There was a man by the name of H. Moody who often visited at father's house he told me that when he was young he was among the Mohawk Indians in Canada. This tribe formerly lived in what is now the State of New York. They took up on the side of the English, were driven away to Canada and there settled on the Grand River. Mr. Moody was well acquainted with the sons of the great chief, Brant, and knew the laws and customs of the tribe. He said when they considered one of their tribe very bad they set him aside and would have nothing to do with him.
If one murdered another of the same tribe he was taken up and tried by a council, and if it was found to be wilful murder, without any cause, he was condemned and put to death; but if there were any extenuating circumstances which showed that he had some reason for it, he was condemned and sentenced, by the chief, to sit on the grave of his victim for a certain length of time. That was his only hope and his "City of refuge." If any of the relatives of the deceased wanted to kill him there they had a right (according to their law) to do so. If he remained and lived his time out, on the horrible place, he was received back again to the fellowship of his tribe. This must have been a terrible punishment. It showed, however, the Indian's love of his tribe and country, to sit there and think of the danger of being shot or tomahawked, and of the terrible deed he had committed. He had taken away what he could never give. How different was his case from the one who left tribe, friends and home, and ran away to save the life of a white man who had given him bread.
About two and a half miles southwest of our house there was a large sand hill. Huckleberries grew there in abundance. I went there and picked some myself. On the top of that hill we found Indian graves, where some had been recently buried. There were pens built of old logs and poles around them, and we called it the "Indian Hill." It is known by that name to this day. The old telegraph road runs right round under the brow of this hill. This hill is in the town of Taylor. I don't suppose there are many in that town who do not know the hill or have heard of it, and but few in the town of Dearborn. I don't suppose there are six persons living who know the reason it is called the "Indian Hill" for we named it in a very early day.
Some twelve or fifteen years after this a man by the name of Clark had the job of grading down a sand hill nearly a mile south of Taylor Center. In grading he had to cut down the bank six or seven feet and draw it off on to the road. He hired me with my team to go and help him. I went. He had been at work there before and he showed me some Indian bones that he had dug up and laid in a heap. He said that two persons were buried there. From the bones, one must have been very large, and the other smaller. He had been very careful to gather them up. He said he thought they were buried in a sitting or reclining posture, as he came to the skulls first. The skulls, arm and thigh bones were in the best state of preservation, and in fact, the most that was left of them.
I took one thigh bone that was whole, sat down on the bank and we compared it with my own. As I was six feet, an inch and a half, we tried to measure the best we could to learn the size of the Indian. We made up our minds that he was at least seven, or seven and a half, feet tall. I think it likely it was his squaw who sat by his side. They must have been buried a very long time. We dug a hole on the north side of a little black oak tree that stood on the hill west of the road, and there we deposited all that remained of those ancient people. I was along there the other day (1875) and as I passed I noticed the oak. It is now quite a large tree; I thought there was no one living in this country, but me, who knew what was beneath its roots. No doubt that Indian was a hunter and a warrior in his day. He might have heard, and been alarmed, that the white man had come in big canoes over the great waters and that they were stopping to live beyond the mountains. But little did he think that in a few moons, or "skeezicks" as they called it, he should pass to the happy hunting ground, and his bones be dug up by the white man, and hundreds and thousands pass over the place, not knowing that once a native American and his squaw were buried there. That Indian might have sung this sentiment:
"And when this life shall end,
When calls the great So-wan-na,
Southwestern shall I wend,
To roam the great Savannah."
—Bishop,
No doubt he was an observer of nature. In his day he had listened to the voice of Gitche Manito, or the Great Spirit, in the thunder and witnessed the display of his power in the lightning, as it destroyed the monster oak and tore it in slivers from top to bottom, and the voice of the wind, all told him that there was a Great Spirit. It told him if Indian was good he would go to a better place, where game would be plenty, and, no one would drive him away. No doubt he had made preparation for his departure and wanted his bow, arrow, and maybe other things, buried with him. If this was so they had disappeared as we found nothing of the kind. It is known to be the belief of the Indian in his wild state, that he will need his bow and arrow, or his gun and powder horn, or whatever he has to hunt with here, to use after lie has passed over to the happy hunting ground.
About the time that Clark dug up the bones, I became acquainted with something that I never could account for and it has always been a mystery to me. An Englishman was digging a ditch on the creek bottom, to drain the creek, a little over three-quarters of a mile west of father's house. He was digging it six feet wide and two feet deep, where brush called grey willows stood so thick that it was impossible for a man to walk through them. He cut the brush and had dug eight or ten inches when he came to red earth. Some day there had been a great fire at this place. The streak of red ground was about an inch thick, and in it he found what all called human bones. I went to see it myself and the bones we gathered up were mostly small pieces, no whole ones; but we saw enough to convince us that they were human bones. The ground that was burned over might have been, from the appearance, twelve feet square. It must have been done a great many years before, for the ground to make, and the brush to grow over it.
This creek, the Ecorse, not being fed by any rivulets or springs from hills or mountains, is supplied entirely by surface water. It is sometimes quite a large stream, but during dry weather in the summer time it is entirely dry. The Englishman was digging it deeper to take off the surface water when it came.