Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society - Research Article

And You Thought You Knew All About Apple Island: by Neil Hepburn

- Part 1 of 2 -

"All high & excellent land - about 5 acres cleared has been cultivated by the Indians on sd. 5 acres are from 20 to 30 Apple trees. The timber chiefly 2nd growth and not over 6 in. diam. Lynn (linden), Poplar, W Oak, Hickory & Red Cedar - The banks are bold - about 10 feet and rise to the center of the Island in offsets of about 6 or 8 rods each to the most elevated parts which are about 30 feet above the Lake."

The subject of this article is not new to literature, nor oral tradition. Much has been written and recounted about Apple Island since the early 1800s, when settlers first traveled into this area from Detroit. But in the course of 200 years many myths and legends concerning the island and its inhabitants have taken hold. These include stories of a drunken Scotsman, Indian princess, a jilted suitor and Ottawa Chief Pontiac. This article attempts to sort out fact and fiction, because the documented history of Apple Island is far more interesting than conjecture.

Apple Island is three-eighths of a mile in length and a quarter of a mile wide, with a perimeter of more than a mile.¹  Its highest point (960 ft. elevation) lies approximately 31 feet above the normal elevation of Orchard Lake.²  Formed during the recession of the region’s last ice age glacier 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, the 35-acre island is a geological rarity – inland bodies of water as small as Orchard Lake rarely have islands as big as Apple Island. This fact alone makes Apple Island a very special place. As you stand on the shore looking out at the island, you probably feel the same "warmth" and desire to experience it that everyone who ever shared the sight also felt.

Apple Island’s first admirers were Stone Age Indians, who may have discovered it as long as 2,000 years ago. They were probably drawn to the site for its unique combination of land- and water-based resources, and the fact their personal security was also enhanced on an island. Additionally, the prevailing winds help keep bugs to a minimum.³

It is not known exactly which Native Americans frequented Apple Island over the centuries before white settlement, but each left clues to their way of life, including those who were raising crops at the time of Carpenter’s 1817 survey. In fact, the entire West Bloomfield lakes area has yielded many beautiful hammerstones, chert spearheads and birdstones – finely polished pieces of slate resembling stylized birds – left by their Native American owners long ago.⁴  Apple Island is no exception. Many artifacts have been found on the island. Some have been properly cataloged and are on display locally, sadly many have "disappeared."

In the early 1900s an Apple Island resident plowing his small cornfield in the middle of the island struck what turned out to be a French-made, spun pewter bowl. Filled with shell beads, or wampum, it dates from the late 1700s or early 1800s and was probably a gift from the French to the Native Americans. These items most likely marked the site of a Native American burial. The bowl is now in the Cranbrook Collection.⁵

Clearly Apple Island was frequented by Native Americans. Exactly how they used the site remains undetermined. Future examination of an archaeological record that remains largely intact (especially on the west end of the island) will no doubt determine whether the island was a casual campsite, permanent settlement or ceremonial center.

Several one-meter-square test pits dug on the west side of the island in 1997 yielded pottery and stone tools. At present there is no evidence that pottery production ever occurred on the island, nor is there a local source of flint or other stone suited to the manufacture of tools. So these items were most likely brought to the island.⁶

One sign of early European influence on this area’s native population is the appearance of silver trade items, several of which were recovered during archaeological excavations on the island in June 2000. Jointly organized by the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society, St. Mary’s College of Ave Maria University and the West Bloomfield School District, the field study gave local high school students an opportunity to earn college credit while unearthing and preserving clues to Apple Island’s past. An exhibit of the artifacts – including a silver cross, ear jewelry and English firearm flints – can be found at the GWBHS museum.

Menahsagorning

It has long been stated that the island was once known as Me-Nah-Sa-Gor-Ning. The earliest reference to this name appears in Dr. Samuel M. Leggett’s epic poem of the same name, first circulated in 1909.⁷  The poem tells the story of an insane Indian maiden’s devotion to her deceased love interest and the ensuing events when the misguided tribe murders her. Leggett claimed that he was formalizing popular lore. I’ll leave this one to Vogel: "A lake in Oakland County was, according to one writer, called Menahsagorning, ‘apple place,’ by the Indians, because of the apple trees and orchards nearby. (See Baraga’s dictionary, where mishiminatig is defined as ‘apple tree.’) The white accordingly gave the name of Orchard Lake to that body of water and to the town established there in 1827." Vogel’s endnotes further explain: "Romig, Michigan Place Names, 419. The last part of the aboriginal name is corrupted, for the sound of r is not in the languages of the Three Fires; Baraga, Otchipwe Language 1:15; compare Potawatomi michi-mini-ki-wo-ke-ku, ‘orchard,’ in Gailland, ‘English-Potawatomi,’ 229."⁸  In short, whatever words Native Americans used to refer to the island are lost to history.

Reservation?

It is often written that Apple Island and 107 acres on Orchard Lake’s south shore were "reservation" lands.⁹  The earliest mention of this appears in Samuel W. Durant’s The History of Oakland County Michigan, published in 1877. Unfortunately he provides no footnotes or endnotes indicating his source for this statement. At present, no validating source (treaty, deed, contract, etc.) has been found to substantiate this claim. It would appear that subsequent publications (post-1877) have all relied on Durant as the authority. Durant also wrote that early settlers in what would become West Bloomfield Township stated that Native Americans visited the island often.

Chief Okemos

A little good news… I have recently discovered a citation which may provide a new chapter in the history of Apple Island. During an 1860 trial in Saginaw, Michigan several Native American witnesses to the signing of the September 24, 1819 U.S. Treaty of Saginaw provided testimony through sworn interpreters. Okemos made the following statements among others – "I am 76 years old; have lived in Michigan 48 years; I knew Gen. Cass well. I was at the treaty of 1819. I was at that time a chief of a certain band among the Ottawa tribe – a part of the band I was chief over were Chippewas. The treaty was signed at Saginaw, on the west side of the river, back of Mr. Campau’s house, in a long shed. I signed the treaty as one of the Chippewa chiefs.

At the time I signed the treaty my residence was at a place about six miles above Lansing, on the Red Cedar River. I was born in Michigan, near Pontiac, on an island in a lake. From that time to the time of the treaty I lived at Okemos City, near Lansing. I was 30 years old when I left the place I was born. Min-e-to-gob-o-way, my mother’s father, and Kob-e-ko-no-ka, my uncle, were my chiefs. The first named was a Chippewa Indian and the last named an Ottawa. They were no connection to each other. I was first a chief when I was 20 years old, and was about 50 at the time of the treaty."¹⁰

Was Okemos referring to Apple Island? There are no other likely locations. If Apple Island was indeed his birthplace it is significant in several respects. First, it connects a specific Native American with the island. Second, it connects specific tribes to the island. Third, it is the earliest documented event, and only known birth, on the island.

Okemos ("Little Chief" or chief of subordinate authority) had a relatively well-documented and fascinating life. An ally of the British in the War of 1812, he was so badly wounded during an attack on a U.S. Cavalry unit near Sandusky that he bore a four- or five-inch-long scar from a saber on his left forehead the rest of his life.¹¹  After the Battle of the Thames, Okemos went to Detroit to negotiate with Cass. According to one historian, Okemos was a nephew to Pontiac and Tecumseh’s second in command at Moraviantown (Fairfield) on October 5, 1813. He writes, "From 1839 to about 1858 Okemos and his band wandered around Michigan between Lansing, Saginaw, and Detroit, trading baskets and other native wares for food."¹²

Okemos died in 1858 at one of his camps on the Looking Glass River near DeWitt, Michigan. He is buried beside his daughter at Shim-ni-con (Shim-le-con), a Native American mission village near Portland, Ionia County.¹³  Okemos is perhaps best known for the Ingham County town 7 miles east of Lansing named in his honor in 1862.¹⁴

Paradise Lost

In 1803 the United States acquired the area that now comprises Oakland County from France as part of an 800,000 square mile land deal. The area was dubbed, "Old Northwest." This was two years before Congress formed the Territory of Michigan in 1805.

The treaty of November 17, 1807, negotiated with the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot, and Potawatomi, ceded a tract of land comprising roughly the southeast quarter of the lower peninsula of Michigan and a small section of Ohio north of the Maumee River to the United States.¹⁵  In time this land was systematically surveyed. The area of Oakland County was described in an 1816 official report as having "extreme sterility and barrenness."

In 1818, the Pontiac Company was organized by a group enterprising Detroit and Macomb County men for the purpose of purchasing land and laying a town. In the fall of that same year, an exploring party of prominent professionals and businessmen from Detroit came up the Saginaw Trail on horseback and camped the first night in what is now Royal Oak. These men named most of the lakes in what are now Bloomfield and West Bloomfield Townships. Their published report of the County's rich natural resources and natural beauty did much to correct the 1816 description.

[1] Apple Island, the Marjorie Ward Strong Woodland Sanctuary. West Bloomfield School District, circa 1972, page 3.

[2] Ibid, page 5.

[3] Oral presentation to the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society. Michael Stafford. May 12, 1999.

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Me-nah-sa-gor-ning: A Legend of Orchard Lake. Samuel Leggett. n.p., 1909.

[8] Indian Names in Michigan. Virgil J. Vogel. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997, page 92.

[9] History of Oakland County, Michigan. Samuel W. Durant, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: L. H. Everts, 1877, page 312.

[10] Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Collection, Vol. XXVI. Lansing, MI: Robert Smith & Co., State Printers and Binders, 1896, page 523.

[11] Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Collection, Vol. XXVII. Indian Funeral Scene. M. D. Chatterson. Lansing, MI: Robert Smith Printing Co., State Printers and Binders, 1897, page 339.

[12] The Indians of Michigan. Dr. Emerson F. Greenman. Lansing, MI: Michigan Historical Commission, 1961.

[13] Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society Collection, Vol. XXXV. A Boys Story of Pioneer Life. Lansing, MI: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers, 1897, page 406.

[14] Indian Names in Michigan. Virgil J. Vogel. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1997, page 34.

[15] Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, Vol. II (Treaties). Compiled and Edited by Charles J. Kappler, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904, pages 92-95.

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