Identifier: laketourtopictur01detr (find matches)
Title: A lake tour to picturesque Mackinac; historical and descriptive
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: (Detroit and Cleveland steam navigation co.) (from old catalog) Whitcomb, Cummings D. (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: Detroit, Mich., O. S. Gulley, Bornman & co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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usiness was abandoned. In its best days it wasone of mammoth proportions, but exists now only in history. Here alsothe U. S. Government made the annual Indian payments, when theneighboring tribes assembled by thousands to receive their stipend. The fifth period is the summer resort of our modern times, whichdistinction is mainly owing to the facilities for reaching it recentlyafforded by three railroads and the steamers of the Detroit and Cleve-land Steam Navigation Company, all of which center here, and for thewant of which Mackinac, until within a few years, remained in atransition state. Its original name Me-che-no-mock-e-mong, was given it by theIndians, as expressive of their surprise, when at one time at Point St.Ignace a large gathering of their people who were intently gazing atthe rising sun, during the Great Manitou, or February moon, beheldthe Island suddenly rise up from the water and assume its presentform. From the point of observation it bore a fancied resemblance to 84
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A Lake Tour to Picturesque Mackinac V the back of a huge turtle, hence the name. The French called itMichilimackinac. Its present nanne Mackinac is pronounced Mack-i-naw. The Indians regarded this island with a species of veneration.Tradition credits it with being the birth-place of Michabou, the Indiangod of waters, and the home of the giant spirits. It is said that inpassing to and fro the savages made offerings of tobacco and otherarticles to the Great Spirits in order to gain their good will. Thesedeities were supposed to have a subterranean abode under the island,the entrance to which was near the base of the hill, just below thepresent southern gate of the fort. The island was often the chosen home of the savage tribes, prob-ably from the security which it afforded against their enemies. July 15th, 1780, the British abandoned the fort at Old Mackinaw,and transferred the garrison to Mackinac Island, where they built thepresent Fort Mackinac The history of modern Mackinac properly

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