troit) about the price of the best land, the price of stock, the cost of clearing, the prevalence of "fever and ague" and the best season for immigration. The editor made highly encouraging replies. 29 The price of the best land was $1.25 per acre; a yoke of oxen could be bought for between $45 and $55; cows were worth from $10 to $15; land could be cleared for from $1 to $5; fevers of any kind were uncommon; a journey from Detroit to the Saginaw country could be made most conveniently between October and February.

It is probable that the later prejudice against the region was in no small degree a survival of that created by early misrepresentations.30 In an address before a farmer's institute in Saginaw County in 1877, it is said that as late as 1860 the general impression of Saginaw County was that it could never be even a moderately productive farming district. The opinion is said to have been shared also by many men identified with the interests of that country. The climate was held to be too unreliable, being subject to heavy frosts in the growing season. It was said that at the date of 29. Ibid., May 26. The questions came apparently from an intending settler.

30. There appear to have been no newspapers published in the Saginaw country before 1837 to herald its attractions, excepting the short lived Saginaw Journal, running from 1836 to 1838. History of Saginaw County, 606. The North Star began with the business revival of 1842. The Flint River Gazette was published at Flint from 1839 to 1841. But the first successful paper is said to have begun in 1845 or 1850. Mich. Hist. Colls., III, 439; XXXV, 370. At Owosso a paper, probably shortlived, appears to have begun in 1839. History of Clinton and Shiawassee Counties, 130. At Howell the first paper was published in 1846 (first published at Brighton in 1843). History of Livingston County, 35; Mich. Hist. Colls., VI, 86; XXXVIII, 180; Crittenden, History of Howell, 72.

this address there were many people in the southern counties who, uncertain of its situation, euphoniously associated Saginaw with Mackinaw. The country was believed to have a large proportion of swamp and marsh land, and the surface was supposed to be too flat to secure good drainage; nor did "pine barrens," as the pine lands were called, sound inviting.31

While the traders probably had a share in creating and fostering this bad reputation, many of them proved to be more than traders and gradually adjusted themselves to the new order. As noted above, most of them were agents of the American Fur Company. Their operations had been interrupted by the War of 1812 but took on new energy with the conclusion of peace; the Saginaw Indian treaty of 1819 and the establishment of the garrison on the Saginaw aimed to protect the fur trade as well as to invite and encourage agriculture.32 When the troops were withdrawn in 1824 the American Fur Company established a post in the abandoned fort, and its agents became the first promoters of the future city of Saginaw.

31. History of Saginaw County, 292, 298. 32. The Saginaw Indians are said to have been the least friendly of all of the tribes. Detroit Gazette, November 30, 1821; History of Saginaw County, 164. The passions engendered by the War of 1812 still smoldered, and many are the contemporary charges against the British for fanning the embers. The traders, being more closely identified with the life and interests of the Indians, appear to have had on the whole little trouble with them. It appears also that when the Indians were well treated by the new settlers they were generally peaceable towards them. See letter of the settler Stevens, written in 1825 from Grand Blanc, quoted in the History of Genesee County, 33; see also History of Shiawassee and Clinton Counties, 281 and History of Livingston County, 14.

These traders were widely affiliated both by birth and education with Canada and the bordering states. Some of them appear to have been men of no mean ability. Louis Campau, whose services to white settlement entitle him to be called the first real pioneer of the Saginaw Valley, is described as "an intelligent, shrewd, far-seeing operator."'33 He was a native of Detroit, one of a large family of French-Canadians employed chiefly in the fur trade. The History of Saginaw County mentions a score of traders prominent in the Saginaw region before 1820,34 some from the vicinity of Montreal and Quebec, some of German descent; one was the son of the postmaster at Schenectady, New York.35

For traffic with the Indians the traders naturally chose points of vantage on the principal trails, and this choice frequently prefigured that of the agricultural settler and the founder of villages. Good examples are Shiawassee, Owosso, Flint and Saginaw. Not infrequently the traders purchased land at these sites and made improvements, sometimes selling out at a handsome profit to someone who aspired to found a village; in this way began the present city of Flint. A post was established there apparently in 1819, by Jacob Smith, a trader of German descent, born at Quebec; he was the husband of a Chippewa squaw, a marriage which sufficiently identified him with the interests of the Indians to secure a large reservation in the 33. He founded the post at Grand Rapids in 1826 and became a prominent settler of the Grand River Valley. pp. 158-164. See also History of Genesee County, 14. History of Genesee County, 13.

34.

35.

Indian treaty of that year;36 the land was to be held for his children, and the subsequent litigation of titles is said to have much retarded the settlement of Flint on the north side of the river as late as 1860.37 The lands are shown on the Risdon map along both sides of the Flint River at the crossing of the Saginaw Trail. At the ford, known to the French as "Grand Traverse," a ferry and tavern established in 1825 by the successor of Smith, marks the transition from the trading post to the embryo village.38

A similar village antecedent was that at the site of Shiawassee. The founders of this trading post were two brothers who belonged to a family originally from Concord, Massachusetts, which came to settle in Detroit in 1815.39 Prior to 1831 the brothers had been in Oakland County as agents of the American Fur Company, but in that year, cutting their way with oxteam across the present township of Grand Blanc in Genesee County they located at the future site of Shiawassee. Though they continued their trading operations they appear to have cultivated the soil at that point from the beginning, the post becoming a permanent center of information and help to settlers.40 The Dexter colonists on their way to found Ionia in 36. Ibid., 120. See diagram, Ibid., opposite p. 24, and Bureau of American Ethnology, Eighteenth Annual Report, pt. 2, p. 698.

37. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXXV, 363.

38. From John Todd and his wife "Aunt Polly," famous among early settlers for her cooking and hospitality. The place appears in early records as "Todd's Tavern." Todd came from Pontiac. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXXV, 365.

39. Ibid., II, 477; Michigan Biographies, 697.

40. History of Shiawassee and Clinton Counties, 120, 281; Hubbard, Memorials of a Half Century, 71.

41

1833 passed through this point, and according to a daughter of Mr. Dexter were piloted from there to the site of Ionia by one of these brothers.1 A similarly well known post was "Knaggs' Place" on the Indian clearing just below at "the great crossing" of the Shiawassee.42

On the Saginaw was Louis Campau in the employ of the American Fur Company. He is said to have platted in 1822 near the military lands reserved in the treaty of 1819, the "Town of Sagana," and appears to have built in the same year a large two-story log house there.43 The impulse to this beginning of city building was due to the coming of the garrison, but growth at first was slow. It appears that of the twenty lots of this plat only six were sold, the project suffering decline when the troops were removed in 1824. As agents of the American Fur Company there arrived at Saginaw in 1827 Gardner D. Williams and his brother, both apparently brothers of the traders at Shiawassee. Gardner was destined to become the first mayor of the future city and the first representative of Saginaw County in the State legislature.44

41. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXVIII, 146.

42. Ibid., XXXII, 249, History of Shiawassee and Clinton Counties, 25, 120. Whitmore Knaggs was succeeded by Richard Godfroy, son-in-law of Gabriel Godfroy who founded the post at the site of Ypsilanti. By the Indian treaty of 1819 an Indian reservation of about 3,000 acres had been made at this point.

43. Mich. Hist. Colls., VII, 240. Land is said to have been entered in 1822 on the site of the present city by Richard Godfroy. History of Saginaw County, 598.

44. Michigan Biographies, 697; Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 23; VII, 239. Other prominent early settlers came at about the same time. Ibid., XXII, 448, 451.