INDIANS IN WRIGHT TOWNSHIP
There were many Indian Trails, with the main trail
running from Chicago to Detroit. A trail branched off the old Chicago Rd. and
came from Jonesville to a camp or Indian village in the southwestern portion of
Pittsford Township. This camp was
called Squaw field, from Squaw field camp the Indian trail headed west through
the north edge of Wright Township, and proceeded to head through Medina and
into Morenci. Just north of Old Morenci there is an old Indian burial
ground. From Morenci the trail headed
into Ohio. The first road in Wright
Township was an old Indian Trail extending from Toledo to Chicago and was
called Territorial Road. Fort Dugway
was 1-½ miles south of Waldron. It came
by the name when Territorial Road was being surveyed. While the surveyors were digging a hill down, a band of renegade
Indians attacked them with such force the surveyors dug a fort into the
hillside for protection.
In Wright Township Squawfield Rd was
named after the Squaw field Indian Trail and Camp at the corner of Waldron and
Squawfield Rd. where the monument still stands. This engraving upon the stone at the corner of Squawfield and
Waldron Roads southwest of Hudson or north of Waldron on the banks of little
“St. Joe” River, is a timeless monument to the area’s first inhabitants who saw
the beauty and utility of the surrounding knolls and streams.
The lake on Hillsdale city’s edge bears
the name of this tribe’s noble chief, Baw Beese. The memorial plate at Squawfield and Waldron Roads replaces the
Chief’s likeness that vandals so disrespectfully stole about the middle of the
century.
At this point it would be proper to
mention, that almost a century after Chief Baw Beese and his tribe were forced
to leave their beloved country, a native of Wright Township, Mr. Ralph M.
Lickley, had a memorial erected in the year of 1938 to mark the site of the
last camping ground of Chief Baw Beese and his clan. The beautiful natural rose-colored rock stands on the southeast
corner of the intersection at Waldron Road and Squawfield Road, six miles north
of the village of Waldron.
The arrowhead from which the pattern was
taken was found on the Lickley farm, west of Squawfield Corners. The Indian head was drawn by Miss Mildred
Rathbone of Lansing, Michigan. The
giant rock used for the memorial was taken from the center of the original
road, and placed beside it when the new road was built. Later, Mr. Lickley had it placed in its
present site, by Floyd Holliday, member of the County Road Commission, living
north of Pittsford. Ralph Lickley paid
Mr. Clarence Brown, Mortician in Hudson, who had the plaque made of copper at
cost. The evergreens on either side of
the monument, were planted there by Mr. Lickley and for several years have been
cared for by Mr. Chester Mohr.
In the summer of 1966, Mrs. Kate Lickley
of Grand Ledge, Michigan, widow of the late Ralph M. Lickley, had the faded
plaque rejuvenated. The thorough
polishing of the metal arrowhead was accomplished by Mr. John Marker and Mary
Anita Marker and the painting of the Indian head was done by Mrs. John Marker
the writer of the historical sketch of Hillsdale County, Michigan.
The southwest corner of the intersection
at Squawfield Corners was used by the Indians as camp ground living. Ashes of the ancient campfires are still
plowed each year. The northwest corner
comprised a section of land that was used for a racetrack where the Indian
Ponies were raised and trained. The
graves of their people were on the land along the west bank of the St. Joe
River, what is now the northeast corner and the southeast corner of Squawfield
Corners and is divided by the road passing eastward over a new bridge, rebuilt
in the summer of 1966.
It was here that old Chief Baw Beese
repaired every summer, with his entire band of Pottawattomie Indians, and
remained for weeks while the squaws cultivated corn, pumpkins, etc., in their
extensive fifteen-acre field. Hence the
name “Squaw Field”.
Here too, they repaired and renewed their
equipment for the chase and for war; and from here the government finally took
them to their new reservation at Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1840, and later to
Kansas.
The farmers of the vicinity at plowing
time disinter arrowheads, stone hammers, and other relics, and this keeps local
interest keen.
“CHIEF BAW BEESE”
When Chief Baw Beese was a handsome youth
he loved and wed a beautiful maiden.
They set up their wigwam on the shores of the lake. After many happy moons together, a daughter
was born to them whom they named Wenona.
She was like her mother, the pride of her father, but birth cost the
life of her mother, who was buried in the lake. The young chief was desolate, and though he married again, had
sons and daughters, none was as dear to him as Wenona.
Wenona grew up and was given in marriage
to a member of a neighboring tribe. She
did not love him, but loved her cousin, Ash-te-Wette. She had tolerated him until one day she discovered he had stolen
and sold, outside the tribe, her pony, a wedding gift from her father. Blind with rage, she seized her knife and
stabbed her husband to death. The
neighboring tribe demanded the penalty, Indian law, ‘an eye for an eye’.
Baw Beese was faced with the duty, as
Chief, of executing his own daughter.
He fulfilled the law; then broken-hearted, alone, astride his pony, he
bore her away. He was gone for days but
never revealed the spot where he laid his daughter.
Years after the Red Man had left the area,
the remains of an Indian girl with a silver cross around her neck and other
marks of distinction about it, was accidentally exhumed some miles south of the
lake. It was assumed, and perhaps so
rightly so, that it was Princess Wenona.
The White man kept pushing westward in the
settlement of America. In this virgin
territory where only the red man lived, he desired to settle, clear the land,
and cultivate the soil. Consequently
the Federal Government wished to negotiate treaties with the Indian Chiefs,
with payment, which would relinquish the Indian titles to the land. It was notable that Chief Baw Beese did not
sign. The early settlers were
constantly seeing him, a Pottawattomie, and his band of 150 members. The old chief was good-natured; neither he
nor his tribesman had any trouble with the settlers. He was always willing to give shelter or food, and equally
willing to accept the same hospitality, but far be it for him to beg. It has been said that many of the early
settlers might have gone hungry if it had not been for the Indian’s
generosity. His band was peaceful; the
settlers accepted them. Various efforts
were made by the Federal Commissioners to move them out, but to no avail.
Finally in November, 1840 the Federal
Government took sterner measures; it sent a detachment of soldiers to aid the
commissioners. The older Indians
offered little resistance but Chief Baw Beese showed great anxiety and great
fear saying, “Sioux kill men, Sioux kill all; Sioux bad Indians, tomahawk
squaw, scalp papoose, Ugh!” The young
men would break away whenever possible and the squaws would conceal themselves
so adroitly that it took some time to find them. Finally they were all rounded up and the Commissioners were ready
to start. Chief Baw Beese had disowned
his oldest son, Pamasaw, because he had refused to leave white wife, Betsy
Merger; and Owasa, daughter of Osseo, who had married Martin Langdon, a former
teacher near Grannisville, who was allowed to remain since her husband had
title to his land, also.
On the day of breaking camp the sorrowful
procession passed westward through Jonesville,
Aged Chief Baw Beese rode alone in an open buggy, drawn by an Indian
pony, with his gun between his knees.
An Infantry soldier marched before the buggy while on each side was
another guard. The Indian wife of the
Chief, a woman of sixty years, came next, mounted on a pony, and escorted by a
soldier. After her came Baw Bee, whom
the Chief had designated to succeed his son, Pamasaw, with about a dozen middle
aged and younger squaws with papooses on their backs. They were probably the children and grandchildren of the
Chief. They had an escort of six
soldiers. Following was the remainder
of the band moving in groups of five, ten or twenty each, stretching along the
road for a half a mile or more. A few
were on ponies, but most were walking, stalwart warriors with riffles on their
shoulders. The squaws were more
dejected, with blankets over their heads.
The children seemed unaware of the future and were full of pranks.
Many of the settlers came to see their
departure and as Indians saw one after another of their friends, they called
them by name saying “Goodbye”. They
were transported to Council Bluffs, Iowa but were not happy there and
repeatedly asked the Federal Government to move them elsewhere. In 1850 they were taken to a reservation
thirty miles square on the Kansas River, seventy-five miles west of its
junction with the Missouri River where Chief Baw Beese died of extreme old
age. With the passing of Chief Baw Beese
and his band of Pottawattomie Indians, occupancy was forever ended in this
territory.
Re-Written by John A. Tanner
Material from different books, including “Reflections on the Bean” and
“Bean Creek Valley” at the Waldron District Library.
Also with material from The Wright Guide Thursday September 14, 1967
A story Written by Mary Marker.
And with material from Chris Douglas.