[142] Place of Interment of Marquette. It is known that the mission of Michilimackinac fell on the downfall of the Jesuits. When the post of Michilimackinac was removed from the peninsula to the island, about 1780, the bones of the missionary were transferred to the old Catholic burial-ground, in the village on the island. There they remained till a land or property question arose to agitate the church, and, when the crisis happened, the whole graveyard was disturbed, and his bones, with others, were transferred to the Indian village of La Crosse, which is in the vicinity of L'Arbre Croche, Michigan.
[143] Dr. John Torrey, Am. Journ. Science, vol. iv.
[144] From Waganuk, a crooked or croched tree, and izzie, an animate termination, denoting existence or being, carrying the idea of its being charmed or enchanted.
[145] Little Fox Point. This word comes from Wagoush, a fox, and the denominative inflection a ainc or aiñs.
[146] It is to be regretted that Capt. Douglass, who, immediately on the conclusion of this expedition, was appointed to an important and arduous professorship in the U. S. Military Academy of West Point, could not command the leisure to complete and publish his map and topographical memoir of this part of the U. S. So long as there was a hope of this, my report of its geology, &c., and other data intended for the joint PUBLIC WORK, were withheld. But in revising this narrative, at this time, they are submitted in the Appendix. Prof. Douglass, of whose useful and meritorious life, I regret that I have no account to offer, died as one of the Faculty of Geneva College, October 21, 1849.
[147] So called from the water insect, called Miera by the Wyandots, one of the invertebrata which slips over the surface of water without apparently wetting its feet.—Vide Ethnological Researches, vol. ii. p. 226.
[148] Cheboigan. This is a noted river of the extreme of the peninsula of Michigan, which has just been made the centre of a new land district by Congress. It affords a harbor for shipping, and communicates with Little Travers Bay on Lake Michigan. A canal across a short route, of easy excavation, would avoid the whole dangerous route through the Straits of Michilimackinac, converting the end of the peninsula into an island, and save ninety miles of dangerous travel.
[149] Am. Journ. Science, vol. iv. 1822.
[150] Theory of the Earth. Modern geologists attribute these changes to the rising or sinking of the earth from volcanic forces.
[151] Major Robert A. Forsyth was a native of the Detroit Country, of Canadian descent, and born a few years after its transfer to the United States. At the time of the expedition, he was the Secretary of Governor Cass, and was admirably qualified to take a part in it, by his energy and perseverance, his indomitable courage, and his physical power and activity. Some of these traits of character were developed at an early age. He was but yet a lad at the time of the surrender of Detroit, and was so much excited by that untoward event, that he insulted the British officers in the fort by his reproaches, and so irritated them that one of them threatened to pin him to the floor with a bayonet. During the war upon the frontier, he was actively employed, and on more than one occasion distinguished himself by his conduct and courage. He was with Major Holmes at the battle near the Long Woods, and behaved with great gallantry. In 1814, he was sent with Chandruai, a half-breed Pottowatamie, and with a small party of Indians, to invite the various Indian tribes to come to Greenville, at the treaties about to be held by Generals Harrison and Cass, with a view to detach the North-Western Indians from British influence. On the route, they met a superior party of Indians, led by an officer of the British Indian Department, who attempted to take them prisoners. They resisted, and, by their prompt and almost desperate courage, drove off the British party. Forsyth distinguished himself in the contest, in which the British leader of the party was killed. Soon after the war, he was appointed Private Secretary to Governor Cass, and continued in that capacity for fifteen years, till the latter was transferred to the War Department. He accompanied the General in all his expeditions into the Indian country, and rendered himself invariably useful, having a peculiar talent to control the rough men who took part in these dangerous excursions. He was ultimately appointed a paymaster in the army, in which capacity he served in Mexico, where he acquired the seeds of the disorder which proved fatal to him in 1849. He will be long recollected and regretted by those who knew him, for the shining qualities of head and heart which endeared him to all his acquaintances.