In Michigan near the spot where the Maple meets the Grand River is a place called Arthursburg Hill. It overlooks the Maple just above the conjunction. Across from it, in the apex of flatland where the rivers meet is where the Green Corn Dance was held every spring since the time corn came to Michigan and for 10 to 15 years years after the white settlers arrived. Those first white folks would have known the dance well. They were friends with the Indians who helped them survive by providing them with deer quarters and maple syrup. They would also show them how to deal with the wolves, panthers and bears.
About a mile down the Grand is where Generaux had his trading post. He chose this spot because it had been a traditional trading place of the Indians. Chief Cocoose, who is buried in an Indian graveyard between the bridge and the old school house in Lyons, said, “All trails in Ionia County converge here.”
According to Ionia County historian Rev. Elam E. Branch, “Louis, the son, got himself into the state prison through roasting an Indian to death, and left the old man to carry on the business, which did not, however, last very long after that.”
The local legend about Arthursburg Hill is that it was the site of some great battle. County history books have recorded the story and local people keep it alive, even though it is probably false.
Here is Elam Branch’s rendition: “In section 20, Lyons township, where Grand River makes a big bend from a north to a southwest direction, was fought a big Indian battle, probably about 1785. A tribe of Pottawatomie Indians on the Arthursburg Hill just west of Muir, built earthworks for defense, on which trees are now growing eighteen inches thick.
“Chippewa Indians, thirty miles up Maple River, planned to attack those at Arthursburg Hill in conjunction with the Menominee Indians on Grand River, near Lansing, purposing to take the stronghold and also the fields of cleared land in the valleys at the junction of Grand and Maple rivers, on which good crops were then growing. The fast-flowing current of Grand River brought the Menominee's a day ahead of the others. The Pottawatomies, who had ben fully informed by runners, of the proposed attack, met them at the bend of the river east of Lyons, where the Le Tandre farm is now, and defeated the invaders.
“The next day they met the other attackers up the Maple River and likewise defeated them. Hundreds of skulls and skeletons have been dug up where they fought. On the south side of the bend was a plat of ground reserved by the Indians for their annual “green corn dance” and they had about four acres of corn growing there.
“At the time of their dance, all arms and ammunition were deposited with the chief, in order to prevent their killing each other when full of liquor. They kept up these dances for ten or fifteen years after white settlers came to this locality.”
The problem with that is the Pottawatamie, Ottawa and Ojibway came to Michigan as one people. It was only after reaching here that they broke up into different tribes. The Menominee were centered in Wisconsin and all of these tribes were and are Algonquin. They were not enemies. So this account doesn’t make sense.
Ionia County historian John S. Schenck has a different story. He writes, “When the first white settlers came to Lyons, several earthen mounds and an earth-work were plainly discernible of which the old men of Cocoosh’s band could give no account other than that they were made by a people who occupied this region many years before themselves.
“It was also traditionary among them in this immediate vicinity had been fought a severe battle between the people who lived here and a large invading party who came from the Ohio River, that the home-forces were sheltered by their fortifications on the bluffs, and that the invaders were defeated.
“As if to give plausibility to this tradition, there was found on the crest of the eminence known as “Arthursburg Hill” the ruins of a circular earth-works similar in appearance to modern “breast-works,” of which the trench and embankments were about six hundred feet in circumference. The mounds mentioned (the largest being fully eight rods in diameter) were undoubtedly the burial places of the people who threw up the earth work.
“Who these people were, however, or at what time they occupied this locality, as well as other portions of the peninsula (the same traces of them are found in many parts of the State), are questions which (we believe) have never been satisfactorily answered.”
Schenck was writing in the latter part of the 19th century. Since then our guessing has gotten better. We know the times of the mound builders by the style of the mound. We know that white men have a penchant for warfare and therefore name ancient places that have earthen works ‘forts’ like Fort Ancient in Ohio. The breast-works Schenck refers to was never meant for defense. It’s too easy to get around.
When I worked at the Ionia newspaper, I explored Arthursburg Hill. You have to climb up to it and immediately as your face reaches that upper plateau you feel the presence of something almost tangible. Not exactly ghostly, at least not in the shimmering heat of a sunny afternoon.
When I found the first pestle rock, a domestic sense of the place came to light. There were several pestle rocks around and with that recognition came the realization, this is a kitchen, or maybe a workshop. And once you configure your seeing to the shape of the place, you see how the rock around the place is arranged with some intention. What that is was not clear to me then and is not now. But the face of those pestle rocks had been beaten into a bowl. It struck me standing there how many beats it must have taken to reach that state. Enough acorn flour to last the winter, times how many winters?
Arthursburg Hill was also complicit as the site of one of Michigan’s infamous paper towns. According to ‘Genealogy Trails: Lyons Township History’, “In 1836 and 1837, Michigan was covered with so-called paper towns. About every third landowner felt called upon to plat a village in the woods, and then with a beautifully colored map showing what looked like a city with manufactories, mills, stores, churches and every necessary appointment, would hurry Eastward to dispose of village lots in his Michigan Town.
Lansing, which would be named the state capital in 1847, started as a fraud. According to lansing.org, “In the winter of 1835 and early 1836, two brothers from New York plotted the area now known as REO Town just south of downtown Lansing and named it “Biddle City.”
“All of this land lay in a floodplain and was underwater during the majority of the year. Regardless, the brothers went back to New York, specifically Lansing, New York, to sell plots for the town that did not exist. They told the residents of Lansing, New York that this new “city” had an area of 65 blocks, contained a church and also a public and academic square.
“A group of 16 men bought plots in the nonexistent city and, upon reaching the area later that year, found that they had been scammed. Many in the group too disappointed to stay ended up settling around what is now metropolitan Lansing. Those who stayed quickly renamed the area “Lansing Township” in honor of their home village in New York.”
‘Genealogy Trails’ brings it home to Arthursburg Hill. “Thomas H. Dewey tells a story about a speculator in lots in the prospective village of Arthursburg, (a scheme of Judge Morrison of Grand Rapids. The town was mapped, but never surveyed), which was shown on a handsome map to be laid out on the river-bluff just west of where Muir now stands.
“While at work on the river bottom one day Dewey was accosted by a well-dressed traveler who inquired for the road to Arthursburg. The direction and location being pointed out to him, he casually asked which was the best hotel at Arthursburg, and whether the river crossing was by ferry or bridge.
“Dewey laughed until he got blue in the face at the air of sincerity with which the man asked the question and at the utter ludicrousness of the matter. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘My friend, Arthursburg is a wilderness—never was a town, and never will be a town.’
“Dewey said the case was a common one, but that did not mollify the anger of the victim, who rushed wildly from the spot, swearing vengeance upon his victimizer if he ever caught him.
“Roof & Bell surveyed for speculators no less than eight paper towns, not one of which ever lived.”
Arthursburg Hill is my second nominee for Indian sacred places to be so designated and maintained in Michigan. The first is Okemos’ grave site in the old village of Mishshiminecon in the Portland Game Preserve.
Arthursburg Hill is a place of local legend and truth. It is a part of an ancient continuity which we would be wise to restore. It is a sacred place. It deserves to be honored as such.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Acorn Archive to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.