New York daily tribune no. 3810

              THE BEAVER ISLAND MORMONS. 
Correspondence of The N. Y. Tribune. 
BURLINGTON, Wis., Thursday, June 16,1853. 
A friend has just shown me The Weekly Tribune of June 4, the second article of which is made up princi-pally of a communication from Mackinaw to The Detroit Free Press, concerning the Mormon Settlement at Beaver Island. I have not seen The Free Press, and do not know any further than appears by your paper, what were the proceedings of the meeting at Mackinaw, to which you allude. But feeling sure that you would not willingly "go with the multitude to do evil" nor lend your strength to the strong for wickedness, rather than the weak for righteousness, I ask your attention, and that of your readers to the following facts. 
The Mormon Settlement at the Beaver Islands has been in the jurisdiction of Mackinaw County six years; having been commenced the 11th of May, 1847, and judicially or-ganized as the County of Emmet the 9th day of May, 1853 The last three years of that period have witnessed a spirit of continued and bitter hostility on the part of a large portion of the People of Mackinaw, toward the Mormons; during which there have been arrested at different times, and taken to Mackinaw, and tried on various criminal charges, upward of sixty Mormons, every one of whom has been acquitted and discharged. 
I have not overlooked the allusion to Mormon witnesses and Mormon jurymen, of which I have a word to say here-after. In this place it is enough to say that not a Mormon ever sat on a jury at Mackinaw, and but one of those sixty persons introduced a witness in his defense. That one was John E. Hill, charged with arson, who, though he made an ample defense, was nevertheless required by a Mackinac Justice to give bail to answer. But gentlemen in Macki-naw, though he was a total stranger, became his bail, and a Mackinaw Grand Jury refused to indict him. 
From these facts, can there be but one conclusion ? 
If respectable citizens residing at a distance could for a moment divest themselves of prejudice, and learn the ques-tion really at issue, these attempts to produce acts of law-lessness and mobocracy could never become formidable. It is foreign support that gives them all the consequence they ever possess. 
The sole cause of the present demonstration against the Mormons is this: The State of Michigan has a Liquor Law—net the Maine Law—which was passed at the late session of the Legislature, and to be voted on by the people next week ; but the Michigan Law, the effect of which is substantially this, that no person shall sell spirituous or intoxicating liquors in quantities less than 28 gallons, un-less he gives responsible sureties in large amounts to an-swer for any damages, contingents, collateral or otherwise, happening from their use, &c. 
The people of the Beaver Islands generally oppose the use of intoxicating drmks ; and for the purpose of making this law quite as effectual as the Maine Law could be, we last year assembled every man who could justify as surety for a liquor dealer, and, on full consultation, mutually pledged ourselves to each other and to the public, to not become surety for any person to sell liquor. 
This pledge being kept, it was impossible that any one should get legal authority to sell. Many shifts were made to evade the law, by fishermen, and especially by men tra-ding with the Indians. But the officers did their duty, spite of threats of violence, civil war, the destruction of their settlement and death; and tbe trade was suppressed on all the Beaver Island group, except Gull Island only. 
At the spring election, the three townships of Prairie, Galilee, and Charlevoix, composing the county of Emmet, elected officers of the same stripe; aud, that tbe traders might be fully warned before they laid in their supplies, and therefore have no reason to find fault because they were compelled to keep the law, the following notice was inserted in The Northern Islander of May 12th: 
"There is a prevalent practice of sending out trading vessels to trade on the fishing grounds, with a supply of liquors. We wish it under-stood that authority to sell intoxicating liquors in Mackinaw, does not cany with it the right to sell on Lake Michigan. From Old Mackinaw to the west line of the State, and south to Grand Traverse Light, the Lake and all the Bays are exclusively in Emmet County. 
"If the trade is persisted in, the Sheriff will go out and make ar-rests in all such cases. The law will he inforced at whatever cost. He is a fool who, at this day, thinks he can defeat it by crying ' pirates,' robbers.' That cry has been raised once too often." 
Had this notice never appeared, the public meeting at Mackinaw, would not have been held, and the communi-cation in The Free Press would never have been written. Mackinaw has a deeper interest in this liquor trade, prob-ably, than any other town of the same population in the State. From 12 to 20 groggeries are constantly (during the fishing season), open to customers ; the boarding houses are generally supplied with bars, and well patronized ; but the liquor sent off on the fishing grounds, and sold, is far more than that drank in Mackinaw. And when I add that most of this, is the article, known as "Indian Whisky" a barrel of which consists of two gallons of alcohol, thirty gallons of water, tobacco enough to make it intoxicating, and cayenne pepper enough to give sufficient strength, and justly entitle it to the Indian name of "Fire water" costing not six cents per gallon, and sold at 25 cents per quat, and by tbe cask at 50 cents per gallon; you can form some some idea of what Mackinaw would lose by the en- forcing of this liquor law throughout the fisheries. 
There are in Emmet County, from five to six hundred adult male Indians, whose principal business is fishing. Each Indian will, with the assistance he gets from his wife and children, catch and cure, on an average, 100 barrels of fish in the season—if he keeps sober. Probably they have done half that for a few years past; the balance of time, and nearly all the avails, being sacrificed to liquor. 
Five hundred Indians taking each fifty barrels of fish makes 25,000 barrels, usually sold on the ground at about $4 per barrel, (the purchaser furnishing barrels and salt,) making fhe snug sum of $100,000. Now if 175,000 of this purchase money is paid in Indian whisky, costing say five or six cents per galion and sold at from fifty cents to one dollar, and the other $25,000 in goods of the worst quality at such prices as intoxicated Indians can be induced to take them at, you can see readily that the trade must be very lucrative to those engaged in it, however ruinous it may be to the Indian fishermen ; and it is these outrages on the red man, and the vast mass of concomitant wrongs, that the Mormons have set themselves to work, effectually to prevent, by the regular enforcement of the public statutes ; for doing which we are threatened with civil war. We will take the issue. God give prosperity to the right. 
Heretofore, when there was no legal organization at Grand Traverse, the Missionaries among the Indians there prevented the liquor traffic with these bands, by inducing the Indians to go in a body, headed by their Chiefs, and spill upon the ground any liquor that was brought there tor sale. Unfortunately, two years ago, when there was a lawless crusade against the Mormons, they threw their weight on the side of Mobocracy. They have reaped the reward of their error, by having numsrous bands of law-less renegades settle in their neighborhood, establish trade in liquor, and introduce all manner of dissipation and licen-tiousness among Indians, that were rapidly advancing in civilization and the industrial arts. And recently a vessel came from Green Bay and anchoring in the harbor of one of the most flourishing Indian towns on Grand Traverse, commenced exchanging whisky for maple sugar, manufac-tured by the Indians. The Missionaries applied to a Magis-trate for a warrant for tbis outrage upon the law; but wnen the Constable went aboard the vessel to arrest the aggres-sors, they took him prisoner, and finishing up their trade, carried him with them to Wisconsin before they let him go. And this, I submit, is the natural fruit of giving aid fo law-lessness against us. 
The Indian villages of the Cross, Middle, and La Ar-bour Croche, in the County of Emmet, have heretofore flourished more than others in that region, and have grad-ually increased in population, as many bands around have become extinct. This fact is to be attributed to the great efforts of the Catholic. Priests residing in these villages, to prevent the introduction of liquors among these Indians—efforts in which they have been materially and honorably aided by the Brothers Wendell, merchaats in Mackinaw, who are the principal traders in these villages; and in all their dealings have shown an honorable regard to human-ity, and the interests of their customers. 
But the great extension of the fishing business for the last few years has invited the class of small peddling tra-ders on to the fishing grounds, and with them the fatal "firewater" and "wasting" and "annihilation" have set their mark on these bands of Indians as well as the others. If the Mormons, citizens of Emmet county, can enforce the Liquor Law of the State, those bands are saved. If not, they are lost. But the traders who wish to go there to sell whiskey, will go howling through the land, about the thousands of expected profits, of which the Mor-mans have robbed them, by enforcing the law or punishing them for their crimes. Will papers of the character of The New York Tribune lend their aid to such a cause, by ever publishing without reprobation these threats of lawless violence ? 
The Beaver Island band of Indians have had no priest or missionary among them ; but are visited once a year by the priest from "the Cross." Their fisheries were the best in the lakes, and they were the most successful fishermen. Since 1842, there have been traders constantly among them, and the "fire water" has been there. 
In 1818, there were four hundred families of them, and their corn-field, (a portion of which I have now in cultiva-tion,) was one thousand acres in extent. Then the liquor was brought among them but twice a year. I do not know when their decay commenced, but when I first visited them in 1847, they were reduced to between forty and fifty families, but I was assured that none had emigrated. 
When they separated from their former associates, (the fall and winter of 1851,) the traders and fishermen had affiliated with the Mormons, and there were but twenty-seven fami-lies. Winter was just setting in, and they were in a state of destitution. Not one family among them had the means of getting through the winter. As the winter was uncommonly severe, I think that but for us they would have general-ly perished and the band been annihilated. 
In the very short time that they have been under our in-fluence, their condition has become so much improved that they are the pride and envy of all the other bands. 
Our policy has been to keep the fishing business in the hands of the Indians, because they can earn as much at that as white men can ; and to carry on a mutually benefi-cial trade among them, by furnishing them with what they really need, and purchasing of them what they have for market, at prices which would be honorable between white men. 
And I submit that this is the policy, not only of human-ity, but of an enlightened self-interest. For we are settlers there, having a pe-rmanent interest in the growth, the pros-perity, and the institutions of the country. The Indians are our best customers, not merely in trade, but in the me-chanical and agricultural productions which we have con-stantly to sell. But more than all, is the pleasure of seeing a few of the vast race of red men, redeemed from utter annihilation, and to be able to say, "This is my work." 
Indians know how destructive to them spirituous liquors are. They are generally indisposed to drink. Traders going among a band who have had none for some time, usually find it difficult to get them to taste. But when once the lip is touched, their appetite is gnawing and insatiable. There is nothing they will not sacrifice; no indignity they will not submit to for more. But they hate the man that sells it to them—though under the influence of liquor they will serve the dealer for any purpose, no matter how wicked, yet aside from it their attachment is to those who do them good. 
The Beaver Island band (now residing on Garden Island) were only a little more than two years ago armed and hunting me for my life—set on by those who were crusad-ing against me at that time—excited by liquor, and allured by the offer of a reward for my head, yet for  eighhteen months past they have surrounded me as so many children, eating at my table, and sleeping in my house whenever business or pleasure calls them to Saint James, as though they were members of my family. But there is no va- grancy—no vagabondism among them They are carefal, unsolicited, to bring as much as they use. 
Such has been their prosperity since they affiliated with us, that the more sedate and orderly of other bands have come and joined them, so that in a year and a half the band is more than doubled. Among those who have thus joined them, is the brave and noble Kim me-one, whom the reader of Miss Strickland's "Winter Studies and Sum" mer Rambles" will remember as her particular favorite at Mackinac. 
Last fall, the Indians left the other fisheries, where whis-ky was sold, and came to Beaver, where it was not, until there were two hundred boats and about six hundred souls of them there. No whisky being there, and no persons but Mormons and Indians, not a word was heard about stealing. The fact is significant. 
All the Indians, for fifty miles around Baaver, when in-jured by a white man, come to me for redress, and having committed a cause to my hands, never one was heard to complain of the disposition of it. Wa-ta-ne-sa, a chief of noble presence and great influence, now 76 years of age last year, took his boat, when I was gone to Mackinac, and met me thirty miles out to tell me that there was a white man on Garden Island, offering liquor to the Indians. 
Shabbona, well known throughout Northern Illinois, and distinguished for his diplomacy in opposition to Black Hawk at the opening of the Sack and Fox war, came, last year, from his present home, beyond Missouri, to visit hid native place and his relatives at Little Traverse Bay, and after stopping three weeks with them, came 40 miles out of his way to Beaver Island, to express to me, personally, his gratitude for my kindness and beneficial protection to the Indians. 
The Catholic Priest from Cross Village, when making his annual visit to the Beaver Island Indians last year, charged them, last of all, that if they got into any difficulty they should go to Strang; if anybody cheated them they should go to Strang ; if anybody came among them selling whisky they should go to Strang; but they must not go to hear Strang preach. This priest is a simple-hearted and devout Sclavonian, who has given his life to the meliora-tion of the condition of the Indian race, according to the Catholic faith. With the prejudice of his faith, and the narrowness of his experience, he could not mistake what was going on at his door. 
Subsequently, when in Detroit, I was invited by the Right Rev. Bishop to his house, and there received from him personally the expression of his gratitude and thanks for the efficient aid which I had rendered in saving those simple hearted and almost helpless and hopeless members of his flock from utter destruction. 
These are my trophies. Such as these come pouring in upon me continually. With them I am content, and with and for them I am willing to live and die hated, of any and every man, who offers Lynch law and mob violence as a remedy for any of the evils of society, be they what they may. 
But though this question of the liquor trade is the sole cause of the present emeute at Mackinac, there are many collateral questions, which, as a matter of course, involve themselves in it. 
Mackinac is an old town, built under the guns of the fortress, when the country was filled with powerful and fre-quently Tribes of hostile Indians. Traders settled there and invested the best natural advantages, but because there was military immovable improvements, not bacause Mack-inac presented large amounts of money in buildings, wharves, and other protection there. 
These investments have become fixed capital, the value of which depends entirely on the prosperity of Mackinac. 
But at the same time the trade of the place is rapidly dying out. The fur trade, which, I am told, at one time employed three thousand boats, and in which, the outfits at Mackinac involved a capital of two million dollars, now does not employ one boat and probably amounts to less than two thousand dollars per annum. 
The Indian trade, growing out of the payment of Govern-ment annuities to the Indians. is not one-fourth what it was, and will end in 1856, by the expiration of the annui-ties payable there. 
Twenty-two unorganized counties in the Lower Penin-sula, as well as a large portion of the Upper, were attached to Mackinac for judicial purposes, and her jurisdiction ex-tended from Saginaw Bay to the head of the Menomee River, more than a quarter of the State. 
Whatever of patronage the administration of the law, over so large a territory would give, Mackinac had. But at the late Session of the Legislature, three new counties were organized in this territory, and all the territory south of the Straits and all the productive Islands included in their jurisdiction ; divesting Mackinac of three quarters of her territory, and building up three new county seats, with Circuit Courts in her immediate vicinity. 
Considering that the bills erecting these new counties were introduced and carried through by a Mormon, a member of the Legislature hailing from Beaver Island, whom the people of Mackinac, attempted to drag from his seat by a gross outrage on the House, for which they re-ecived a deserved rebuke, possibly they may be excused for feeling a little annoyed. But I cannot see that that feeling would justify a departure from the due adminis-tration of the Law. 
There are several small politicians in and about Macki-nac, managing a small clique there, who have heretofore occasionally held office by the votes of Mormons at Beaver Island, and looked for a continuance of these favors. These men professed to be our friends, solely from a regard to the right, and at the expense of their interest at home. Detaching the Beaver Islands, and erecting the County of Emmet, leaves them in a hopeless minority ia Mackinac. If they were time-serving men, and hypocritical friends, they would now seek fhe favor of their old opponents by being first and loudest to cry out against the Mormons. I shall look for their names among the officers and speakers of the public meeting at Mackinac. 
Add to this that there are a few small offices to be dis- tributed by the present Democratic Administration, among the hungry in that part of the State—four of which are located in Emmet County—and as that was the Banner County, having given a unanimous vote for the entire Democratic ticket at the last fall election, Emmet poli-ticians naturally expect a share in the appointments. A little seasonable outcry against the Mormons just at this time, especially if taken up and echoed by papers of the standing of The Tribune, would be a capital investment for the small politicians of Mackinac, and probably might result in giving to them four more of the five loaves and two fishes which make up the seven cardinal principles of the politicians. 
While every thing else in which Mackinac had a share, has been departing and vanishing. The fishing and the trade growing up with that business, has been rapidly in-creasing. 
Unfortunately, though Mackinac has the buildings, wharves, vessels, merchandise; both the fixed and con-vertible capital necessary for conducting this business, it is remote from the fisheries, has no harbor but an open and unsafe road, and is an expensive place of residence;—Wh reas Saint James, the principal Mormon village, and seat of Justice of the county of Emmet, is in the very cen-ter of the fisheries, has the best harbor in the Lakes and is well supplied with those articles of food which do not bear transportation without a great enhancement of price, from the very productive Island of Big Beaver, forty thou-sand acres in extent. 
These advantages, have in the last four years, under the most propitious circumstances, transfored a full third of the trade in fish and fishermen's supplies, from Mackinac to Saint James. Dealers at Saint James, without store-houses, wharves or vessels, with no experience in busi- ness, and only a few hundred dollars capital to begin with, are building up fortunes, while dealers of experience with all the conveniences of trade, and large capital, at Mackinac, have been giving way, or barely able to sustain them-selves; and their real estate is steadily and hopelessly di-minishing in value. 
If buildings and wharves could ba transported, as readi- ly as vessels and merchandise, it is easy to see that at the end of six months there would not be a fish trader left in Mackinac. The two or three hundred thousand dollars there invested in stores, dwellings, and wharves, is so much fixed capital, to be utterly lost, unless some portion of this growing trade can be kept there. 
Fish can only be sold at reuueed prices, without inspec-tion. The Inspector was a county officer, and resided at Mackinac. Last year Saint James sent to market seven-teen thousand barrels of fish. Yet the Inspector would not give us a Deputy. To send them to Mackinac for in-spection, would cost in transportation, wharfage, and in-spectors' fees, from sixty to seventy five cents per barrel and consequently they were generally sold without inspec-tion at the loss of fifty cents on the barrel. 
Now we have our own Inspector, and with our improved and improving facilities for business, the result cannot fail of being foreseen, and the hope of prolonging decay un-til some favorable turn of the wheel of fortune, shall, ena-ble present holders of real estate in Mackinac to sell out, is a sufficiently powerful incentive to action, to account for more than one aet of injustice. 
I observe that the communication you copy from The Free Press charges the Mormons with new and extraordi-nary boldness and daring in their robberies; gives, as an instance, the stealing some two hundred barrels of fish, and the destruction of some $2,000 worth of property at Birch Point, and accounts for this new boldness by saying that "offenses committed upon the shores and waters of "Lake Michigan bet ween the line running from Point St. "Ignan across the Straits to Old Mackinac, and a line run-"ning from the south side of Grand Traverse Bay to Men-"omonee Iliver, are exclusively in Emmet County, and the "offenders must be tried by Mormon tribunals, with good "Mormons for witnesses and Jurymen." Unfortunately for the force of this argument, "Birch "Point" is not within those boundaries, nor in the County of Emmet, but in the body of the County of Mackinac, and offenses committed there are tryable exclusively by Mack-inac tribunals with good Mackinac men for witnesses and "Jurymen." If they have the iudubitable evidence they tell of, that the robbery was committed by men from Bea-ver Island, they will of course avail themselves of the pres-ent occasion to put them in "durance vile." The Mormons are of opinion that something tar short of "indubitable evi-dence" would suffice if they fell into the hands of the Phil- stines at Mackinac. 
Moreover it is not true, as a matter of law, that offences committed on any part of the waters of Lake Michigan, are exclusively in the jurisdiction of Emmet County. The Counties of Van Buren, St. Joseph, Allegan, Ottawa, Oceana, and Emmet have concurrent jurisdiction, on the waters of the Lake to the State line. 
Withal, this story of stealing two hundred barrels of fish, sounds rather fishy. It is a full match to that of a man who stole a saw mill, and got well off; but was detected as be went back after the dam. Two hundred barrels are a big pile to steal. Birch Point is more than twenty miles from the nearest Mormon Settler, but there were several little settlements of fishermen, not noted for an extra al-lowance of honesty, wintering along the shore in that vicin-ity. They might have stolen a few fish to eat in the course of the winter; but two hundred barrels is too big a pile to steal. 
The fishermen at Birch Point, and on the north shore generally, receive their outfits from Mackinac, and are almost to a man in debt for them. List year they did but indifferently, and many were unable to settle up in the fall.  At the close of the season the traders send their vessels around, and not only get all the fish they can from their customers, but gather up all their barrels and salt. Such articles are only left on tbe fishing grounds in small quan-tities, and at inaccessible places, as any prudent business man will readily believe. Most certainly, if the traders in Mackinac believea tithe of what they have said of Mormon dishonesty and rapacity within the last three years, they would not leave two thousand dollars' worth of moveables on the shore of the Lake, only twenty-five miles from the Mormon settlement, from the close of fishing in the fall till the opening in the spring, and no one to guard it. Either the truth of what has been said against us for several years past is false, or this story must be. 
The Mormons are known by everybody in that region to have three vessels, and no more. Of these, two, the Dol-phin and Emmlin, were hauled out last fall for repairs, and as late as the 12th May had not yet been launched, and this fact can be proved by the officers of the numerous steamboats which call almost daily at Beaver Harbor. The other, the Seaman, passed Mackinac on a trip to Drummond Island some days before the burning of the shanties at Birch Point, arrived at Drummond sometime previous to that outrage, and remained there, at least 80 miles from the scene of that crime, till several days after it was done and known in Mackinac. And this fact can be proved by the entire settlement at De Tour, not one of whom are Mormons. Among them is Hon. Ebenezer Warner, Register of the Land Office at Sault Ste. Marie. 
There was wintered last winter, in a little nook or bay of Garden Island, the yacht Mary Clark, I believe—for the name is painted out, and the name Defiance daubed over it—formerly of Chicago, and probably the best sailer on the Lakes, now in the hands of one Capt. Shepard, neither a Mormon nor a friend of the Mormons, though he wintered in their neighborhood. This vessel went out some day sbefore the burning of the Shantees at Birch Point, and did not return till some time after, and its business at that time has never been accounted for. If any consid-erable quantity of property was in fact stolen this fact would be of importance. But, candidly, I most truly be-lieve the story of the stealing was hatched up by some dis-honest fishermen as an excuse for not paying-up their ar-rears with the traders who supplied them, and the burning was done, to give force to the statement; or perhaps to cover up some trifling peculation which the fishermen were practicing on each other. The most valuable build-ings were not burned, as they would have been had the object been to waste and destroy, and it is beyond meas-ure incredible that that amount of property should be left in such a place. 
Allow me to add, that this is not the first or second time that charges of the most astounding crimes have emanated from Mackinac against the Mormons at Beaver Island. That at different times they have been made the subject of legal investigation, and in every instance the result has vindicated the uprightness and intelligence of the Mor-mons. Yet so greedy is the public ear for some tale of Mormon corruption, that it seems scarcely possible to in-vent so barefaced and incredible a lie that it shall not find a place in some respectable paper, and believers among its readers. 
As an instance, I may mention that The Buffalo Rough Notes last summer published editorially, with pointed com-ments, the statement of some sailors, that the Mormons on Beaver Island went boldly in the day time on board the lake steamers, in armed bodies, and pirated from them, and were unwhipped of justice; and Mr. Cadwalader, the able conductor of that journal, never opened his eyes to the utter incredibility of such an assertion until I pointed it out to him. I presume many of his readers believed it un-doubtingly. 
I deprecate such publications, because their tendenny is to produce disorder and violence. They are an encourage-ment to those who resort to mobs on the pretense that the law is not strong enough. What was said about the boun-daries of Emmet County, and Mormon tribunals, Jurymen and witnesses, could only be designed as an excuse for re-sorting to other than legal remedies. 
The resort to civil war against the Mormons has been made in two or three instances, on similar pretenses; but I believe that all respectable men look upon those acts as a national disgrace ; nearly every writer who has alluded to them, and all the tribunals which have investigated them have exonerated the Mormons from the charges on which, they were mobbed. 
But this Mormon tribunal, which is to let the criminals go free, what is it ? It is a Circuit Court of the State of Michigan, to be held by Hon. Samuel T. Douglass, of the City of Detroit. This is the only tribunal, except Courts held by Justices of the Peace. Of these it is enough to say that the appeal would be to the Circuit Court, as it has heretofore to the District Court, and under the old Constitu-tion, to the County Court in Mackinac, where numerous judgments rendered by Mormon Justices have been appealed, AND NOT ONE REVERSED. 
But the whole allusion to Mormon tribunals, witnesses and jurymen, is gratuitous. The tribunal has not been or-ganized, the jurymen have not been empannelled, nor the witnesses brought into Court. 
Men judge of the moral standard of other men's conduct by their own, and for any man to say of the tribunals, jury-men, &c., of Emmet County, before they have ever done an act that they will use their power for corrupt purposes, is just precisely the same as to say, if he had their oppor-tunity he would use it for corrupt purposes. It is his judg-ment upen himself, whom he does know, not us, who are yet to be tried. Truly and sincerely, JAS. J. STRANG.