[141] OTTOWAS. So late as 1841, the number of the tribe, reported to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Michigan, was 1,391, which was divided into 13 villages, scattered over its whole valley.--_Schoolcraft's Report on Indian Affairs_, Detroit, A. S. Bagg, 1840.
On the day of our departure from the Maskigon, we enjoyed fine weather and favorable winds, and proceeded, from the data of Captain Douglass, seventy miles, and encamped a few miles beyond the Sandy River. In this line of coast, we passed, successively, the White, Pentwater, and Marquette. Of these, the latter, both from its size and its historical associations, is by far the most important; for it was at this spot, after having spent years of devotion in the cause of missions in New France--in the course of which he discovered the Mississippi River--that this zealous servant of God laid down in his tent, after a hard day's travel, and surrendered up his life. The event occurred on the 8th of May, 1675, but two years after his grand discovery. Marquette was a native of Laon, in Picardy, where his family was of distinguished rank. The precise moment of his death was not witnessed, his men having retired to leave him to his devotions, but returning, in a short time, found him lifeless. They carried his body to the mission of old Michilimackinac, of which he was the founder, where it was interred.[142]
[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.
It rained the next morning (6th), by which we lost two hours, and we had some unfavorable winds, but, by dint of hard pushing, we made forty-five miles, and slept at Gravelly Point. In this line we passed successively, at distances of seventeen and thirty miles, the rivers Manistic and _Becsie_, which is the Canadian phrase for the anas canadensis. Clouds and murky weather still hovered around us on the next morning, but we left our encampment at an early hour. Thirteen miles brought us to the Omicomico, or Plate River, nine miles beyond which found us in front of a remarkable and very elevated sand June, called the Sleeping Bear--a fanciful term, derived from the Indian, through the French _l'ours qui dormis_. Opposite this feature in the coast geology, lie the two large wooded islands called the Minitos--well-known objects to all mariners who venture into the vast unsheltered basin of the southern body of Lake Michigan. Thirty miles beyond this sandy elevation, brought us to the southern cape of Grand Traverse Bay, where we encamped, having advanced fifty-two miles. This was the first place where we had noticed rocks in situ, since passing the little Konamic River, near Chicago. It proved to be limestone, of the same apparent era of the calcareous rock which we had observed at Sturgeon Bay and the contiguous west shore of Lake Michigan. The line of lake coast included in this remark is three hundred and twenty miles; during all which distance the coast seems, but only seems, to be the sport of the fierce gales and storms, for there is reason to believe that the formations of drift clay, sand, and gravel rest, at various depths, on a stratification of solid, permanent rock. To us, however, it proved a barren field for the collection of both geological and mineralogical specimens. There were gleaned some rolled specimens of organic remains, of no further use than to denote the occurrence of these in some part of a vast basin. There was a specimen of gypsum from Grand River. The few patches of iron sand I had noticed, were hardly worthy of record after the heavy beds of this mineral which we had passed in Lake Superior. The same remark may be made of the few rolled fragments of calcedonies, and other varieties of the quartz family, gleaned up along its shores, for neither of these constitute a reliable locality.