This photo was taken shortly after sunrise on Labor Day, 1999. It’s just outside of Castalia, Ohio. The farm of Orlean Putnam’s parents was somewhere in the background, and it was probably somewhere near there where the Odawa raiding party captured little Orlean and his mother in 1813. Those two were among those who were kept alive and taken to Detroit, which was then in British hands.

The 1882 Cass County (MI) history tells Orlean’s story, which includes this part:

Orlean Putnam was taken by the chief, who had adopted him, to Detroit. This chief proved to be no other than the great Pontiac who, in his time, wielded more power than any other Indian in the West. Mr. Putnam remembers perfectly the tall, commanding form of the celebrated warrior, although he was but five years old when in his custody, and he has a vivid recollection of the capture on Cold Creek, Ohio, and the horrible fate of his little companions. At Detroit, a Judge May, who had known the Putnam family when they were in Detroit two or three years before, prior to settling in Ohio, recognized Orlean, and interceded with Pontiac in his behalf, telling him that he must return the boy to his mother. He objected, saying that he was going to raise him as a chief…

This Pontiac would not have been the celebrated Pontiac of the 1760s and the siege of Detroit, but he was Odawa as was his famous predecessor of that name.

This is a portrait of the Judge May who was instrumental in Orlean’s release. (It’s in Sheldon’s 1856 “Early History of Detroit”.) May was indeed in Detroit when the city was in British hands. I have not found any mention of little Orlean and his mother in his papers, though. Not that I should have expected to.

But what about the part where Pontiac intended to make Orlean a chief? Could that be true? It would have been unusual if it had happened, but wouldn’t have been entirely implausible.

Consider these words about Indian and white captives that were written by Benjamin Franklin. They are quoted in James Axtell’s article, “The White Indians of Colonial America” (William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Volume 32, Issue 1 ( Jan 1975) 55-88).

When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return. [But] when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.

Many other observations were made by others about this phenomenon.

Orlean wasn’t a captive for long before he was ransomed, but it would have been interesting if someone had later in his life quoted these words of Franklin to him to see if he had any insights as to what it was all about.

On Labor Day weekend 1998 I did a ride to Castalia, Ohio near Sandusky, and then partway back. Myra said she had been to Sandusky once and wasn’t interested in driving there again to pick me up, but some place like Adrian would be OK.

The story I was following ended up being one of the most momentous of the Black Hawk Slept Here project for me, because of the additional archival information it led me to. But this bike ride itself was an especially memorable one.

It was the first time I set foot in Ohio. (I don’t count driving through on I-80 and getting out at the rest stops as having been in Ohio any more than I count a flyover of Massachusetts as having set foot in that state.)

Towards the end of Day Two I was slogging east against the wind, towards Fremont. It seemed there was no likely place to camp, so I decided to look for a motel, about 20 miles short of my intended destination. I learned that all the motels were on the east end of town, on the half-ring road that carried the heavy traffic of US-20 around the town.

On my way through town, I passed a park-like place with a cannon and historical markers. It looked very interesting in the fading light, but it was getting too late in the day to stop. Little did I know at the time that it was a place where Black Hawk had been in 1813, hanging out along the edge of the Battle of Fort Stephenson. I was passing up one of the main Black Hawk stories for a story on the periphery. But the peripheral story was a good one, too.

I crossed the Sandusky River in town, and then saw an older, downtown-type motel. I decided to stop there instead of going any further. A man in the far end of the parking lot was doing some cleanup, and I waved hello as I went into the office. In another minute that man was in the office, too, instructing the desk clerk to give me a discounted rate, $30 including tax, because I had come by bicycle. Even in 1998 that was a good rate. The room was clean and had a desk where I could plan my routes for the next day.

It was going to be difficult to have enough time to ride to Castalia, spend some time in the area getting photos, and then ride back to Michigan for Myra to pick me up. I decided I should leave early in the morning, well before the sun was up.

And that’s what I did. I don’t remember the hour of morning, but it was pitch dark. This was before I had any kind of headlight for my bicycle. Riding through town was OK, because there were streetlights. When I got past the ringroad, it was still dark, and there were no more lights to help me. I could barely see where the road was. There was almost zero traffic, which I think was a plus. I was glad that these Ohio roads were in much better repair than a lot of our Michigan roads, because I was not able to see well enough to avoid potholes. Once in a while I rode past a rural residence with a yardlight, and that helped.

By the time I crossed state road 510, it was getting light enough to see easily. But the sun was still not up when I reached Castalia. While waiting around for the sunrise so I could take photos, I was pleased to find that the historical event that brought me to Castalia had been commemorated on a marker, which is shown on the photo above. (Most of the photos in this blog, including the one above, are clickable for a better view.)

The story that brought me here was that of young Orlean Putman, a farmer in Cass County Michigan, who had told of having been captured by Indians during the War of 1812. He was five years old at the time. I haven’t been able to verify every detail of what he told, but I have found quite a bit of corroboration, and nothing to contradict anything he had said. This story of the Snows and the raid by Ottawa Indians as told in the histories here in Erie County complements the story that Orlean told when he was living in Cass County.

There is a lot that can be told about this incident and about Orlean Putnam. I still haven’t quite figured out the best way to tell it all, because it connects to a lot of people, places, and events in the history of the region. But this is enough for one blog article, anyway, so I’ll stop here by posting a photo portrait of Orlean Putnam that I scanned from the 1882 History of Cass County.

Oh, I didn’t make it quite as far as Adrian that day. Myra agreed to come as far as Perrysburg, Ohio (near Toledo) to pick me up. This was a memorable day for her, too, because she slipped and fell while touring Fort Meigs there with me, and still has some problems that originated with that fall.