ng on my passage this day up the River St. Clair, in the
steamboat "Gen. Gratiot," in company with several others, I asked Capt.
Wm. Thorn several historical questions respecting the settlement of
Michilimackinack. The following memoranda embrace his replies: He is a
native of Newport, Rhode Island, although he was for many years engaged,
before the transfer of posts in 1796, in sailing British vessels on the
lakes, and therefore deemed, when he was taken prisoner during the late
war, to have been a British subject.

He says he began his voyages to old Mackinack seven years before the
removal of the post to the Island. This was, he says, in 1767. The post
was then in command of a Capt. Glazier, afterwards of De Peyster (who
subsequently commanded at Detroit), then of Patrick Sinclair (who had
previously built a fort at the mouth of Pine River--St. Clair Co. seat),
and then of Gov. Sinclair (so called). The Indians, at the massacre of
the garrison of old Mackinack, did not burn the fort. It was
re-occupied, and it was not till the breaking out of the revolutionary
war that the removal from the main to the island took place. It must
have been (if he is correct as to the period of seven years) in 1774,
and the occupancy of the island is, therefore, coincident with the
earliest period of the movement for Independence--fifty-nine years.[74]

[Footnote 74: See _ante_.]

Previous to that era, Mackinack was the spot where the men stopped to
shave and dress preparatory to the traverse. About the time Capt. Thorn
first began sailing to old Mackinack, the Indians plundered a boat at
the island while the owner stopped to dress, in consequence of which
the interpreter at the old post (Hanson, I think) went over to demand
redress, and killed the depredator, an Indian.

My inquiries on this topic of old men, red and white, which were
commenced last spring, may here drop. It is now rendered certain that
the occupancy of old Mackinack--the Beekwutinong of the Indians--was
kept up by British troops till 1774; between that date and 1780 the flag
was transferred (the letters of the commanding officers to their
generals would alone give this date). The principal traders, probably,
went with it; the Indian intercourse likewise. Some residents lingered a
few years, but the place was finally abandoned, and the town site is now
covered with loose sand. The walls of the fort, which are of stone,
remain, and the whole site constitutes an inter