Detroit Michigan

Migration of Families out of Norwich VT

At the first enumeration of the inhabitants of eastern Vermont, as made by the authority of New York in 1771, Norwich was found to be the most populous of all the towns of Windsor County, having forty families and 206 inhabitants. Windsor followed with 203, and Hartford was third with 190. The aggregate population of […]

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Narrative of the captivity of Alexander Henry, Esq – Indian Captivities

Narrative of the captivity of Alexander Henry, Esq., who, in the time of Pontiac’s War, fell into the hands of the Huron Indians. Detailing a faithful account of the capture of the Garrison of Michilimacki-Nac, and the massacre of about ninety people. Written by himself. When I reached Michilimackinac I found several other traders, who

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Biography of Gerald Francis Wilson

Gerald Francis Wilson. Among the contributing factors to progress and prosperity in Clay County are the newspapers, and in taking them into account the Leader, at Longford, should by no means be overlooked. It is a live, wide-awake, progressive journal becanse such are the characteristics of its able editor and manager, Gerald Francis Wilson, who

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An Account of the Sufferings of Mercy Harbison – Indian Captivities

On the 4th of November, 1791, a force of Americans under General Arthur St. Clair was attacked, near the present Ohio-Indiana boundary line, by about the same number of Indians led by Blue Jacket, Little Turtle, and the white renegade Simon Girty. Their defeat was the most disastrous that ever has been suffered by our arms when engaged against a savage foe on anything like even terms. Out of 86 officers and about 1400 regular and militia soldiers, St. Clair lost 70 officers killed or wounded, and 845 men killed, wounded, or missing. The survivors fled in panic, throwing away their weapons and accoutrements. Such was “St. Clair’s defeat.”

The utter incompetency of the officers commanding this expedition may be judged from the single fact that a great number of women were allowed to accompany the troops into a wilderness known to be infested with the worst kind of savages. There were about 250 of these women with the “army” on the day of the battle. Of these, 56 were killed on the spot, many being pinned to the earth by stakes driven through their bodies. Few of the others escaped captivity.

After this unprecedented victory, the Indians became more troublesome than ever along the frontier. No settler’s home was safe, and many were destroyed in the year of terror that followed. The awful fate of one of those households is told in the following touching narrative of Mercy Harbison, wife of one of the survivors of St. Clair’s defeat. How two of her little children were slaughtered before her eyes, how she was dragged through the wilderness with a babe at her breast, how cruelly maltreated, and how she finally escaped, barefooted and carrying her infant through days and nights of almost superhuman exertion, she has left record in a deposition before the magistrates at Pittsburgh and in the statement here reprinted.

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Biographical Sketch of Charles Edmund Jackson

Jackson, Charles Edmund; manufacturer; born, Lowestoft, Eng., April 10, 1865; son of Edmund J. and Lucretia Betts Jackson; educated, Lowestoft, Eng., and Cleveland, O.; married, Detroit, Mich., July 19, 1890, Mary M. Cooper; one son, Herbert C. Jackson; mgr. E. C. Jackson & Co.; business founded Aug. 20, 1896; machine and blacksmith shop and a

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War Between the Colonies and The Western Indians – From 1763 To 1765

A struggle began in 1760, in which the English had to contend with a more powerful Indian enemy than any they had yet encountered. Pontiac, a chief renowned both in America and Europe, as a brave and skillful warrior, and a far-sighted and active ruler, was at the head of all the Indian tribes on

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Biographical Sketch of William Nicholas Hailmann

Hailmann, William Nicholas; educator; born, Glaris, Switzerland, Oct. 20, 1836; son of William Alexander and Babette Hailmann; educated, Gymnasium, Zurich, and with tutor; studied in Medical College, Louisville, Ky., 1855-1856; (hon. A. M. University of Louisville, 1864; Ph. D., Ohio University, 1885); married Eudora Lucas, of Louisville, Dec. 24, 1857 (died 1904); 2d Helena Kuhn,

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