WHEN DETROIT INVADED KENTUCKY
By Milo M. Quaife
Filson Club History Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2, January, 1927, pp. 53-67
Reprinted from the Burton Historical Collection Leaflet, Vol. IV, No. 2, November, 1925.
In the long period of warfare which in former times has been waged between the City of the Straits and the oldest of western commonwealths expeditions of warriors, white and red, have repeatedly marched from the one community on the mission of ravaging the other. To describe them all a volume would not suffice, and in the present paper we shall confine ourselves to a :single one, the British-Indian invasion of Kentucky led by Captain Henry Bird of Detroit, in the early summer of 1780.
The Bird invasion was but one phase of a far-reaching series of military operations in the West, embracing in their scope an area from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. In the sum-mer of 1778 George Rogers Clark had led a band of colonists into the region north of the Ohio then known as the IllinoisCountry and captured from the British the old French settlements of Kaskaskia and Cahokia on the Mississippi and Vincennes on the Wabash. Thereupon Governor Hamilton of Detroit had neatly countered the American offensive by leading an army southward across Lake Erie, up the Maumee, and down the Wabash to the recapture of Vincennes. His triumph was brief, how ever, for Clark at Kaskaskia, on learning of Hamilton's conquest, hastily led a scanty force of Virginians and Frenchmen on his famous midwinter march across the Illinois prairies to Vincennes and compelled Hamilton to surrender. The fallen British leader was thereupon consigned to a prison in distant Virginia; Colonel De Peyster was shortly sent to assume command at Detroit, and matters stood at a stalemate between the British and the Americans in the West during the remainder of the year 1779. Spain was now at war with England, and in preparation for the succeeding year the British planned a cam-paign which would sweep the whole frontier from Canada to Florida and destroy at once the power of Spain and of the colonists in the Mississippi Valley. From Pensacola in the south and Detroit in the northwest as centers of operation, British forces were to converge upon lower Louisiana, having taken St. Louis en route; while to cover these extensive operations another expedition from Detroit was to be launched against Clark at the falls of the Ohio to prevent him from cooperating in the defense of the Illinois towns and St. Louis.
The great project broke down in almost every part, the sole exception to the general tale of failure being the expedition against Kentucky which was led by Captain Bird. With certain qualifications to be noted presently this was wholly successful. Although it changed in no perceptible manner the course of the war, it affected for weal or woe the lives of hundreds of individuals, and wrote one more lurid chapter in the tale of border warfare which chiefly constitutes the story of the winning of the West.
Captain Henry Bird was a brave and capable soldier, a man of humane feeling whose distasteful duty it was to lead a horde of savages in a foray upon the exposed American settlements, knowing full well that he was powerless to restrain their shocking barbarities upon noncombatants and combatants alike. He had served many years in the British army in America, and had come to Detroit from Niagara in 1778. The British were then anticipating that an American army would shortly appear before Detroit, and, deeming the old fort on the river front incapable of defense, they hastily began the erection of a new one on the elevated ground in the rear of the village where modern Fort and Shelby streets intersect. In the absence of a regular engineer officer Captain Bird laid out the new fortification, which dominated the town of Detroit for almost half a century. The next year he was stationed at Sandusky, charged with the duty of stirring up Indian wax parties to raid the Ohio frontier. During this period he disclosed his innate humanity by interceding with his red allies when they were about to torture a prisoner, and by cursing them roundly when his plea for mercy was denied.
Among the manuscripts preserved in the Burton Collection is a ledger, beautifully written, of the Detroit firm of Macomb, Edgar, and Macomb in the Revolutionary period. It served as fiscal agent of the government at Detroit, and by reason of this circumstance one may read today the names and rates of pay of all the Detroit volunteers who joined Bird's army of invasion. Chiefly they were Frenchmen, of course, since Detroit was still but a French settlement overlaid with a thin veneer of British officialdom. At the head of the militia muster were Captain Louis Chabert de Joncaire and Lieutenant Jonathan Schieffelin. Both were active supporters of Great Britain in this period and both, at a later day, became loyal citizens of the United States. About 140 men are listed by name, only thirty of whom were volunteers. The remainder were "ordered to go"-mute but significant evidence that so far as the French settlers were con-cerned they had but little desire to fight the Americans. The members of the main expedition were out sixty-one days, from May 25 to August 4. In addition, a company of forty-three men, engaged in convoy work for the main party, served twenty- one days.
In the matter of expenditure as in much else warfare has made tremendous progress since the simple days of 1780. Although the higher British officials made constant complaint over the enormous expenditure incurred at Detroit, the neatly itemized accounts of Macomb, Edgar, and Macomb disclose a total pay roll for the militia contingent on Bird's campaign of £1079, 12 shillings, and 3 pence. For such a sum (plus the cost of equipment and provisions consumed) several thriving Kentucky settlements were razed, several hundred settlers carried into the wilderness, the population of Detroit augmented by a few score, and woe and grief uncountable inflicted upon the hapless victims of the campaign.
It had been the object of the campaign to attack and capture Clark's fort at the falls of the Ohio, after which it was confidently expected that all Kentucky could be swept clear of settlers. But the well-nigh universal experience of French, British, and American commanders alike, in uncounted campaigns, testifies that no reliance could safely be placed on the Indian allies of the whites, and to this experience Captain Bird's expedition afforded no exception. He left Detroit on May 25, 1780, with 150 white followers and a train of several small cannon, accompanied by a picturesque array of several hundred red warriors, whose numbers were added to en route as the army advanced southward until they totaled 1,000 or more. Numbered among the white contingent were some of the most notable figures of the British-American border: Simon Girty, whose name even yet is odious in American eyes; Matthew Elliot and Alexander McKee, renowned, like Girty, for their skill in inciting the Indians to war against the Americans; Duperon Baby, perhaps the most influential of the French residents of Detroit; Philip Le Due, Duncan Graham, and others employed by the British Indian Department.
In sailing vessels, bateaus, and birch canoes the motley crew descended the Detroit, paddled across Lake Erie to the mouth of the Maumee, and thence made its way up that stream and down the Great Miami River to the Ohio. Here occurred the first miscarriage of the expedition. Its objective was Fort Nelson, which Clark had established where now is the city of Louisville. Instead of descending the Ohio to this point, however, Bird's red allies insisted on ascending Licking River and attacking the interior settlements of Kentucky, which promised less fighting and more booty than the prospect held out at Fort Nelson.
Because he was powerless to do otherwise, Bird, inwardly raging we may be sure, accepted this program. As far as the forks of the river the progress was easy; at this point shallow water stopped the boats, and the army began a tedious overland march to Ruddle's Station, laboriously cutting a road along which the cannon were dragged. Ruddle's Station was a stockaded log settlement of the type common to early Kentucky. It had no regular garrison, but the inmates were capable of making a fairly effective defense against Indian attack. When Bird's allies, pressing on in advance, invested the place, the settlers easily held them off until the cannon hove into view. Against these the defendants were helpless, and a few rounds of artillery terminated the affair. Captain Ruddle surrendered to Bird, having stipulated that the British should protect the colonists from abuse by the Indians and agreed that in return for safe conduct to Detroit the slaves and other property should be the prize of the captors.
The Indians, however, had their own ideas of warfare, and, as soon as the fort was thrown open, they proceeded to plunder and insult the cowering captives at will. In particular they indulged in a wholesale slaughter of the live stock, to which Bird looked for sustenance for his force in the further progress of the campaign. When Captain Ruddle reminded him of his promise to shield the prisoners from Indian outrage, he was forced to confess that he was helpless to do so. Notwithstanding this, but little blood was shed, the Indians contenting themselves on this occasion with plunder and prisoners.
Elated over the easy triumph, they now proceeded to attack Martin's Station, a few miles away, while detachments spread over the country in search of lesser settlements to plunder. At Martin's, Bird was more successful in restraining the warriors than he had been at Ruddle's and only the property of the settlers seems to have been sacrificed here. The warriors were eager for further conquests, but their insensate destruction of the livestock, which entailed the prospect of starvation on captors and captives alike, induced Bird to order that the retreat be begun. On the site of modern Cincinnati he paused to indite a report of the invasion, in which he bitterly lamented the conduct of the warriors, but for whose destruction of the cattle, he was persuaded, he could have "gone through the whole country without any opposition."
On the morning of August 4, 1780, Captain Bird reached Detroit with about 150 prisoners, and De Peyster reported, in a letter written the same day, that some 200 more were on the way in the hands of the Indians. The presence of so considerable a body of prisoners had caused the commandant much apprehension in advance, but his fears were dispelled upon inspection of them. Most of those brought in by Bird were Germans, he reported, and their chief desire was to remain and settle at Detroit. Their lack of attachment to the cause of the colonists is further revealed by the fact that thirteen of them promptly enlisted in the Rangers stationed at Detroit for service against the American frontier.
Our story, thus far, has not contained many thrills for the reader. An army of 1,200 men had marched from Detroit to Kentucky, had met with little resistance, and had retired with considerable booty and upwards of 300 prisoners. To appreciate what all this really means, we must turn from general statements to concrete illustrations. To the ordinary mind the fact, for example, that thousands of people may be starving in China means little; far less, indeed, then does the immediate presence of a single starving baby. In the case before us, the experience of most of the captives was never recorded, of course, and all knowledge of it perished with them. But the story of one or two will suffice as serving to typify the experiences of all the rest.
William Dummer Powell (later for several years a judge at Detroit) was in 1780 a young lawyer of Montreal. Passing along the street one day he encountered a detachment of soldiers convoying a band of women and children to the Provost prison. The young attorney's inquiry elicited the information that the prisoners were Kentuckians taken captive on Bird's invasion and sent down from Detroit to Montreal. Powell actively interested himself in the welfare of the captives, and to this circumstance we owe the story of Mrs. Agnes La Force. Her husband was a Virginia Loyalist who about the year 1777 sought refuge from the persecutions of his neighbors by removing to the wilds of Kentucky. He was a man of means, with several sons and sonsin-law and a considerable number of slaves. The removal to Kentucky was a wholesale family migration, and, although La Force was accidentally killed en route, the others persisted in the enterprise and built a palisaded settlement, where they dwelt in fancied security until a detachment of Bird's marauders appeared. "Relying upon british faith," records Powell, "they open'd their Gate on condition of Protection to their Persons and their property from the Indians; but they had no sooner surrendered and received that promise than her sons and son-in-laws had to resort to arms to resist the Insults of the Indians to their wives and Slaves. Several lives were lost and the whole surviving Party was marched into Detroit, about six hundred miles, where the Slaves were distributed among the Captors and the rest marched or boated eight hundred miles further to Montreal and driven into the Provo[s]t Prison as Cattle into a Pound."
In consequence of Powell's able championing of her cause, Mrs. La Force gained the ear of Governor Haldimand, who, on learning that she had been despoiled of her slaves, her only remaining source of support, directed that the commandant at Detroit find the slaves, "in whose ever possession they might be," and forward them to Montreal for restoration to their rightful owner. But this intervention availed Mrs. La Force nothing, for, although De Peyster transmitted a list of thirteen of the slaves, several of whom were in possession of officials of the government at Detroit, he professed his inability to recover them. Thus was the might of the British government defied by a group of its own officials and certain influential citizens of Detroit. The expressive word "graft," coined by Americans of a later generation, would seem most fitly to characterize this situation.
More moving even than the story of Mrs. La Force's misfortunes is that of Leonard Kratz. He was a native of Teutonhofer near Frankfort-on-the-Main, who, in 1776 at the age of twenty years, came to America as a member of one of the Hessian regiments hired by King George to subdue his rebellious subjects. He served in the Burgoyne campaign and was taken captive, along with the rest of the army, by the Americans at Saratoga. After a long period of imprisonment in Virginia he was released and, like many of his fellows, concluded to remain in America. At this time emigrants from Virginia and Pennsylvania were pouring across the mountains to Kentucky. Kratz joined one such group, and undertook to pilot it to the promised land. In the party was a young woman, Mary Munger, with whom the ex-soldier fell in love. Mary consented to marry him, but her parents, on being consulted, raised strenuous objections, whereupon Kratz, after due consideration, issued an ultimatum to the effect that, unless they accepted him as a son-in-law, he would serve them no longer as a guide. This placed the matter in a new light, for in the midst of the wilderness a guide was essential, even though a son-in-law might not be. Accordingly the parents yielded, the marriage was performed, and the journey was resumed until it ended at Ruddle's Station.
If Leonard Kratz and Mary, his bride, had lived happily ever afterwards, their story would not be written here. A season passed, their union was in due time sealed by the arrival of a baby, and the husband, no doubt, was industriously preparing a farm for their future support when Bird's army appeared on the scene. Kratz and his young wife-the latter with her babe in arms-fell into the hands of different Indian masters and were separated from each other. Kratz' master compelled him to carry to Detroit a huge copper kettle strapped on his back, the marks of which he carried to his grave. He was unable to lie down, and was saved from starvation through the compassion of a squaw who pitied and befriended him. On reaching Detroit Kratz, along with other prisoners, was purchased by the British authorities, who cared for them until they recovered from the sufferings they had endured on the march sufficiently to enable them to go to work.
Tormented by the thought of what might be the fate of his wife and child, Kratz repaired daily to the wharf to meet the canoes which came in, hoping that sooner or later he would learn something of them. Although prisoners were being brought in from time to time, he could learn nothing of the missing ones. One day he gazed upon a woman and was turning sadly away when she cried out, "Leonard! Don't you know me?" It was his wife, so altered in appearance by the terrible hardships she had undergone that he had failed to recognize her. The fate of her babe was soon related. While struggling up a bank with it in her arms she had stumbled and fallen forward, striking its head on the root of a tree and killing it instantly. Probably this was well, for its end might easily have been a far more terrible one. The mother hastily buried her child, after which she was compelled to resume the weary march, which was to end at Detroit in the manner we have noted.
The later career of Leonard and Mary Kratz is interesting, but it does not properly belong to our present narrative. After various vicissitudes they settled on a grant of land near Amherstburg, where Kratz died in 1829, leaving many descendants. (1)
SOME DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE BIRD EXPEDITION
Sir,
After two days councilling whether they would proceed immediately by the Falls, or attack the Forts on Licking CreekThe Indians have determined for licking Creek & to morrow by day break we move up the stream. I confess to you my patience have received very severe shocks, and would have been long ago exhausted, had I not had so excellent an example before me as the one Capt. McKee sets, indeed he manages Indians to a charm. I never saw his fellow.
It is now sixteen days since I arrived at the Forks, appointed by the Indians to meet, and by one ridiculous delay & the other, they have prolonged or retarded to this day.
Mons. Le Due has behaved extremely well in every respect, and has been very serviceable in making shafts and repairing carriages, in which matters he offered his services. You seemed Sir, to have an inclination to serve him on our leaving Detroit. I dont doubt but you will on his return, find him worthy your notice. There is not a man in this Party proved of more Service than Mr. Reynolds, civil in every respect and attentive, an excellent woodsman, & no doubt a good soldier. He was before quite out of his element.
Mr. Baby delievered me on setting out, three or four strouds, some worsted, three glasses, and some other little things for Logan, which by bringing in a blanket so far, got all broke & spoil'd. they would never have answered as a present, what was good of the Shirts, Strouds or Blankets, I gave to different Indians, & told Logan what you intended, but the inconvenience of carriage in our present situation made you defer it, till his return to Detroit.
I hope Sir my next will inform you of success in our undertakings, tho' their attack on the little Forts, their number being so great is mean of them.
The old Prisoner, the Bearer of this is given up by the Shawanese. He endeavoured to escape & give Intelligence of our approach to the Rebels, nothing but our presence saved his Life. After the treatment he got from us, he proved himself a deceitful old villain. Captain McKee begs his compliments.
Letter of Captain Bird to Major Arent S. De Peyster (3)
Ohio opposite Licking Creek
July 1st 1780
Sir,
After fatigues that only those present can entertain a prop-or Idea of we arrived before Fort Liberty the 24th of June. I had before that day entreated every Indian officer that appeared to have Influence among the Savages, to pursuade them not to engage with the Fort, untill the guns were up-fearing if any were killed it might exasperate the Indians & make them commit cruelties when the Rebels surrendered.
Poor McCarty in every other respect an extreme, attentive, serviceable fellow, perished by disobeying this order. An Indian was shot through the arm. The Three Pounder was not sufficient, our People raised a Battery of Rails & Earth within 80 yards of the fort-taking some advantage of a very violent storm of rain which prevented them being seen clearly-They stood two discharges of the little gun, which only cut down a Spar & stuck the shot in the side of a House-When they saw the Six Pounder moving across the Field, they immediately surrendered, they thought the three Pounder a Swivel the Indians and their Department had got with them-The conditions granted That their Lives should be saved, and themselves taken to Detroit, I forewarn'd them that the Savages would adopt some of their children. The Indians gave in Council the Cattle for Food for our People & the Prisoners and were not to enter till the next day-But whilst Capt. McKee and myself were in the Fort settling these matters with the Poor People, they rush'd in, tore the poor children from their mothers Breasts, killed a wounded man and every one of the cattle, leaving the whole to stink. We had brought no Pork with us & were now reduced to great distress, & the poor Prisoners in danger of being starved.
I talked hardly to them of their breach of Promise--But however we marched to the next Fort, which surrendered without firing a gun. The same Promises were made & broke in the same manner, not one pound of meat & near 300 Prisoners--Indians breaking into the Forts after the Treaties were concluded. The Rebels ran from the next Fort and the Indians burn't it-They then heard news of Col. Clark's coming against them & proposed returning-which indeed had they not proposed I must have insisted on, as I had then fasted some time & the Prisoners in danger of starving-incessant rains rotted our People's feet the Indians almost all left us within a days march of the Enemy. It was with difficulty I procured a guide thro' the woods-I marched the poor women & children 20 miles in one day over very high mountains, frightening them with frequent alarms to push them forward, in short, Sir, by water & land we came with all our cannon &c 90 miles in 4 days, one day out of which we lay by entirely, rowing 50 miles the last day-we have no meat & must subsist on ]lour if there is nothing for us at Lorimiers.(4) I am out of hope of getting any Indians to hunt, or accompany us, however George Girty I detain to assist meI could Sir, by all accounts have gone through the whole country without any opposition, had the Indians preserved the cattle. Everything is safe so far, but we are not yet out of reach of pursuit-As a very smart fellow escaped from me within 26 miles of the Enemy-Provisions and Perougues we shall want at the glaize & the vessel at the mouth of the Miamis.
I refer you to the Bearer for particulars
I am Sir with respect
Your most obdt Servant
Major De Peyster [signed] Henry Bird [B 100, p 410]
Letter from Captain McKee to Major De Peyster (5)
Shawanese Village
July 8 1780
Sir
The last letter I did myself the Honor of writing you was dated from the Plains of the Great Miamis containing an account of every thing material to that time, and that our Force was to be collected upon the Ohio, at the mouth of that River we arrived the 13th of June & waited some days for a few Chiefs of Chollicorthy who had fallen upon the River some miles above us, and upon their arrival at our camp the number of Indians exceeded seven hundred when it was proposed and strongly urged by us, to proceed down the River against the Enemies Forts at the Falls of the Ohio, where we could have arrived in four days by water with the current. besides this advantage we had previously received intelligence that Col Clarke was gone from that place some weeks before with all the Troops under his command to take post at the Iron Banks upon the Mississippi, below the mouth of the Ohio, and that the Inhabitants of the Falls, upon receiving advice of our approach (by two Prisoners who escaped from the Hurons) they had dispatched an Express to recall him to their assistance, but as he had a long distance, & against the current, it was not possible for him to return in time to interrupt us in the execution of our Design upon that Place-but notwithstanding this favourable prospect, which would have been a fatal stroke to the Enemies Settlement in that country, the Indians could not be prevailed upon to come into it, and in a full council of the Chiefs of their several Nations, determined to proceed to the nearest Forts by the way of Licking Creek giving for their reason that it could not be prudent to leave their villages naked & defenceless in the neighborhood of those Forts. Accordingly we advanced by the [Licking) River as far up as the Forks, where we found it impracticable to get farther by water on account of its lowness, therefore were obliged to set out by Land and the 20h of June I accompanied about two hundred Indians and surrounded the Enemy's first Fort [Ruddle's] before day, this was done before they were in the least apprised of us. It was then advised to remain in this situation and by no means to alarm the Fort, if, it could be avoided. untill the arrival of the main body with the cannon, unless Parties came out, in this case then to endeavour to take Prisoners in order to gain Intelligence of the Enemies Force and situation, but the eagerness of some Indians upon our left, fired upon a small party, who came out after day Break to cut Grass-this commenced a firing, both from the Fort and our Indians, which lasted till about 12 o'clock, when Capt. Bird came up with the small gun, and a Battery being erected, after two discharges upon the Enemy's Fort, & the six pounder at the same time arriving in sight determined them to surrender the place.
The Indian Chiefs agreed to the Proposals, as well for the Preservation of the Prisoners as an equal Distribution of the Plunder amongst their several nations, to prevent jealousies or dissatisfaction, but the violence of the Lake Indians in seizing the Prisoners, contrary to agreement, threw everything into confusion, however the other nations next morning returned all they had taken, back into Capt Bird's charge.
The 27th I had dispatched some spies towards the Enemies second Fort [Martin's], who returned in the afternoon with a Prisoner, having intercepted two men going express to alarm the other Forts of our approach. The Intelligence received from this Prisoner determined us to set out immediately for the second Fort, and reached it the next morning about 10 o'clock, being the 28h. The Prisoner taken the day before was sent in to inform them of the situation-they agree'd to surrender and being removed under a guard of the Troops, the great propensity for Plunder again occasioned discontent amongst them, and several parties set out toward the adjacent Forts to plunder Horses.
The Prisoners now becoming numerous amounting to between three & four Hundred, with a scarcity of Provisions, added to many other insurmountable difficulties that must have attended going farther, determined the Chiefs to return from this Place, and the next day we were back at the first Fort-here we were overtaken by one of the small Parties with a Prisoner, who had left the Falls of Ohio eight days before-he says that Col. Clarke was daily expected there and was to command an army against the Indians, who were to leave that place the 10h July. He also adds that an account was brought there from the Inhabitants, that Charles Town South Carolina was in actual possession of the British Troops. (6) I accompanied Capt Bird back to the Forks of Licking Creek, from whence he was to proceed by water & having a very high flood would be able to reach the big Miamis in a very short time, the scarcity of Provisions obliged the Indians to disperse.
I engaged a few of the Chiefs to stay with Capt Bird, more would be useless & troublesome to him, as there could be no apprehension of danger immediately from the Enemy, however I have engaged the Chief of the lower Villages since my arrival, to send a party down upon the Ohio in his rear, and to send Spies towards the Falls. The Enemy abandoned two other Forts, which has been set on Fire by the Indians. These are the most material circumstances relative to this Expedition carried on by the Indians in conjunction with the King's Troops. I am with great respect &c. &c.
[signed] A. McKee
Major De Peyster
Mrs. LaForce's Slaves at Detroit,
"List of Slaves formerly the propery of Mrs. Agnes Le Force now in possession of:
Sale of Esther, a Slave of Captain Birds
L'Assomption D: Hesse 29th of June 1791
Detroit August 14th 1784-- Henry Bird do declare that the Wench Esther became my property in consequence of an article of Capitulation of Martin's Fort whereby the Inhabitants and Defenders agreed to deliver up thier Blacks arms and moveables to the Indians as thier property, on condition that thier persons should be safely conducted to Detroit which articles was punctually complied with and fulfilled by the Capters, the said Esther became my Property by consent and permission of the Indian Chiefs
I do hereby make over and give away my right and Property in the said Wench and her male Child to William Lee, in consideration of his having cleared for me sixteen Acres of Land--
signed/ H: Bird Captain
--NOTES--
(1) For the story of Mrs. La Force I have drawn upon Judge William Renwick Riddell's Life of William Dummer Powell, First Judge at Detroit and Fifth Chief Justice of Upper Canada (Lansing, 1924). For the story of Leonard Kratz I am indebted to George F. McDonald's "The New Settlement on Lake Erie," printed in Essex Historical Society, Papers and Addresses, Vol. III.
(2) Printed in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 533-534.
(3) Printed in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 538-539.
(4) Lorimier's trading house was located on the site of modern Piqua Miami County, Ohio. The proprietor actively supported the British interest, and in 1778 had led a raiding party into Kentucky and captured Daniel Boone. In 1782 the Kentuckians, led by George Rogers Clark, destroyed the Indian village here, burned Lorimier's store and dwelling, and compelled him to seek refuge on the Maumee.
(5) Printed in Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, XIX, 541-543.
(6) Charleston was captured by the British army on May 12, 1780.
(7) Printed in Riddell's- Life of William Dummer Powell 28
(8) Copied from original record in Wayne County Building Detroit Mich
(9) William Lee was a free negro. It is interesting to speculate on AM
may have been his motive in purchasing Esther.