In 1923, Stanley Newton published, “The Story of Sault Ste. Marie and Chippewa County.” This is part eight of a continuing series, that tells the history of Sault Ste. Marie and area in its early years. – Laurie Davis
About a year after his arrival, Schoolcraft married Jane Johnston, the granddaughter of Chief Waub-ojeeg. He devoted much time to the investigation of Indian languages, traditions, and customs, took a friendly and personal interest in his red charges, and procured the enactment of several laws beneficent to them. In 1827, he moved into a handsome residence on the bank of the river, about half a mile east of the fort. This building contained fifteen rooms including the Agency office, and stood in a bower of elms, maples, and mountain ash of his planting. Here, he tells us, he lived most happily, varying the duties of his office with his incursions into Indian lore. This house still stands close to the Michigan Northern Power Company’s powerhouse and is now shut off from the river by it.
Schoolcraft became a member of the Michigan Territorial Legislature in 1828. and helped to organize the Michigan Historical Society in the same year. Four years later, he headed a scientific expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi River and determined its source to be in Lake Itasca, which was named by him. He spent eleven busy and useful years in the Sault and its vicinity before the Indian Agency was moved to Mackinac Island.
Schoolcraft’s writings and compilations here, many of them done with the assistance of his accomplished wife, were subsequently published. They include his “Algic Researches,” “Oneota, or the Indian in his Wigwam,” “Thirty Years with the Indian Tribes,” and most noted of all, the “History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes.” This monumental work was published by the United States Government in 1851-1857 at a cost of $650,000.00. The six great quarto volumes under this title form the most extensive existing repository of information concerning the red race in America.
After his first coming to the Sault, and previous to his incumbency as Indian Agent here, he published his “Travels in the Central Portion of the Mississippi Valley.” This, his first work, laid the solid foundation of his fame and was useful to the country in acquainting the east with the enormous and hitherto unknown possibilities of the lands beyond the Great Lakes.
Were Indians Misused
It is still the fashion in some quarters to condemn the United States Government’s treatment of the Indians within its boundaries. With these criticisms in mind, it is worthwhile to read the following from the foreword of Schoolcraft’s “Thirty Years With the Indian Tribes.” This foreword is written anonymously, probably by the brother of Schoolcraft, but no doubt with the sanction of the latter, who probably knew the Indians as no other white man ever did.
“We have been reproached by foreign pens for our treatment of these tribes, and our policy, motives, and justice impugned. If we are not mistaken, the materials here collected (referring to Schoolcraft’s “History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes”) will show how gratuitous such imputations have been. It is believed that no stock of the aborigines, found by civilized nations on the globe, have received the same amount of considerate, benevolent, and humane treatment, as denoted by the Government’s laws, its treaties, and general administration of Indian affairs, from the establishment of the Constitution, and this too, in the face of the most hostile, wrongheaded and capricious conduct on their part, that ever signalized the history of a barbarous people.”
We are indebted for the greater part of our knowledge of old Algonquin America to the Jesuit Relations and to Henry Schoolcraft, citizen of Sault Ste. Marie. The importance of this information in the Relations cannot be over-estimated; still, it was incidental to the report by the writers of spiritual progress made by their savage congregations. Banished, as it were, to Sault Ste. Marie, Schoolcraft seized a psychological opportunity in the true spirit of enterprise and made himself famous by recording his observations. It has been said that Schoolcraft was the man who gold-plated the northern Indians, but who shall blame him? They were the making of him. And they did not need his gilding, for they were and are one of the most interesting races in the world.
Were Inspiration of Longfellow
Longfellow found his inspiration for Hiawatha, the most famous of his poems, in the works of Schoolcraft, compiled largely here in Sault Ste. Marie. His debt and ours to Schoolcraft is acknowledged in the opening lines:
Should you ask me whence these stories,
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
I should answer, I should tell you,
From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways.
Schoolcraft moved his agency to Mackinac Island in 1833 and assumed the Superintendency of Indian Affairs for Michigan at Detroit in 1836.
Is Buried Here
Johnston died in 1828 at Sault Ste. Marie, and was buried not far from where the Armory now stands. Years afterward his remains were transferred to Riverside Cemetery, where they repose in a family lot with those of members of his family, in the northwestern corner of the cemetery, a little distance back of the caretaker’s house. The stone, marking the spot, is engraved with an epitaph by Schoolcraft.
In justice to Johnston, the following note of Schoolcraft’s is inserted here:
“John Johnston was a native of the north of Ireland, where his family possessed an estate named ‘Craige,’ near the celebrated Giant’s Causeway. He came to this country during the first Presidential term of Washington and settled at St. Mary’s about 1793. He was a gentleman of taste, reading, refined feeling, and cultivated manners, which enabled him to direct the education of his children, an object to which he assiduously devoted himself; and his residence was long known as the seat of hospitality and refinement to all who visited the region. In 1814, his premises were visited, during his absence, by a part of the force who entered the St. Mary’s under Colonel Croghan, and his private property subjected to pillage, from a misapprehension, created by some evil-minded persons, that he was an agent of the Northwest Company. Genial, social, kind, and benevolent, his society was much sought, and he was sometimes imposed on by those who had been received into his employments and trusts, as in the reports which carried the Americans to his domicile in 1814.”
An Interesting Sketch
There is an interesting sketch of Johnston in Ross Cox’s “Adventures on the Columbia River,” from which the following is taken: “Mr. Johnston has extensive plantations of corn and potatoes, with a beautifully arranged and well-stocked fruit and flower garden. During the late war with America, he induced one thousand Indian warriors (of whom he took command) to join the British forces and rendered important services while so employed.
“He suffered severely for his loyalty, for during his absence with the army, a predatory party of Americans attacked his place in the hope of obtaining a large quantity of valuable furs, which they were informed he had in his stores, but which a short time before his departure he had fortunately removed, Disappointed in their hope of plunder, they burned his house and out-offices. At the period, therefore, of our visit (1817) the buildings were quite new and were constructed with much taste. The furniture was elegant and the library was select and elegant.
“Mr. Johnston possessed a highly cultivated mind, much improved by extensive reading. He had made many excursions around the shores of Lake Superior and along the banks of its tributary streams, in which scientific researches, imparted a pleasing variety to the business of an Indian trader. His collection of specimens were varied and well selected, and if the result of his inquiries be published, they will, I have no doubt, prove a valuable addition to our geological knowledge of interior America.
“Two retired traders, named Nolin and Ermatinger, also resided on the same side with Mr. Johnston, a short distance below his house.”
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