Oceana County MI Archives History - Books .....Oceana County Indians 1882
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Book Title: History Of Oceana County

It is supposed by archaeologists, that two, if not three, races have 
successively occupied the soil of this continent, - the Mound Builders, the 
races that reared such cities as are found in Central America, and the 
Indians, who are distinct in every particular from the two former races, 
being, when discovered, without cultivation, refinement or literature.  Of 
their predecessors they know nothing.  Some supose the Indians are indigenous, 
others as of Asiatic origin.  In Michigan the great tribes were the Algonquins 
and the Iroquois, the latter of whom were a great and extensive alliance of 
tribes of a common origin, waging almost continuous warfare against the 
whites, especially the English.  Such was the nature of the conspiracy of 
Pontiac and of King Philip's war.  The art of hunting supplied them with the 
means of living, as well as with excitement and distinction.

The name Ottawa (ot-taw-wah), the meaning of which is trader is of the tribe 
that occupied the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, from 
the Owashtenong or Grand River northward.  Driven out of Canada in 1600, they, 
in turn, drove out the Sacs and Foxes, who settled in Green Bay.  South of 
Grand River lived the Muscotay or Prairie Indians, with whom the Ottawa lived 
in peace, until, instigated by the Pottawatamies, they exterminated the 
Muscotays.  The Pottawatamies were in Northern Illinois and Indiana, also 
holding Michigan as far north as the St. Joseph River.  Ottawa County remained 
in joint possession of the Ottawa and Pottawatomies until the advent of the 
whites, and the extinction of their titles to the land, under treaties with 
the Federal Government.  These 


TREATIES

occurred as follows:  In 1785, 1787, 1795; and in 1807 a land office was 
estabnlished at Detroit.  In 1807 a treaty was made by which was ceded to the 
United States, lands, west and north of Detroit to the western line of what is 
now Saginaw, Shiawassee, Washtenaw and Lenawee Counties, embracing all the 
counties now formed out of that portion of the state, between that western 
line and Lakes Huron, St. Clair, Erie and Detroit River.

In 1819, by the treaty of Saginaw, the ceded land was extended sixty miles of 
what is now the principal meridian of the state survey, reaching into Kent 
County, and thence to Thunder Bay River, and along that river to Lake Huron; 
and in 1820 these lands were brought into market.

By the treaty of Chicago, in 1821, with the Ottawas, Ojibeways and 
Pottawatamies, the tract of Michigan lying west of the cessions of 1807 and 
1819, and reaching from the southern boundary of the state to the Grand River, 
and its most northerly source, was secured to the United States.

By treaty at Grand Rapids, in 1835, and the establishment of a land office at 
Ionia in 1836, the lands north of Grand River were brought in market in 1839.

Then, in 1855, a treaty was made by which the tribes mentioned surrendered 
their land on Grand River, and agreed to select a reservation to the north, 
and accordingly in 1857-58 they shipped their shattered bands, seventeen in 
all, at Grand Haven, on board the steamer Ottawa and Charles Mears, a large 
propeller, owned by Mr. Mears, came to Pentwater, the young men riding their 
ponies along the beach, and made their way from Pentwater to their reservation 
in "Injun" Town.  They had selected a region twenty-four miles from north to 
south, and six miles across, now the four towns of Elbridge and Crystal in 
Oceana County, and Eden and Custer, in Mason County, being Towns,15-16, 16-16, 
17-16 and 18-16.  The bands who lived on the Muskegon, did not wish to journey 
far, and so they chose a town up that river, now Holton - Town 12-15.

These towns were high and rolling in many parts, in other portions were broad 
and deep river valleys; all was fertile, and covered with noble pine, or 
hardwood.  Crystal streams of purest water everywhere penetrated the forests.  
these were alive with grayling, perch and bass, and besides this they 
fertilized the land, and afforded pure water to refresh man and beast.  

These towns lay withi a few miles of the lake, whither the Indian could go 
down and fish, and exchange his maple sugar to the trader at the mouth of the 
Pentwater.  Here was a happy hunting ground for the peaceful bands of the once 
powerful "Ottawas." the feeble remnant of the Pottawatamies, and the still 
weaker Chippewas, who sold out their rights on Grand River.

This reservation - still spoken of as "Indiantown" - was chosen with care and 
wisdom.  It was away from white men for many miles, and it would be, they 
fondly hoped, many years ere they would be pressed out by the fatal 
encroachments of the ever-restless palefaces. 

Let our readers picture to themselves the life of an Indian in these forest 
glades, that are now beuatiful farms with waving fields of grain.  The wild 
beast disputed with him the right of possession.  Wolves were so numerous that 
it is related that one Bourget, the advanced scout of the commissioners in 
building the state road from Muskegon to Grand Haven, on his journey killed 
and received bounty money for 100 wolves, which he shot at night while he 
camped surrounded by a camp-fire; his custom being - famous hunter as he was - 
to initiate the howling of the wolves, and shoot them when they approached in 
the darkness, their fierce eyes glaring like twin balls of fire.  the earliest 
records of the county contain accounts on every page for the payment of from 
$8 to $10 for every wolf scalp brought in.  The species of wolf was the large 
gray kind, about as large as a Newfoundland dog.  The early settlers tell 
almost uniformly of hearing them howling and seeing their footprints.  Some 
yet exist in Colfax.

Bears, too, were numerous, being of the common black species, and some remain 
even yet.  We hear of some carrying off hogs in Crystal and Colfax.  Bear skin 
and bear meat were objects of interest to our red men.

Besides wolf and bear there were numerous herds of the red and fallow deer, 
which found the wilds and brooks of Oceana an earthly paradise.  Many are 
the "deer" stories told by the early settlers in all parts.  Scarcely one but 
has been a mighty hunter, a Nimrod in those days; - Dr. Hawley, of Hesperia, 
gave over counting his after they numbered fifty, and Giles Townsend, of 
Newfield, is never tired of fighting his deer battles "o'er and o'er again."  
Gay, of Crystal, Sayles of Elbridge, and indeed all the white men that first 
came in, hunted the "merrie" deer.  These deer were a source of food supply to 
the early Indian.

Besides wolf and bear and deer and beaver, were countless numbers of marten, 
coons, mink, muskrat, otter and fisher and other trapped game.  The lynx and 
wild-cat also prowled in these woods, and, in short, nature presented here a 
model hunting-ground.  The waters were full of choice fish; the air was full 
of edible birds, and wild duck and pigeon, in their season, darkened the 
air "from morn till noon and dewy-eve;" the foret glades were full of the 
animals of the chase, and wild berries grew, as they do to-day, in countless 
profusion; the soil was easily tilled, and produced in abundance, to the 
simple cultivation of the squaws and the men enfeebled by age, plentiful 
harvest of potatoes and Indian corn.  In fact, Nature seems here to have 
emptied her cornucopia upon these red sons of the soil.

Such was the land chosen by the Aborigines, and the whites who have nearly 
supplanted them in their birthright, have reason to feel happy in their 
selection of a settlement.

It may be interesting to know how the Indians supported themselves in this 
land.  We have told how bountiful Nature was, and as there were but seventeen 
small bands, not exceeding 1,800 in all, it will be easily understood that 
there was no surplus population to feed.  In Summer they peeled Hemlock bark, -
 mainly for Charles Mears, of Pentwater, - picked berries and fished, and in 
the Fall they secured their potatoes and corn, then went to the hunt and to 
trapping.  In early Spring they made astonishing quantities of maple sugar, 
some nearly as white as good coffee sugar, this being chiefly done by squaws 
and the extremely old men and the children, when the men were off hunting and 
trapping.

Harvey S. Sayles, whose wife was an early Indian teacher, was also a trader, 
and came in 1860, being the first permanent white settler in the Indian 
reservation.  He is much beloved by the natives, and was called by them 
Nanabush - a spirit whom it was dangerous to offend.

The first log house with a ridge roof was built about 1858, by an Indian 
chief - Shaw-be-co-ung, - which is still standing on Mr. Gay's farm in Crystal 
Valley; and the second log house was built by Mr. Sayles, in February, 1860, 
on the same lot.  This Shaw-be-co-ung was a chief of the Ottawas, another 
being Joseph Pa-ba-ma.  These two were selected at a council of head men and 
chiefs, at or near Detroit, July 31, 1855; Gen. Cass acting as Indian agent 
for the northwest territory, and George W. Manypenny, as Indian Commissioner 
from Washington.  They then made the treaty referred to, by which they 
gathered up the different bands from around Grand Rapids, and moved them north 
of Muskegon River.  The general order to cause patents for lands to individual 
Indians to be issued, was dated July 9, 1870, and signed by the secretary of 
the interior.

When the Indian got the title to his land, there were forty acres for each 
unmarried man, eighty acres for each head of a family, and eighty for orphan 
children, deeded to the eldest for the benefit of the whole.  The government 
engaged to build schoolhouses, three to be in Elbridge, two in Crystal; also 
to supply competent teachers; also to supply a blacksmith, build him a shop, 
and give him tools, with an annual salary of $600.  This arrangement lastest 
for about six years, until the funds gave out, and then blacksmith and teacher 
and interpreter had to shift for themselves.

The Indians moved up in 1857 and 1858, and with them came Seth T. Robinson, 
now of Lowell, Mich., as interpreter, and John R. Robinson, now a missionary 
at Isabella Mission (son of the celebrated Rix Robinson and an Indian wife,) 
was a trader in Indiantown.

The teachers, interpreters and other officers being appointed until 1861 by 
the Democrats, the Indians generally voted with that party, but in 1860 many 
of them changed their allegiance to the Republicans, especially in Crystal, 
where Mr. Sayles lived.  There, every vote, twenty-eight in all, was 
Republican, while in Elbridge there were 100 Democratic votes to fourteen 
Republican.  This would indicate in the two towns 142 votes in all.



AN INDIAN SCARE

To show the state of feeling that existed on the eve of the war of secession, 
we may mention a well authenticated incident.  The Methodist Episcopal 
missionaries have always been zealous and active among the aboriginies, and 
these simple children of the forest were holding a camp-meeting on the 
Claybanks, in the Fall of 1860, ahouting with real camp-meeting zeal, thowing 
in a good old-fashioned war whoop to add zest to the occasion.  Some travelers 
passing by heard them, and carried exaggerated reports down to Newaygo, Grand 
Rapids, etc., to the effect that Sayles and his family had been massacred, 
that John Bean, Jr., was scalped, and that the Indians, having been joined by 
the Lake Superior tribes, were were going to make common cause with the South, 
march on the white settlements and regain their lands on the Grand Rover.  So 
great was the alarm that the people of Newaygo sent to Grand Rapids for aid, 
and had a mounted guard night and day at the bridge to prevent the hostile 
Indians from "bathing in brains their murderous tomahawks."  In the meanwhile, 
the poor Indians were enjoying religion at Claybanks, and when they learned of 
the panic of the pale-faces the chiefs rode over and reassured the excited 
people of Newaygo.  The Ottawas have always been a peaceable lot since the 
whites have come among them, and have never been more sinned against than 
sinning.  They were generally very honest and honorable, - not much addicted 
to theft or lying.



HOW THEY CAME TO OCEANA.


The Indians assembled at Grand Haven early in the Fall of 1857, and were 
transported to the number of perhaps 700 or 800 with their goods to Pentwater 
by the side-wheel steamer Ottawa, owned in Grand Haven.  When they landed, as 
many of them came from inland towns, they were much struck by the great sand 
hills, and camped for a time around Pentwater Lake before going up to their 
reservation.  It was a remarkable sight to see how they would disport in the 
sand hills - to see two nearly nude figures lock arms and roll over and over 
from the top until they could land in the water.  They found at that early day 
around Pentwater plenty of hunting and fishing.

In the summer of 1858 the propeller C. Mears, owned by Charles Mears, brought 
the balance of the Indian bands from Grand Haven to Pentwater - about 500 or 
600, making in all 1,300.  The men rode their ponies along the beach.  The 
principal chiefs were Peshosiky, whose other name was Henry Clay, or the great 
orator; Cob-moo-sa, i. e., Great Walker; Shaw-be-oo-ung, or "Wings;" meaning 
that he could soar as an orator; Pa-ba-ma, who was a Catholic and a lay 
reader; Cob-moo-sa being a pagan to the day of his death, which happened when 
he was over 100 years old.  Shaw-be-co-ung was an Episcopalian, and was a good 
talker.  Louis Genereau, was an interpreter and was half French.  He was a 
Methodist Episcopalean, but changed in his old age to Catholic, and married Pa-
ba-ma's widow.  Joseph Elliott, who was Generean lived in Elbridge, was a full-
blooded Indian and an interpreter.  He was a Methodist, and it is said that he 
preached with considerable fluency.  He gave the first sermon ever preached in 
Pentwater in C. Mear's boarding-house, the "boys" to the number of 100 being 
present, and paying in pork and potatoes as their tithe.

On occasion of a revival once in Pentwater, it is related of the old chief 
Mash-kaw, who still lives in Mason County, that he became excited and went 
round pounding on the heads of each one of the anxious seat, at the same time 
exclaiming in Indian "Pound the devil out of them."

As showing the number of wild pigeon that came into Pentwater when the Indians 
were there, it is said that for nearly a mile along the shore the Indians beat 
them down in windrows with brush, the squaws in the meanwhile picking up the 
birs, and white men, tired of shooting, took to killing with the butt of their 
guns.  The "meemee", or pigeon, was a drug that day.  On one occasion the 
superstition of the Indians was apparent, when they all suspended operations 
at the sight of a white pigeon.  Neither will they kill a white deer, and 
eating of the white dog is a part of the pagan rites to this day.  In Elbridge 
there are some pagans yet, who have their dances and eat of the white dog.

As an evidence of the amount of trade done with the Indians in those early 
days, Mr. Richmond, the county clerk, relates that in one season he purchased 
at Pentwater six tons of maple-sugar and 1,500 gallons of syrup.  In one day 
he has bought as high as fifty bushels of huckleberries, fifty carcasses of 
deer, and at one sale has had 300 mink and muskrat skins, ten or fifteen bear 
skins, twenty wolf, and buck-skins by the ton.

The Indian school-houses were built by contract for the United States 
Government by C. Mears, and the teachers were James Selereg, who died about 
1860, Mrs. H.S. Sayles, David K. Foster ( a half-breed), D.W. Crosby, Rev. 
D.R. Latham, John Bean, Jr., and John Smith, a full Indian.

The blacksmith shop was in Crystal Valley, and the smiths were Mr. Burrett, 
Jared H. Gay, and one Reilly, an Irishman from Detroit.

The Indians drew an annuity which varied in amount, being one year as low as 
$4.25 and another year as high as $25.75, but the average was from $12.00 to 
$15.00, which lasted them for spending money about a couple of weeks, and was 
often mortgaged in advance.



PA-BA-MA.


Pa-ba-ma, the noted chief is described as a man of medium height, keen of eye, 
spare and dark.  When young he was one of the wildest of his tribe, but when 
about middle age he was converted to Christianity.  He is said to have been a 
man of ability, and could preach a telling sermon.  He was for years town 
treasurer of Elbridge and kept everything straight, but in a peculiar Indian 
fashion by hieroglyphics and in the Indian tongue.  He had some education, and 
being quick of observation, pocked up considerable of the white man's lore.  
He was the head of the Catholic bands, and read on Sundays.  He was a 
monogamist and had no issue.  His widow married Louis Genereau.  He died in 
1870, a man of about sixty years of age.  the school in his, or Sayle's 
district, was taught first by Mr. Haley, next by Mrs. Sayles, and lastly by 
Miss Foote of Lansing, who each served two years.



LOUIS GENEREAU.

Louis Genereau was not a chief, but was a noted Indian.  He was a man of great 
strength, and in his younger day had committeed, under the influence of fire-
water and passion, some deed of murder, throwing a relative on the fire and 
allowing him to roast to death.  Various stories are afloat as to the cause of 
the act, - one that in a trial of speed his pony beat that of his cousin, who 
rushed up and stabbed Genereau's pony.  However this may be, he went to states-
prison, whence he was released for bravely resisting the escape of the rest of 
the prisoners.  He had a farm in Elbridge in the Elliott neighborhood, and one 
of his sons served in the war and died after his return.  He grew obese in his 
old age, weighing about 800 pounds.  A Methodist Episcopalian, he embraced 
Catholicism in his old age, married Pa-ba-ma's widow and was buried in the 
Catholic Cemetery.

There are in Elbridge four burying-grounds for Indians, one for Catholics and 
one for Protestants, and two for pagans - one at Evans and the other at 
Colliers.



COB-MOO-SA


About 300 or 400 hundred Indians centered at the mouth of Flat River, and 
their last chief was Shogwogeno, and Cob-moo-sa was a sub-chief, and was an 
old man of most majestic appearance, his manner of walking giving him the name 
of "Grand Walker."  When the Indfians moved off to their reservation, he 
remained behind for a time, reluctant to leave the graves of his fathers and 
the scenes of his early days.  To the last he remained an Indian, living in a 
wigwam and firmly wedded to paganism with its attendant customs.  It is true 
he received the last rites of the Catholic church before death, but this was 
when he was in his dotage.  To Mr. Campau he said: "I am an Indian, and can be 
nothing else.  I wish my people and my children to be civilized.  I know that 
your ways are superior to ours, and out people must adopt them or die.  But I 
cannot change; the young can adopt new ways, but the old cannot.  I shall soon 
pass away, living and dying an Indian.  You can bend the young tree, but not 
the old oak."  Bent and broken by age, he did at last join his people, and 
died in 1872.  Cob-moo-sa was a man of mark, owing his position mostly to his 
majestic mien and his eloquence.  His personal appearance was majestic, and 
before age had bowed him he walked the earth as a king of men.  But each 
passing year took away his kingly bearing, and he soon became a bowed and 
shuffling old man, and when last seen in Grand Rapids had so far humbled 
himself as to wear a white man's coat, and walked the streets as one whom 
death had neglected.

This lingering behind of old Cob-moo-sa gave rise to the following, published 
in one of the Grand Rapids papers:


COB-MOO-SA's LAMENT.

My step is the tread od a warrior no more;
The days of my pride and glory are o'er;
No more shall I follow the foeman's track;
My bow, my nerves and my heart are unstrung;
My death song alone remains to be sung.

The braves of my clan have sunk to their rest;
Their children have gone to the North and the West;
The forest have fallen, the land is sold;
Our birthright has gone for the Christian's gold,
And manhood has passed from the Indian brow,
Since he gave the land to the white man's plow.

The lord of the forest is lord no more;
The pride of his manly soul is o'er.

The fields where he won his youthful fame, 
On the track of the foe, or in quest of game,
Are his no more.

Unmanned he goes

To brood o'er the Indian's doom and woes;
His doom he sees in the towering halls,
He doom he reads as the forest falls,
His doom he hears in the Sabbath chime,
His doom he reads in the march of time;
Will it shame thy heart, proud white man, say,
To shed a tear as we pass away?

As for me, I go not where my kindred have gone;
By the grave of my father I'll linger alone.
The oak may be rent by the lightning of heaven;
The storm-wind may blow it, its stem may be riven;
But with trunk sero and blasted, and shorn of its boys, 
Still grasping the earth, it proudly decays.

As a son of the forest I lived in my pride;
As a son of the forest my forefathers died.

Till I go to the land where the bright waters shine,
I live by their graves, and their grave shall be mine;
I linger not long, my nerves are unstrung;
My death song is ready, it soon will be sung.



Cob-moo-sa is described as of a quiet, sly temperament, with round chest, 
smooth face, head sloping back to a high peak tufted with hair, and with large 
eyes, that took in all the surroundings at a glance.  He abstained from the 
vice of his people, the love of strong drink.  When over a centruy old he fell 
on a red-hot stove and was burned to death.  A postoffice is still called by 
his name, and his sons live in Elbridge still.



RELIGION.


Numbers of the Indians of Oceana County are still pagans, and keep up the 
rites of their forefathers.  They had one custom identical with that of the 
Jews - houses of purification.  They be;ieve also in a spiritual future state -
 think that they and everything else will be spiritual; that they will hunt in 
the land of souls, but it will be the spirits of the animals; that even the 
briers and thorns will be spiritual.  Everything will appear to be real, yet 
nothing will be so.  They are very superstitious, governed by dreams and signs 
in the heavens.  they go to war, make peace, commence or abandon journeys, 
marry, or resolve not to marry, just as they may chance to interpret a dream 
or judge a sign in the heavens to be favorable or otherwise.  They inflict 
wounds on their bodies when in deep sorrow.  The believe the spirit lingers 
still with the body until decomposed; hence offerings at the graves.



DOG FEAST AND DANCE.


A wabana is a dance, the ceremonies attending which are understood to be 
offerings to the devil, after which a feast is eaten - of the flesh of a white 
dog is considered the choiciest offering.  The exercises begin in the morning 
by the thumping of an Indian drum, which resembles a tambourine with rattles 
in it, held in one hand by a string, while it is struck with a slow thump, 
thump, then more quickly with a kind of double stroke, accompanied with 
singing, the Indians seated on green boughs as near the walls of the tent as 
they can get.  they are all silent, serious and still as if at a funeral, the 
drumming and singing never ceasing for an instant.  Then perhaps a little girl 
rises and dances in the center of the circle.  The dancing of the females is 
peculiar, never lifting their feet from the ground, but placing them close 
together.  After the little girl, perhaps an old woman rises and dances.  Then 
enters an unusually tall Indian with a wild and fierce countenance, dressed in 
skins; looks around the tent, uttering at every expiration of his breath, "Ch! 
ch! ch!" when another Indian enters as if to make him surrender something.  
Presently they each take a drum, and going round the tent half bent and 
stepping to the time, they beat the drum in the faces of the Indians.  After 
several times circling round, one of them commences an address to the devil, 
or Evil Spirit, imploring his compassion upon them.  The delivery of the 
speech is attended with the mosty violent gesticulations and contortions of 
the body, so that the perspiration rolls down his face.  The orator then goes 
round the tent as before, attended by half a dozen Indians, all singing and 
half bent, keeping time to the beating of the drum.  These ceremonies are kept 
up all night, and at sunrise the feast is brought in.  It is in large kettles, 
and it is a rule that nothing shall be left.



GRAVES.


The Indian graves are first covered over with bark.  Over the grave a shelter 
like an Indian lodge is built; poles stuck in the ground, bent over and 
fastened at the top, and covered with bark.  An opening is left like that of a 
lodge.  Before this door a post is planted, and if the dead was a warrior, 
painted red.  Near this post a pole ten feet long is planted; from the top of 
this pole is suspended the ornaments of the deceased, or the scalps he has 
taken.  This will account for the mounds which are commonly observed where the 
Indians have had villages.  These mounds are eight or ten feet in diameter, 
and from two to three feet high.  In them are found human bones and skulls.  
Appearances indicate that the Indian put their dead in huts and covered them 
with earth.  there was a large Indian burying-ground on the Claybanks, on the 
Hanson place, and several mounds were observed near the mouth of Stony Lake.  
Very few of the Indians have been able to retain their farms, as they were 
very improvident, borrowing, like white men, and paying high rates of 
interest.  By ways that were dark, and tricks that were vain, the Caucasian in 
many instances got possession of the property of these simple children of 
Nature for a mere song.  Almost without exception the Indians have lost all of 
their farms, and those who still have them are heavily encumbered.  As to 
their habits, they are the antipodes of the whites, and it is proverbial that 
while it is easy to make an Indian of a white man, it is almost impossible to 
make a white man out of an Indian.



INDIAN SIMPLICITY.



On one occasion the Indian agent, Rev. Mr. Fitch had great trouble in settling 
with the Indians, at Pentwater, as they claimed they ought to have more, and 
after holding a big council, at which they smoked and talked without end, they 
informed the agent that they would not accept what he offered them.  This 
Indians had no reason to make this ado, but were as unreasoning as children, 
when they took a notion.  Mr. Fitch was anxious to get through his business, 
and get up north, as the snow was already two feet deep, and he feared greater 
storms yet.  So he ordered of C. Mears two fat oxen, worth $150, ten bushels 
of potatoes, fifty head of cabbages, five bushels of onions and other "garden 
sass."  Going out on the banks of Pentwater Lake, then covered with woods, he 
ordered the Indians to drive in notched stakes and put on cross poles.  On 
these he suspended all the large sugar kettles he could find.  Then he sent 
messages to call to a feast, prepared by the Great Father, at Washington.  A 
bugler was called on to blow his horn, and the crowd asembled, provided with 
dishes of all sorts and sizes.  Fitch then ordered the Indians to shoot and 
dress the cattle, and in less than half an hour the beef was cooking.  With a 
pitchfork from the store of pieces of beef were fished out, and the feast 
spread on long tables of boards hastily set up.  After grace, they were 
invited to partake of the liberal provision of the Great Father, and in a 
short time nothing but bones remained.  The Indians, under the genial 
influence of a good dinner, were easily settled with, receiving without a 
murmur the amount originally offered, less the cost of the dinner, and the 
agent went on his way rejoicing.

Additional Comments:
HISTORY OF OCEANA CO., CHICAGO, H.R. PAGE & COMPANY, 1882

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