. Historians and meteorologists have pointed to the wind cyclones that formed over the eastern plains as the culprits for spreading the fires.

The fires in Michigan devastated 2.5 million acres of forest (an area the size of the state of Connecticut). Between Peshtigo, Michigan, and Chicago, the wildfires of October 1871 killed between 1500 and 2500 people--the deadliest wildfire in recorded human history. Uninterrupted drought had plagued the Midwest in October of 1871 and the logging town of Peshtigo in northeast Wisconsin became a tinderbox waiting to blow. Residents fled into rivers and Lake Michigan to escape the firestorms that engulfed the town and spread into Menominee County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Coined as the Great Michigan Fire, that same Sunday, residents in Holland, Michigan, were served the same fate by hurricane-force winds and fires on the coast of Lake Michigan. The winds spread embers across the state and, in just 30 hours, forest fires marched through Grayling, Manistee, Big Rapids, Midland, Bay City, and finally reached Caro where dry conditions were even worse. Faced with 100-foot flames, residents in the Saginaw Bay-area, like those in Peshtigo, rushed into the waters of Lake Huron to escape the blaze.

Painting by Dennis Matheis, from cover of The Holland Fire of October 8, 1871
by Donald van Reken (ca. 1982)

East Shore News (Oceana County), the Escanaba Tribune, and the Sanilac Jeffersonian are among the newspapers that reported on the devastation. The article in the Escanaba Tribune detailed that the “streets were lined with men, women and children fleeing for their lives.” In the same article, Mr. Place (the gentleman sent to the scene) confirmed the decimation of Peshtigo: the “fire came upon them so suddenly that it was not in the reach of mortal power to stay its fury.” The Sanilac Jeffersonian reported on the damages in Port Huron, specifically in Rock Falls, Sand Beach, Elm Creek, Port Hope, and Huron City where residents suffered estimated losses of $10,000 to $100,000. East Shore News described scenes of devastation from Muskegon and Peshtigo, told of how the city of Holland burned, detailed Big Rapids as “entirely destroyed,” reported every house in Birch Creek burned, and lamented “most horrible scenes took place at Peshtigo.”

Destruction in Chicago,
October 1871

The fires of October 1871 served as a warning about land-use practices of the time. The subsequent 150 years have seen a transformation in the mitigation of wildfires. The National Weather Service now has incident meteorologists who support firefighters battling wildfires across the US. But that doesn’t mean that wildfires are no longer a problem we must contend. As the climate changes and weather patterns shift, long periods of dry weather are creating new threats across North America and the globe. Our awareness of the issue has dramatically increased thanks to climate change activists such as Greta Thunberg. As we witnessed 150 years ago, we should never underestimate the destructive power of forest fires, even in the water-rich Great Lakes region.

Language and Native American Heritage

Frank Boles

Ironies abound in how historical resources are used. One of the most striking differences is how the records created by one generation to accomplish a particular goal can be used by another generation for very different and sometimes very contradictory purposes. Take, for example, Native American language. For decades, the Clarke Historical Library has played an important role in preserving a large body of printed Ojibway-language material, and thus a fundamental part of Anishinaabe culture. How this body of information is used, however, has changed dramatically.

One of the most important aspects of culture is language. Although there are exceptions, the United States is one of the most obvious nations, and people often define themselves around a common tongue. Ojibway (also known as Anishinaabemowin, Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Otchipwe, or Chippewa) is  common language of the Anishinaabe people. In the United States, it is heard from Michigan to Montana. In Canada, the language is spoken from Ontario to Manitoba. 

Although Ojibway speakers are dispersed across a broad part of the North American continent, their communities are small, and the number of people within the communities who speak Ojibway represents only a fraction of the total group. Based on statistics from the 2000 U.S. census and the 2006 Canadian census, in the two nations, there are, approximately, a combined 300,000 people who claim Anishinaabe heritage. But of this group, only about 20 percent, approximately 56,000 people, speak Ojibway.

Ojibway is an endangered language. Today, many groups are trying to preserve it. One way to accomplish this goal uses printed material from the nineteenth century that sought to translate Ojibway words into English and explain Ojibway grammar. The Anishinaabe did not develop a unique set of characters through which to write their words. Instead, alphabets were developed by Europeans who used their Latin script and usually based their work on English or French spelling systems. This attempt to place Ojibway into the Latin alphabet using different spelling systems has numerous limitations, exemplified by the at least six different ways the name of the language can be written in English, but it nevertheless created an indispensable pool of historical information that today can be used to supplement the oral tradition of those who still speak the tongue.

But the goal of the people who created this wealth of information had nothing to do with language preservation, and in fact, was seeking fundamental change within the Anishinaabe community. The people who worked most diligently to place Ojibway on paper were Christian missionaries. Other European language speakers who needed to communicate with the Ojibway, primarily traders, military officers, and government officials, could usually make do with relatively rough translations between their language and Ojibway. Basic communication met their needs. But missionaries, intent on spreading Christianity, believed it necessary to translate Christianity’s sacred writings very precisely into the native language. Thus, missionaries became the primary group who took on the immensely challenging work of developing Ojibway-English dictionaries and Ojibway rules of grammar.

Among the Ojibway-language treasures they created that are found in the Clarke are dictionaries and several bibles.

Frederic Baraga was a Catholic priest from Slovenia who came to America in 1830. In 1831, he was sent to Arbre Croche, (Cross Village) in the northwest corner of Michigan’s lower peninsula, to work among the Indians and master Ojibway. Until his death in 1868, he would spend the rest of his life in the Great Lakes region, much of it in Marquette, working among the Native population and continually developing his understanding of their language. In 1853, this linguistic study resulted in what is usually described as the first complete English-Ojibway dictionary, which he published under the title A Dictionary of Otchipwe Language Explained in English. The Clarke Historical Library has a first edition of the critical work, many of the subsequent reprints editions that have appeared, as well as several other dictionaries and grammars published by later authors.

Baraga and other Christian missionaries’ goal, of course, was to publish the Bible, particularly the New Testament, in Ojibway. The first portion of the New Testament to be published in Ojibway, the gospels of Matthew and John, were translated by Peter and John Jones and printed between 1829 and 1831. The first complete translation of the entire New Testament appeared in 1833, the work of Edwin James. As a better understanding of the language developed, new translations were published in 1844 by Henry Blatchford and in 1854 by Frederick O’Meara. The Clarke holds a first edition of Jones translation of Matthew, as well as first editions of the James, Blatchford, and O’Meara New Testaments. These volumes are supplemented in the Clarke stacks by many Christian prayers, hymns, and other devotional material, all printed in the Ojibway language.

The ultimate goal of nineteenth-century missionaries was to completely change the Anishinaabe’s spiritual values. The missionaries sought to extinguish Anishinaabe belief in a world inhabited by good and evil spirits and replace it with faith in Jesus. Yet the linguistic documentation and examples created by the missionaries to change Anishinaabe culture created a linguistic legacy that helped future Anishinaabe people do the exact opposite: work to preserve their culture by keeping their language alive. 

The Clarke Historical Library’s role in documenting the activity of nineteenth-century Christian missionaries to the Anishinaabe, and making available that same documentation to twenty-first-century library users seeking to preserve Ojibway is one example of the profoundly different way two people can use the same information.

CMU and the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam: 50 Years Later

by Bryan Whitledge

50 years ago, during the height of the Vietnam War, people from across the spectrum of American society joined in the nationwide Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. Moratorium had two major components: The first was local demonstrations and programming that took place in communities across the US on Wednesday, October 15. These were followed one month later by a large demonstration on the National Mall in Washington, DC. For the October 15 Moratorium, activists and students at CMU worked through the summer of 1969 and into the fall to organize local events in Mt. Pleasant.

October 15, 1969 Moratorium Event at Finch Fieldhouse

The organizers planned a day of teach-ins, lectures, films, music, arts, peace vigils, and activism. Support came from all corners of the CMU and Mt. Pleasant area—businesses, activists, Greek organizations, student government, the Young Republicans and the College Democrats, the student newspaper, and even the President of the University and chair of the Board of Trustees. IM sports were cancelled, freeing up students from having to choose between skipping their games or participating in Moratorium.

CMU President Bill Boyd (center) during
the candlelight march, October 15, 1969

By all measures, the Mt. Pleasant event was a success. The October 15 Moratorium in Mt. Pleasant brought out thousands—students, faculty, staff and administration at Central, as well as members of the surrounding community. Among the highlights of the day was the candlelight vigil and march during the evening (pictured).

The CMU organizers achieved their goal for October 15. The next step was supposed to be figuring out how to get those CMU students who wanted to go to Washington for the November 13-15 events to connect with the other Michigan delegations and head to the nation’s capital. The national organizers made those connections easier for the CMU activists—they asked Central students, led by Paul Puma, to head up the coordination of all of the activists in Michigan who wanted to go to Washington. Michigan State University organizers may have led a march to the State Capitol and the University of Michigan Moratorium may have brought in 50,000 to Michigan Stadium, but the Central students garnered the attention of the National Moratorium Committee for their energy and organization.

As the statewide leaders, on November 1, a conference was held at the CMU University Center, with 25 Michigan colleges and universities represented. Throughout the planning process, a CMU office and a Detroit office were established to provide services for Moratorium organizing efforts across the state. Signatures from people throughout Michigan who did not travel to Washington were collected on a 75-foot-long banner to be taken to the National Moratorium.

75-foot-long signed petition

For Central specifically, planning meant transporting activists from Mt. Pleasant to Washington, DC safely. Each student who was traveling was advised to pick up a sheet with information about where to go if one encountered trouble, the location of the meeting point for all Michiganders, who to contact in case of emergency, and more.

Planning also meant raising funds: Students could catch a round trip on a chartered bus for $24. The Moratorium committee sold photo books from the October event. They sold handmade holiday cards. They sold baked goods. Student government pledged a loan of up to $2,500 to fund travels if the money couldn’t be secured from other sources, but that pledge wasn’t needed because the Moratorium committee secured loans from other CMU students and faculty members in short order. The organizers hoped to host a “kegger” to raise money, but the police informed those planning the event that charging a cover fee to a venue serving alcohol required a liquor license—so, five bands showed up, day-glo body paint was suppied, and they held a dry party instead. Moratorium organizers also asked Greek organizations to donate the cost of one party to the Moratorium effort, and many came through with the funds.

Poster from Washington, DC, Moratorium

All of the planning efforts culminated on Friday, November 14, when five buses left CMU, to return on the 16th. Originally, organizers thought they had seven buses to use, but President Boyd made it clear that the two CMU-owned buses would not be used because Moratorium was not a CMU event and CMU didn’t operate motor coach company. While CMU couldn’t supply buses, the administration and staff supported the trip in other ways. Food services made sandwiches and snacks for every student on the buses—not enough for the whole trip, but enough to lighten the burden on the activists. President Boyd told students that a member of the administration, Harry Travis, was attending a different meeting in Washington, DC, and would be available to students in case of emergency.

In Washington, approximately 1,000 Central students joined hundreds of thousands of other activists in the national Moratorium events. With so much going on, Central students came back with a variety of experiences. Some remember the hospitality of families who opened their doors and gave them a place to stay. Others returned with ephemera from the event (pictured above). Others were caught up caught up in DuPont Circle when police broke up a conflict with tear gas. And some remember Pete Seeger leading hundreds of thousands in singing “Give Peace a Chance” near the White House.

Michigan Delegation in Washington, November 15, 1969

Back at Central, President Boyd acknowledged that missing classes was not something that should go without consequences, but he urged professors to lighten up on punitive action for those who missed class to participate in Moratorium events in Washington or on the CMU campus. At Central, students placed 1,900 crosses on the Warriner Mall to mark each Michigan service member killed in action. A documentary film was shown and lectures were given by activists, religious leaders, politicians, and community members.

In October and November of 1969, the “fired up and focused” activists and students at CMU stood up for what they believed and made a lasting impact in Michigan, Washington, and beyond.

Immigration in Another Era

By Frank Boles

Today’s heated political discussion over immigration, with its often strident rhetoric about immigrants, was not always a part of America’s political discourse. Before the Civil War and continuing during Reconstruction, the state of Michigan not only welcomed immigrants, it paid people to recruit settlers to migrate from Europe to the United States. A product of this work, Der Staat Michigan, published in 1859, was recently obtained by the Clarke Historical Library staff from a book dealer in Austria.

Der Staat Michigan, 1859, front & back Cover

Germans had been early settlers in the state. German immigrants founded a colony near Ann Arbor in the 1830s. In 1845, a second large group of German immigrants began to settle in along the Cass River, in an area that would become Frankenmuth. Between 1845 and the beginning of the Civil War, Germans immigrants came to Michigan in increasing numbers. Part of this immigration resulted from forces that pushed people out of their homeland. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, significant crop failures plagued many German farmers. The failure of the liberal revolt of 1848 also meant a large number of politically active Germans had good reason to fear retaliation from the government officials they had tried to unseat, and thus, they found it expedient to place a great deal of distance between themselves and those who remained in political power.

But “push” was not the only reason Germans came to Michigan. The state government of Michigan also actively “pulled” German immigrants. In the 1840s, many of the state’s political leaders had come to have high regard for Germans. These immigrants had demonstrated devout religious belief and economic energy, both of which struck resonant chords with the political leadership of the day. In addition, German immigrants were often either educated already or very much interested in establishing educational institutions for their children.

Der Staat Michigan, 1859. Map of Michigan with information on Ingham, Eaton,
Ionia, Montcalm, and Kent Counties. 

To obtain more of what Michigan’s legislators saw as an ideal foreign settler, they passed a law in 1845 to fund a “foreign emigration agent” in New York City to “encourage immigration into the state and travel on our public railroads.” Governor John Barry appointed John Almy to the position. Almy quickly wrote a six-page pamphlet in German extolling the state’s virtues. State government paid for five thousand copies of the pamphlet and it distributed not only in New York City but also to emigration societies and U.S. government consul offices overseas.

In 1850, Michigan’s governor, John S. Barry, let a bill continuing this outreach to German immigrants die on his desk. Barry was reported to believe that the state was now so well known to potential immigrants that further publicly-funded efforts to attract them to Michigan were unnecessary. Others disagreed with that assessment. In 1859, the legislature established the position of Commissioner of Emigration. Two well- known members of Detroit’s German community were appointed to the post – one working out of Detroit while the other was in New York City.

One of the two men, Rudolph Diepenbeck, was the former editor of a German-language newspaper. In 1859, he wrote in German and had published Der Staat Michigan, a 48-page pamphlet, which he used as a tool to recruit more Germans to come to Michigan.

By 1860, there were 38,787 German immigrants in Michigan, about five percent of the state’s total population of 749,113.

Michigan’s political leaders’ interest in German immigrants only increased after the Civil War. In 1869, the legislature sent the Michigan Commissioner of Emigration to Germany, where he set up an office in Hamburg. There the commissioner regularly published an eight-page “magazine” extolling the state to anyone willing to read it. Although the office in Hamburg was closed in 1874, the office of Commissioner on Emigration continued until 1885. The person who held that office continued to print publications in German, and later Dutch.

While the exact number of German immigrants will never be known, C. Warren Vander Hill’s Settling of the Great Lakes Frontier: Immigrant to Michigan, 1837-1924, offers a best guess that in 1920, of the state’s 3,723,000 residents, 670,000, or around eighteen percent of the population, were either German immigrants or their descendants.

Der Staat Michigan is an important historical publication that documents this long effort by the state to recruit foreign immigrants. The copy in the Clarke is particularly important in that only three other copies of this publication are known to exist. Two are found in German libraries while the third is preserved in Boston. It’s impossible to say when a copy of the pamphlet was last seen in Michigan, but we are very pleased to bring a research copy of Der Staat Michigan back to the state from which it came.

Tocqueville Exhibit Opens

By Frank Boles

On October 9, the Clarke Library opened its newest exhibit, Tocqueville’s Two Weeks in the Wilderness. The library’s reference librarian, and resident scholar of early nineteenth century Michigan, John Fierst, curated the exhibit and spoke at the presentation that accompanied the opening. If you’d like to hear the presentation please use this link:

https://chipcast.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=88d87d26-a212-4ee1-b1e8-a974018a9839

Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1831 trip to the United States resulted in one of the most quoted books describing governance in the young Republic. Democracy in America, published in 1835, was a liberal, French nobleman’s take on the great experiment in self-rule beginning in North America. Tocqueville believed democracy inevitable and overall he found the way it was growing in the United States to be successful.

The Clarke’s exhibit, however, does not focus on Tocqueville’s famous book, but rather a portion of the trip often overlooked – a visit to Saginaw, Michigan. Tocqueville and his friend and traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, came to America not just to learn about how democracy worked here. But they also wanted to see two things that Europe lacked: virgin forest and Native Americans. It was for these reasons Tocqueville Beaumont made the spontaneous decision to come to Michigan Territory. The forests of New York State were simply too well groomed by the settler’s axe. The Native Americans they met in the East were not the proud, independent warriors they imagined, and who in retrospect looked suspiciously like an idealized view of their own sense of what the French nobility should be.

What resulted, a long essay by Tocqueville entitled Two Weeks in the Wilderness, is in turns comic, inspiring and tragic. Tocqueville could certainly see the humor in America, and in how he sometimes had to deal with Americans and their idiosyncrasies. As they approached Todd’s Tavern, near Flint, Tocqueville was startled to see a large black bear standing in his path. He could not but wonder, “what the devil kind of country is this, where they use bears as watchdogs?”


Tocqueville also spoke with considerable unhappiness about “Yankee” settlers inability to understand his desire to see nature unblemished by civilization and their consistent disparaging comments about Native Americans. The settlers then pouring into Michigan found equally puzzling why someone would just want to go out and look at uncut trees or talk to Indians.

To find his wilderness, Tocqueville resorted to subterfuge. He visited the federal land office in Detroit early one morning and asked the typical question of where a man might profitably invest money in land. He was told that the land near Lake Michigan was particularly promising, and thus quickly removed that destination from his travel plans. He then casually asked if there were any places he would be wise to avoid. Saginaw, came back the quick reply; a place full of uncut forest, hostile Indians, and mosquitoes.

Overjoyed by discovering a location Americans found wretched, he and Beaumont hurried away to plan their trip. By 11:00 that morning they had rented horses, purchased supplies and were on their way. Saginaw proved everything they hoped for, and of which the land office supervisor thought so little. 

Of the forest Tocqueville would write of how he experienced “the sweetest and most natural emotions of the heart,” emotions he said words could not convey. Being in the forest near Saginaw was one of “those rare moments when the universe stands in perfect equilibrium before your eyes. When the soul, half asleep, hovers between present and future, between the real and the possible. When surrounded by natural beauty and quite warmth, man , at peace with himself amid universal peace, can hear the beat of his own heart, each pulse marking the passage of time as it flows drop by drop into the eternal river.”

Tocqueville was equally aware of the fragility of the environment he found so inspirational. “This savage natural grandeur is about to meet its end, and the idea of it mingles in the mind with the superb images to which the triumphant march of civilization gives rise. One feels proud to be human, yet at the same time one somehow feels bitter regret that God had granted man so much power over nature.”  He knew it would soon all be changed by ‘the impetus that drives the white race to conquer the whole of the New World.”

Tocqueville was less successful in meeting his idealized Native. Part of the problem was simply that he could not speak Ojibway. For example, along the trail he meets, an Indian, who did not speak English.  Tocqueville’s initial reaction was to fear the man, but although they could only communicate with signs, soon enough the mood changed. Of the experience Tocqueville wrote, “A serious Indian and a smiling Indian are two completely different people. A savage majesty predominates in the stillness of the former to which one reacts with an involuntary feeling of terror. Let the same man smile and his whole face takes on a simple, kindly expression that lends it real charm.”

Having hired two Native Americans to guide them on the final part of their journey to Saginaw, Tocqueville wrote, “We felt completely in their power. Here the tables were turned. Plunged into darkness and forced to rely on his own strength, the civilized man proceed blindly, incapable of negotiating the labyrinth or even preserving his own life. Faced with the same challenges, the savage triumphs. For him the forest holds no mysteries. He is at home. He walks with his head held high, guided by an instinct more trustworthy than the navigator’s compass….  As they led us by the hand, like children, their smiles seemed almost contemptuous.”

Tocqueville eventually reached Saginaw. He decided it was worth the trouble of getting there, and we hope you will take the time to join us and view the exhibit, Tocqueville’s Two Weeks in the Wilderness. We hope you will also enjoy the companion publication, Aristocracy on the Saginaw Trail: Alexis de Tocqueville In Michigan, written by John Fierst and available without charge in paper in the Clarke’s exhibit galleries or online at clarke.cmich.edu/SaginawTrail 

Our thanks go to Judge Avern Cohn, whose financial support made possible the catalog and maps found in the exhibit.

And for the record, Tocqueville and Beaumont not only found forests and Natives in Saginaw, they also found mosquitoes. 

“This little bug is the scourge of the American wilderness. Its presence would be enough to make a long stay unbearable. I have never been subjected to torture equivalent to what I experienced throughout this journey and especially during our stay in Saginaw. During the day the mosquitoes prevented us from drawing, writing, or remaining in one place for even a moment; at night thousands of them hovered about us. Any part of the body left uncovered immediately became their gathering place. Awakened by the pain of a bite, we would cover our heads with sheets, but they could pierce right through them. Hunted down and pursued by these small insects, we got up and went outside for some fresh air until at last we succumbed to fatigue and slept intermittently and badly.”

Tocqueville’s “triumphant march of civilization” in which he took such pride, seems to have met its match in tiny insects. Then again, we would be wise to remember that the twenty-first century has yet to figure out how to keep “the scourge of the American wilderness” from ruining a camping trip.

Douglass Houghton's Impact on Michigan History

By Sam Tibebe

Douglass Houghton painting from A History of Michigan in Paintings by Robert A. Thomas. Courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library.

Growing up with a history professor as your father you learn to love and hate history, although it remained highly valuable, even today. Consequently, I ran far away from history only to study the history of the Earth, through geology. Webster’s Dictionary defines geology as “a science that deals with the history of the earth and its life especially as recorded in rocks.” The history of mankind pales in comparison to the history of the earth, which is over billions of years old. Earth’s history is recorded in rock records whereas mankind records history in written words. Although rock records do not reveal everything about their past, they are absolute and precise with the information they do provide. For example, one of the first things a geologist will look for in an outcrop is the rock's texture, ranging from grain size to types of minerals seen by hand. These textures are the written history of rocks, allowing geologists to make interpretations and assumptions about the environment’s deposition. While working as a student assistant at Clarke, I was asked to look up content about Douglass Houghton for a social media post. I jumped at the opportunity to combine geology and history together.

Douglass Houghton's Field Notebooks, c. 1838. Handwritten notes on Mackinaw and the Upper Peninsula. Courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library.

I have had the fortune of taking several field trips during my academic career at Central Michigan University, as the first time I heard of Douglass Houghton was during a trip up Quincy Mine in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Douglass Houghton was the definition of a renaissance man who was geologist, physician, mayor, philanthropist, Professor, and even was a U.S. Indian Agent (U.S. government official authorized to interact with Native Americans).

1st Edition Survey Map of Marquette Township by Douglass Houghton, c. 1838.

Courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library.

From the Detroit Historical Society site, in The Encyclopedia of Detroit, Houghton was born in September 21, 1809 in Troy, New York to a Lawyer/ Magistrate father who demand academic excellence from his sons and daughters. He then attended and graduated from Rensselaer School of Science, premier school at the time and still open in Troy, New York, with a degree of geology in 1830 and medicine in 1831. It was safe to say that Houghton was a child genius which made him a great mentee for The Rensselaer co-founder Amos Eaton, a renowned geologist himself. When a the territorial governor of Michigan asked Eaton to give a lecture, he deferred to his protégée Houghton, who quickly became the talk of the town. This led Houghton to form the Detroit Young Men’s Society.

Houghton became the first Michigan State Geologist when Michigan became a state in 1837. In this  role, he began the Township Survey Maps Project, which set the modern day county boundaries. It was during this time it made the greatest contribution to Michigan and the U.S. as a whole, with the exploitation and discovery of mineral deposits contributing to an economic and immigration surge. According to Mining History Association, this lead to the largest copper mining operation in the U.S. history, and led to the creation of many mining companies like Quincy, Tamarack, and Calumet and Hecla. Quincy Mine is now a popular tourist attraction and one of the few that actually take tourists underground.

Houghton was supported by many, which resulted in him being elected as Mayor while he was on one of his expeditions. Houghton was also a professor at the University of Michigan, and might have been governor of the state in the 1845. Unfortunately, Douglass Houghton died at the young age of 36 years old in 1845. Houghton’s dedication to this work lead him to misjudge a storm and to sail off in Lake Superior leading to this death. In homage to his legacy, there is a county and city, as well as statues, schools, and even a hall at the University of Michigan named after him. Mining in the Upper Peninsula has decreased, but as new and more efficient technology is being developed we are seeing a new surge in the area with the formation of new mines like Eagle Mine.

  

Biographic Sketch of Douglass Houghton - Michigan's First State Geologist, 1837-1845 by Wallin, Helen McCarthy. Courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library.

The Clarke Historical Library collection on Douglass Houghton is quite impressive not just in terms of geology, but also Michigan’s history. The first edition, personally written by Houghton, surveys maps of townships including Lapeer, Livingston, Marquette, Saginaw, Houghton, Oakland, Shiawassee, Tuscola, and Wayne. Other first edition paper, letters, field note, account ledgers, and even biographical sketches all written by Houghton but also material about him and his life from memoir to bibliography like Michigan’s Columbus: The life of Douglass Houghton by Steve Lehto. All of these and more can be found at the Clarke Historical Library, come check it out Here.