Chippewa Chief.
(west of lake superior.)
The waters and floating icebergs must have swept over this country with much force for in many places the pressure exerted seems to have been enormous.
On my way south from this land, which contained so much that attracted attention, I visited the reservation of the Oneidas, at the spot where the council fire of that tribe was originally established, near Lake Ontario. I was received by the hereditary chief of that tribe, who was named Beech-tree. As he could not speak a word of English, our conversation was carried on with the assistance of his grandson, who acted as interpreter. Beech-tree was a large, broad shouldered man, with a remarkably massive head. If I had met him in the north of China, I should have taken him for a Manchu Tartar. His hair was very long and black, and tinged with grey.
He told his grandson to say that he was proud of his unmixed descent from the ancient chiefs of his nation, which had once been powerful, and that the land upon which we stood belonged by right to the Oneidas, and was the place where they held their great councils and decided upon questions of war or peace. After having made, with assumed dignity, this brief oration, Beech-tree retired into the interior of his hut, and I returned to my country cart, which had conveyed me to his territory, and finally reached the shores of Lake Erie. After traversing Lakes Huron and Michigan, I proceeded to the banks of the Ohio river, with the purpose of making expeditions to the works of the Mound Builders.
Before quitting the Oneida reservation, I made inquiries about a man named Williams, concerning whom I had heard, when at Boston, a strange and romantic story. It appears that Williams, whose parentage was uncertain or unknown, was sent early in the present century from the Indian village of St. Régis, to act as a missionary among the Oneidas. Some years later, rumours were spread to the effect that he was the true Dauphin, the son of Louis XVI. These rumours were stated to be based upon grounds which warranted a fair degree of belief.
The story as told to me at Oneida was that Williams was supposed to have been born at St. Régis (a picturesque village reservation on the South bank of the St. Lawrence, and which, at the time that I saw it, contained a population of fifteen hundred Iroquois, the majority of whom were half-breeds).
In early manhood he was sent to a college, trained for missionary work, and ultimately appointed to preach among the Oneidas. I was informed, by those who had previously known him, that he was an honest, zealous missionary, who was quite incapable of attempting any form of imposture.
It however happened (such is the story,) that the Prince de Joinville, when travelling in America, came to Oneida and saw Williams. It is also stated that he visited him on a second occasion. After this second meeting, it was thought by the residents in the neighbourhood, that Williams was possibly the Dauphin.
A picture of Simon, the gaoler who treated the young prisoner in the Temple with such incredible brutality, was shown to him, and he instantly started back with horror, as if recalling some painful memory. Williams had no recollection of anything about his youth before the age of fourteen.
In consequence of these apparent corroborations of the local surmises, it was conjectured that after the execution of Louis XVI., the young Dauphin was removed from the prison, sent to America and placed in an Indian family at St. Régis. Williams lived for many years with the Oneidas, and died at an advanced age. He was described as having been a man of portly physique, with large features and big hands and feet. His complexion was rather dark. I think it is probable that he was descended from half-breed Indian parents.