In 1923, Stanley Newton published, “The Story of Sault Ste. Marie and Chippewa County.” This is part sixteen of a continuing series about the history of Sault Ste. Marie and area in its early years. I have left punctuation and grammar intact. – Laurie Davis
“Crude as was the exterior of Wayishky’s hut, the interior presented every appearance of comfort and even elegance, according to the Indian notions of both. It formed a good-sized room; a raised couch ran all around like a Turkish divan, serving both for seats and beds and covered with very soft and beautiful mating of various colours and patterns. The chests and baskets of birch bark, the rifles, the hunting and fishing tackle, were stowed away all around very tidily. The floor was trodden down hard and perfectly clean, and there was a place for a fire in the middle.
“There was no window, but quite sufficient light and air were admitted through the door, and through an aperture in the roof.
“Mrs. Wayishky must have been a very beautiful woman. Though no longer young, and the mother of twelve children, she is one of the handsomest Indian women I have ever seen. The number of her children is remarkable, for in general there are few large families among the Indians. Her daughter Zahgahseegaquay is a very beautiful girl, with eyes that are a warrant for her poetical name – the sunbeams breaking through a cloud – she is about sixteen. Wayishky himself is a grave, dignified man about fifty.
“I asked George Johnston how it was that in their wars the Indians made no distinction between the warriors opposed to them and helpless women and children. He replied; ‘It is a constant subject of reproach against the Indians – this barbarism of their desultory warfare. But I should think more women and children have perished in one of your civilized sieges than during the whole war between the Chippewas and the Sioux, and that has lasted a century.’
“I was silent, for there is a sensible proverb about taking care of our own glass windows.
The Lure of the Rapids
“The more I looked upon these glancing, dancing rapids, the more resolute I grew to venture myself in the midst of them. George Johnston went to seek a fit canoe and a dexterous steerman.
“The canoe being ready, I went up to the top of the portage, and we launched into the river. It was a small fishing canoe about ten feet long, quite new, light, elegant, and buoyant as a bird on the waters. I reclined on a mat at the bottom, Indian fashion (there are no seats in a genuine Indian canoe,) and in a minute we were within the verge of the rapids, and down we went, with a whirl and a splash! The white surge leaping around me – over me. The Indians with astonishing dexterity kept the head of the canoe to the breakers, and somehow or other we danced through them. I could see, as I looked over the edge of the canoe, that the passage between the rocks was sometimes not more than two feet in width, and we had to turn sharp angles – a touch of which would have sent us to destruction – all this I could see through the transparent eddying waters, but I can truly say, I had not even a momentary sensation off fear, but rather of giddy, breathless, delicious excitement. I could even admire the beautiful attitude of the Indian fishermen past whom we swept as we came to the bottom. The whole affair, from the moment I entered the canoe till I reached the landing place, occupied seven minutes, and the distance about three-quarters of a mile.
“My Indians were enchanted, and when I reached home my good friends were not less delighted at my exploit. They told me I was the first European woman who had ever performed it. I was declared duly initiated, and adopted into the family by the name of Wahsahgewahnoqua, The Woman of the Bright Foam; and by this name, I am henceforth to be known among the Chippewas.”
John Tanner, the interpreter mentioned in Mrs. Jameson’s letters, was one of the most peculiar characters ever identified with the history of Michigan. Kidnapped when a child in Kentucky by a wandering band of Saulteur Chippewas, he was brought to and grew up at Sault Ste. Marie, where he was for many years interpreter at Mr. Bingham’s Mission, translating the latter’s sermons to the Indians. The son of white parents, he married a white and afterward an Indian woman at Sault Ste. Marie, abusing the white wife so terribly that she left him and the country. He wrangled with the local authorities over the disposition of his young daughter Martha, and she was finally placed in a missionary establishment. Such was his reputation for ferocity and vindictiveness that he was honored by what is probably the only law ever passed by a legislative council in America attaching criminal consequences to a single private person. The law authorized the Sheriff of Chippewa County to remove Martha Tanner to such place of safety as he might deem expedient, provided said Martha should consent; and it also provided that any threats of the said John Tanner to injure Martha or any person or persons with whom she might be placed should be deemed a misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.
Thought Tanner Killed Schoolcraft
Tanner gained the local reputation of being a thoroughly bad man, and when James Schoolcraft, brother of the historian, was murdered from ambush near his home in Sault Ste. Marie, in July 1846, Tanner was immediately suspected. He had been threatening openly the lives of the Schoolcraft brothers. He was a strange, mysterious, unsocial character, speaking the Indian tongue and excelling the Indians in their own pursuits, without, however, associating with them.
He disappeared, and although it was reported that he was seen lurking near the village, he was never apprehended. Where, how, or when he died, no man knows. Many years later, a human skeleton was found in the woods above the town, with two gun barrels, some coins, a flint and steel, and other trinkets near it. Fire had passed over the spot, and it was assumed, but not positively determined, that the remains were Tanner’s. He was deemed a murderer and a suicide by most of the inhabitants of the village.
But strange to say, Lieutenant Tildwen of the local post, ordered to the southwest in the Mexican War, confessed upon his deathbed that it was he who had assassinated Schoolcraft, impelled, thereto by a quarrel over a woman.
Tanner has been the subject of many a controversy in print, here having been a great difference of opinion as to his character. His detractors regarded him as a treacherous, dishonest, dangerous savage; his defenders clothed him with every noble and generous quality. Judge Steere’s ‘Sketch of John Tanner’ in the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, is an interesting and impartial presentation of Tanner’s reputation and doings in old Sault Ste. Marie.
John and Andrew Waishkey of Bay Mills and Sam Waishkey of Raco are lineal descendants of the Chief Wayishky visited by Mrs. Jameson at the Sault. The Saulteur Chippewas have exchanged their tribal organization for United States citizenship, and their Chiefs remain so by sentiment only. Other prominent men among them are Charles Shawano, of Bay Mills, descendant of Chief Shawano, who owned and lived upon the island in St. Mary’s River where the third lock now stands; William Halfaday of Raco, who recently undertook a mission of the Chippewas to Washington and Joseph Gurnoe, leader of the Sugar Island Indian community. The name of Wayishky is perpetuated in that of Waishka Bay and River, southwest of Sault Ste. Marie, and Shawano’s Island was a familiar sight to modern Saulters, until it was wiped out by the demands of lake commerce.
Perhaps there was just a touch of spite in the otherwise amiable Mrs. Jameson’s criticisms of our soldiers at Fort Brady. She was an Englishwoman, and they were the sons and grandsons of those Americans who had been victors over her nation in two wars.
- Do not Forsake Him - December 17, 2024
- Who was John Tanner - December 13, 2024
- Be Grateful for Everything - December 1, 2024
