Aug. 1st.  While at Detroit (July 24th) Mr. Arthur Bronson, the money capitalist, and Mr. Charles Butler, from New York, came to that place with a large sum for investment in lands.  This appeared to be the first unmistakeable sign in this quarter, of that rage for investment in western lands, which the country experienced for several years, and which, acting universally, produced in 1836 a surplus revenue to the U. S. treasury of fifty millions of dollars.

15th.  Saganosh, an Ottawa chief of St. Martin’s Island, visited the office with eleven followers.  I asked him if any of the relatives of Gitche Naigow, of whom tradition spoke, yet lived.  He pointed to his wife, and said she was a daughter of Gitche Naigow.  I asked her her age.  She did not know (probably fifty-five to sixty).  She said her father died and was buried at the Manistee River (North), that he was very old, and died of old age—­probably ninety.  She said he was so old and feeble, that the last spring before his death, when they came out from their sugar camp to the open lake shore, she carried him on her back.

He had not, she said, been at the massacre of old Mackinack (described by Henry), being then at L’Arbre Croche, but he came to the spot soon afterwards.  She had heard him speak of it.  Says she was a little girl when the British, in removing the post from the main land, first brought over their cattle, and began to take possession of the present island of Mackinack.

The old fort on the peninsula was called Bik-wut-in-ong by the Indians, but the island always had the name of Mish-in-e-mauk-in-ong.  Her father used to encamp where the village of Mackinack is now built.  Her name is Na-do-wa-kwa, Iroquois woman.  Thus far the wife of Saganosh.  The man added that he lived on the island of Boisblanc, where he had a garden, when the English vessel arrived to take possession of Mackinack.  He then went to the largest of the St. Martin’s islands, where he has continued to reside to this day, with intervals of absence.  He does not know his age, he may be seventy.  Neither of them recollect to have heard of “Wawetum,” or “Menehwehwa,” mentioned by Alexander Henry.[65]

[Footnote 65:  Henry’s Travels.]

16th.  Mr. Porlier, of Green Bay, remarks that he is now in the sixty-ninth year of his age.  Fifty years ago, he says, he first came to Michilimackinack, and the post had then been removed from the main land about three years.  This would place the date of the removal about 1780.

On turning to the MSS. of John Baptiste Perrault, in my possession, he says that he arrived at Mackinack on the 28th of June, 1783.  That the merchants had not then completed all their buildings consequent on the removal.  That the removal had taken place recently under Gov.  Sinclair, a commanding officer, so called by the French, who had been relieved the preceding year by Captain Robinson.  And that the 15th of July was kept as the anniversary of the removal.  It is probable, therefore, that the post had been transferred in 1780 or ’81.