THE STORY OF JOHN TANNER1 BY MRS. ANGIE BINGHAM GILBERT2 I am more than pleased to bring you my greeting tonight, and I am more pleased because I feel that I represent one of the oldest and best friends of this Society, my husband, Thomas D. Gilbert of Grand Rapids. He was constantly in attendance and felt very great interest in this and in our own Society of Grand Rapids. The last time we came here together to a meeting the Society seemed to be in a decline. It had not been able to get the recognition from the State that it had hoped, and many of the most prominent and most active of its members had recently died, and many of the others thought that it would be the last time they would ever meet together, and there was a sadness over the entire meeting. But I am pleased to find that it has revived and so many others have become interested in it, and that such a large number are present. Some months ago I was asked to prepare a historical paper for this meeting, but I was unable to do so on account of my health. I came here on very short notice with no expectation of having anything to say and am entirely unprepared. This incident I shall speak of was a very remarkable story of the old time Michigan. A tragedy on account of the many peculiar characters who were connected with it. Mr. Peter White asked me to write the story of Tanner. I did so and it can be found in Ralph Williams' work on the Honorable Peter White, page ninety-two. I am very glad, since I was born at all, that I was born in Michigan and in that historic part of Michigan in the Upper Peninsula on the banks of the St. Mary's River, one of the most beautiful rivers in the world. I am glad that I was a child of pioneers, not only people who were trying to help the white people of America, but also trying to be a benefit to the people who were here before us, the dark men whose homes we have taken; and that I was a child of pioneers who have given their lives to the betterment of these people. I have often wondered at my great interest in the pioneer and the Indian, but it suddenly seemed to come over me at the last meeting of this Society on hearing one of the papers read, the occult reason why I was so interested and when the speaker mentioned the Sault Ste. Marie and the establishment of the first Jesuit Mission, I happened to think that I was born on almost the identical spot where historians and those who have looked into the matter tell us Marquette and the Jesuit "Told at the annual meeting, June 5, 1908. See Memoirs of the Soo, Vol. XXX, pp. 623-633, this series. Mrs. Gilbert died Nov. 7, 1910, at Grand Rapids. cf. supra, memoir. priests had the ceremony of what is called "planting the cross," and in the house where the treaty was made where so many so narrowly escaped massacre by the Indians. Some time ago I was given a tomahawk that was found under the foundation stones of the mission house which my father built. The tomahawk is of iron, rusty and old, showing that it was buried a long time, long before this mission house was built because it was even under the foundation stones. My sister was born in the mission house and we two were brought up over this tomahawk. St. Mary's River, from Lake Huron to Lake Superior, is full of historic interest. I know the history of almost every spot from the source of the river to its mouth. Many years ago my mother and an Indian girl whom she had brought up were wrecked near the mouth of the river. No lives were lost. All the way up the river are spots connected with the Indians making stories of very great interest indeed. As you reach Sault Ste. Marie on the American bank of the river just below the old Indian agency, stood a beautiful old house which was always painted white. It was built under the old elms and was a most picturesque spot. This was the home of John Tanner, commonly known as "Old Tanner." He was born in Ohio, I do not remember just where. He had a very strange and terrible personality and was the "bogie man" to children and a source of worry to nearly every one. He was an old man when I was a little girl. The Indians came and massacred all his people and the people in his town. His family were all killed but himself.5 He saw them take little children by the feet and dash their brains out. He was taken prisoner and carried to the north and brought up among the Indians. He became practically one of them, and was known as the "white Indian." He married an Indian woman, and had a large family. He was a very remarkable man, and was really very intelligent. I do not know much of his history. In middle life he found out about his people and went to Ohio where he found out all about himself. After that he became quite well educated. He was also very religious. His life was written many years ago, and is in the State library here in this city. It did not give the latter part of his life. He came with his On June 16, 1820, Gov. Cass made a treaty with the Chippeway Indians. Schoolcraft describes the scene in his Narrative Journal of the Travels from Detroit, northwest through the American lakes in 1820, etc., and states that the Indians were at first much opposed to the treaty, showing a threatening attitude. In Sketches of a tour of the Lakes, of the character and customs of the Chippeway Indians, etc., by T. L. McKenney, pp. 183-4, he attributes Mr. Cass' final success and the diverting of an Indian attack upon the Americans, to the wise council and intervention of Mrs. Johnson, the Indian wife of the interpreter. 'See Sketch of John Tanner, by Judge Joseph H. Steere, Vol. XXII, p. 246, this series. "Tanner's Life, A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner During Thirty Years' Residence Among the Indians in the Interior of North America, prepared by Edwin James, London, 1830. He was Indian family to the Soo and settled there before I was born. a man with a very violent temper which he never controlled. of that he would have been a very interesting man, but when enraged he was almost insane. I do not know whether his Indian wife left him or died, but his children left him and he lived alone in this little house. After a while he was anxious to marry a white woman. He had been below, (we called it going "below" and "above" when we went south or north) and the people became interested in him at Detroit and recommended a widow there whose name was, I believe, Mrs. Duncan, although I am not certain. He probably did not give any exhibition of temper while there, and she finally consented to marry him and came back to the Soo. He became very cruel to her, and wanted her to live as his Indian wife had done. In his violent rages he had threatened to kill her and she became afraid of him and determined to leave him. At that time it was considered a terrible thing to have a divorce, and she was at a loss to know what to do. About this time John Tanner went away for a little time, and while he was gone she came to my father, of whom she thought a great deal, and he told her he could not advise her to leave her husband, but that if he had threatened her life he should not say anything about her going. He and many others became interested in her case and a collection was taken up and enough money was raised to send her away while Mr. Tanner was out of town. When he came back and found her gone he was in a terrible rage. He was very angry at these people for helping his wife to go away, and determined at some time or other to kill every one who had helped in anyway to get his wife away from him. He went to Detroit to see her, but she refused to come back. This was before my birth. Henry was then Indian Henry and James Schoolcraft were brothers. agent at the Soo. He was called at that time, "Uncle Sam's pet." Marie Schoolcraft was the sister of Henry and James, and married Judge John Hulbert, of an old Detroit family. The Rev. Abel Bingham' was my father. An officer of the United States army, Major Kingsbury, was commandant at the fort which could be seen from my home. The years went on, and this old man lived alone in his beautiful picturesque old house on the bank of St. Mary's River. He had a great many beautiful ideas, but his anger increased. He had spells of rage but was at times very reasonable. For many years he interpreted for my father who was a missionary, and very a excellent one. He was a "Schoolcraft in his Thirty Years With the Indian Tribes, p. 601, states that Tanner went to Detroit where he became pleased with a country girl who was a chambermaid at Ben Woodworth's hotel. They were married and had one child and when she had lived with him one year she made her escape. 'Rev. Abel Bingham. See sketch, Vol. II, pp. 146-157, this series. Mr. Bingham wrote a paper on Early Missions at the Sault Ste. Marie, which is published in Vol. XXVIII, p. 520, this series. |