going around with his teachers, acting as interpreter among the Indian
camps at the Island of Mackinac. I was perfectly astonished to see how
quick he had acquired the English language. After the mission broke up
at the island, about the time the Catholic mission was established at
Little Traverse, William came home and stayed with us for about two
years, when he was again taken by Bishop Reese with his little sister,
a very lovely girl, whom the white people call Auntie Margaret, or
Queen of the Ottawas. They were taken down to Cincinnati, Ohio, where
they were put into higher schools, and there my brother attained the
highest degree of education, or graduation as it is called.

From thence he was taken across the ocean to the city of Rome, Italy,
to study for the priesthood, leaving his little sister in Cincinnati.
It is related that he was a very eloquent and powerful orator, and was
considered a very promising man by the people of the city of Rome, and
received great attention from the noble families, on account of his
wisdom and talent and his being a native American; and yet he had a
much lighter complexion than his cousin Aug Hamlin, who was also taken
over there and represented as half French.

While he was at Rome, the proposition arose in this country to buy out
the Michigan Indians by the Government of the United States, and he
wrote to his people at Arbor Croche and to Little Traverse on this very
subject, advising them not to sell out nor make any contract with the
United States Government, but to hold on until he could return to
America, when he would endeavor to aid them in making out the contract
or treaty with the United States. Never to give up, not even if they
should be threatened with annihilation or to be driven away at the
point of the bayonet from their native soil. I wish I could produce
some of this correspondence, but only one letter from him can now be