This required the final settling up of the business at all posts and with all special partners; so in 1835, 1836 and 1837, Mr. Robinson settled up the affairs of the different posts in his charge and his accounts with the company, closing out the Kalamazoo post in 1837, the Grand Haven and Ada posts in 1836, and the other minor posts in 1835, to the satisfaction of both the company and himself.

In 1831 the legislative council by an act approved March 2, had set off sixteen of the present twenty four government townships of Kent county, and established them as a county by the name of Kent. In 1834 the council organized the whole county as a township to bear the name of Kent, to take effect on the first Monday of April, 1834; they had already attached this and other territory to Kalamazoo for judicial purposes, etc., October 1, 1830, and at the first election, held the first Monday of April, 1834, Mr, Robinson was elected supervisor of the township of Kent, which had then an area of 576 square miles, and as such attended the sessions of the board of supervisors of Kalamazoo county in the years 1834 and 1835.

The land where the city of Grand Haven now is, was surveyed by the government in 1832, and was opened up to preemption claims. It was here that Mr. Robinson had had his post for eleven years, and he preempted the tract on which it was situated, for he had faith that a city would grow up there when the country was settled. Mr. Robert Stuart had the same faith and purchased a half interest in it, and then sent the Rev. Wm. M. Ferry, the father of Ex. U. S. Senator T. W. Ferry, with means to go there as his agent. The Grand Haven company was organized, composed of Mr. Robinson, owning one half, and Mr. Stuart, with Mr. Ferry and Ferry's brotherin-law, Capt. N. H. White, owning the other half interest in the land, who platted the land and named it Grand Haven. Mr. Robinson had become the head of the firm (located at Grand Haven in 1835) of Robinson, White & Williams, as he was painfully reminded when he had to pay upwards of $30,000 of its indebtedness out of his own pocket.

Thus we see Mr. Robinson at the time of the foundation of this state, an ex-Indian trader, engaged in making a large, beautiful farm of several hundred acres, a large landholder, the part proprietor of a village, the head of a large mercantile establishment, and the official head of a new township. whose destiny to become a rich, thriving, populous country was even then to be foreseen.

Mr. Robinson had as early as 1835 entered with all of his energy into the matter of turning emigration to western Michigan, and had procured the emigration of six of his brothers, with their families, in all forty two persons, from Cayuga county, N. Y., in 1835, coming in one vessel from Detroit, the

schooner St. Joseph. They located and became farmers at different points between the mouth of Grand river and Flat river, one of its tributaries. This was the inciting cause of a large emigration from that portion of western New York, during the next two years, of some of our most valued inhabitants.

Mr. Robinson was largely instrumental in securing the making of the treaty of Washington with the Indians in 1836, accompanying them to Washington for that purpose. By that treaty more than half of the area of the lower peninsula was ceded by the Indians to the general government, for a full, fair consideration. By it was reserved special tracts to a number of different persons, including 640 acres to the Indian family of Mr. Robinson. The land is now partly covered by the city of Grand Rapids; it was appraised and its value given them, the government keeping the land. According to Mr. Everett, the amount was $23,040 or $3 an acre.

In connection with his going to Washington with the Indian chiefs, who declined to go without Mr. Robinson, who went at the solicitation of the government, on its expense, I will note here the following anecdote. He took charge of the transportation of the chiefs who filled two stage coaches full. They stopped at a tavern in the interior of Indiana; he stepped up to the landlord and said, "I want so many good dinners for these Indians." They were seated and just helped when the stages again drove up and the drivers announced themselves as ready to go and would not wait, as they were carrying U. S. mail. Mr. Robinson saw no help for it, and counted out the silver at 25 cents a head, the highest price then paid for a meal at a tavern, many charging as low as half that amount. The landlord said, "You must double that sir." "That is not fair, we have not even had enough to eat, and that is the highest price usually charged for such." "Fifty cents is my price sir, it is no fault of mine that the stages will not wait, the food was ready." It was paid. On their way back when nearing the same place he would not for a whole day let them eat; the chiefs complained of hunger; his only reply was, "tighten your belts." A short time before arriving at the tavern, he got up

beside first one driver and then the other. The chink of silver could have been heard. They arrived there. He ordered as before, adding that his Indians were very hungry. He didn't seem to recognize the landlord or the place. The landlord smiled, as much as to say, I will make another good haul. The food was set before them. Robinson said, "Loosen your belts." It disappeared in a minute; they called for more, the girls brought it, the landlord rushed distracted to the door, but no stages were driving up, nor were there any signs of any; more food was the call; all that was cooked was brought up, then the cold meats and everything eatable were brought and eaten up;

finally their appetites were satisfied, but the famine in that house was awful. Mr. Robinson stepped up to the landlord and counted out one half a dollar a head. "That will not pay me one quarter of the cost of the raw material." I can't help it, sir; you set your own price when we were here before, and that is it; and look here friend, would it not be well to not play tricks on travelers?" "Well, sir, you shan't go until you pay me my charges." "Sir, don't you know that at a word from me, you and every man about here would be killed in ten minutes? It will not look well for you to attack them or attempt to keep them." The coachmen were called and were quickly on hand. The whole secret of the matter was, Mr. Robinson had penetrated the innkeeper's secret and overbid him with the drivers.

At the formation of the state he was appointed one of the first board of commissioners of internal improvements, who were to expend the five million loan, which the state had made for the formation of a grand railroad system, a grand canal system, and a grand system of river improvements, and, for several years, gave almost his entire personal attention and services to the performance of its duties.

Col. Andrew T. McReynolds, then (1836 to 1848) a resident of Detroit (which was then virtually Michigan) and, at that time, one of the most prominent of her business men, and a large factor in the politics of the state, describes the standing and the personal appearance of Mr. Robinson thus: "I knew Rix Robinson from 1834, long before he went into the senate. He was a man of good judgment, and quiet, pleasant, social ways, and not at all dissipated; his habits were most excellent. His principal associates in Detroit were John Norvall, Lucius Lyon, Tom Sheldon, U. S. Senator Palmer's father, Judge Witherell, Judge Wilkins, and such men of standing always. He was a man of imposing form and stature, dressed neatly, always attracted attention on the streets more than any other man in Detroit, by his size, his general appearance, and a certain massiveness of head and face. People stopped as he he passed along to look at him. He was a very positive, determined man; it was difficult to move his convictions. He was a man of sterling integrity; his word was as good as his bond."

A mere enumeration of the offices he held, no one of which was solicited by him, for the office sought him, will give convincing proof of the estimation in which he was held in the early days of the state.

He was township assessor of Ada in 1838, and supervisor of Ada in 1841. When the supervisor system was restored in 1844 he was again supervisor of Ada. He was commissioner to build a state road from Ionia county seat to Grand Rapids in 1840. In 1836-7 he was appointed and confirmed by the senate one of the commissioners of internal improvements of the state of

Michigan. He was state senator from the 5th district in the eleventh legislature, and from the 7th district in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth legislatures. In 1844-5 he was associate justice of the circuit court for the county of Kent; was one of the commissioners for improvement of the rapids in Grand river in 184-, and member of the convention that formed the constitution in 1850, under which we are now living. The nomination to the office of governor of the state, with a certai nty of election, was in his power while the democratic party was in the zenith of its power in this state. He declined to allow his name to be used, solely because of the fact that his wife was an Indian (for whom he had the tenderest affection) and would be unable and unwilling to perform the social duties that were then required of the governor's wife. She was by no means an uneducated woman and was an excellent housekeeper, but not fitted to shine in social life. She would not even use the English language in ordinary conversation, although well acquainted with it. She was proud of her Indian blood and ancestry, and hardly deemed the generality of white blood up to its level.

Mr. Robinson was possessed of cultivated tastes, read a good deal and kept himself well posted on the topics of the day. He was a quiet man, reserved, but not shy; not given to talking much about himself, and was a very careful, conscientious, truthful man in making statements. His insight into human nature was quite extraordinary. He had great love of his home, his family and his kin, and was always the red men's friend, to whom they went in difficulty for counsel and advice.

He had much quiet humor, as was shown by his famous proclamation against the logs; was a good story teller, when with intimate friends; had a very retentive, ready memory, was energetic and sympathetic. He took up the wrongs of the Indians always, and had them redressed, as in the case of the trial and conviction of Miller for the murder, in 1842, of the squaw, Ne-ga. In the detection and arrest of the fugitive sheriff, Hon. T. D. Gilbert won for himself laurels and evinced consi lerable skill as a detective, as seemingly he had no starting clue.

His kicking Sim Johnson, one of Buchanan's trusted political friends, through the streets of Grand Rapids, for not returning 2,000 silver dollars lent him to enable his wildcat bank to make a good show to the bank commissioner who was inspecting its pecuniary condition, was done in mid-day, in the most public part of the city. Johnson was nearly as tall and well formed a man as Mr. Robinson. The ridicule it excited drove Johnson away. Mr. Robinson was always very hospitable and gene.ous, often aided his friends with his name, to such an extent that at the time of his death, although possessing yet a large property, it was found to not very much

exceed his liabilities. He became president of the Old Settlers' Association of Kent, lonia and Ottawa counties three years before his death and held that position when he died.

He was a man of temperate habits. Until a couple of years before his death, he was not in the habit of attending divine service, save on funeral occasions. The complete reformation that the influence of divine truth had produced upon his son, the Rev. John. R. Robinson, in elevating him from a drunken, dissolute half-breed, a source of constant trouble and anxiety to his father, to a sober, grave, considerate, kind son, a good citizen, an humble follower of the cross, an outspoken disciple, a clergyman working with zeal among his race, and one whose private life had become unblemished, after a time caused him to turn his attention to the cause of it, and finally to ask for the rite of baptism himself. The last two or three years of his life he was himself a follower of the cross, and he had the utmost confidence as to his future life beyond this world.

His intellect was strong and clear; it was only the physical body that was worn out and ceased to be the wrap of the soul January 13, 1875.

No monument marks the place where this remarkable man's remains repose, on the crest of a hill at Ada, overlooking the river he so loved, and the home of more than fifty years of his life.

JUDGE BAZIL HARRISON.

CONTRIBUTED BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN.

Judge Bazil Harrison, the pioneer settler of Kalamazoo county, died at the residence of his son, John S. Harrison, on Prairie Ronde, Aug. 30, 1874, at the advanced age of 103 years. The following sketch of the life of the deceased was prepared at the time of his death, by Mr. J. H. Stone, the former editor of the Kalamazoo Telegraph

Judge Harrison came of not only hardy stock, but patriotic ancestry. His paternal grandfather, William Harrison, was a native of Scotland, and his grandmother, of Welsh birth. These grandparents immigrated to Virginia,