[Here are the initial motives of a man who became a permanent and noted citizen of the territory, and engaged with great ardor in exploring its physical geography and resources.  For two years, he was intimately associated with me; and I saw him under various circumstances of fatigue and trial in the wilderness, but always preserving his equanimity and cheerfulness.  He was a zealous botanist, and a discriminating geologist.  Assiduous and temperate, an accurate observer of phenomena, he accumulated facts in the physical history of the country which continually increased the knowledge of its features and character.  He was the means of connecting geological observations with the linear surveys of the General Land Office, and had been several years engaged on the geological survey of Michigan, when the melancholy event of his death, in 1846, in a storm on Lake Superior, was announced.]

12th.  E.A.  Brush, Esq., of Detroit, writes:  “Everybody—­not here only, but through the Union—­seems to think with just foreboding of the result of the measures taken by South Carolina.  Their convention have determined to resist, after the first day of (I think) February.

“Gov.  Cass’s family are well, but he has not been heard from personally since he left here.  He is too much occupied, I suppose, with the affairs of his department, at the opening of the session.  Of course, you know that General Jackson and Van Buren are in.”

CHAPTER XLVI.

An Indian woman builds a church—­Conchology—­South Carolina prepares to resist the revenue laws—­Moral affairs—­Geography—­Botany—­Chippewas and Sioux—­A native evangelist in John Sunday—­His letter in English; its philological value—­The plural pronoun we—­An Indian battle—­Political affairs—­South Carolina affairs—­Tariff compromise of Mr. Clay—­Algic Society; it employs native evangelists—­Plan of visiting Europe—­President’s tour—­History of Detroit—­Fresh-water shells—­Lake tides—­Prairie—­Country—­Reminiscence.

1833. Jan. 1st.  A remarkable thing recently transpired.  Mrs. Susan Johnston, a widow—­an Indian woman by father and mother—­built a church for the Presbyterian congregation at this place.  The building, which is neat and plain, without a steeple, was finished early in the fall, and has been occupied this season for preaching, lectures, &c.  Certainly, on the assumption of theories, there is nothing predicted against the descendants of Shem ministering in good things to those of Japhet; but it is an instance, the like of which I doubt whether there has happened since the Discovery.  The translation of the Indian name of this female is Woman of the Green Valley; or, according to the polysyllabical system of her people, O-she-wush-ko-da-wa-qua.