332 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



In 1855 their tribal relations were dissolved and the lands were 

 allotted in severalty. A part of the tribe, however, was dissatisfied with 

 this arrangement and moved south, purchasing from the Cowskin 

 Senecas a small tract in the northeastern corner of the Indian Territory, 

 where they resumed tribal relationships and where they now live, having 

 as neighbours a small band of Ottawas on the north and a remnant of 

 their old enemies, the Seneca^, on the south. 



We have now left for consideration the last remnant of the Hurons 

 or Wyandotts on the Canadian side of the Detroit Kiver. Just one hun- 

 Idred years after the terrible Iroquois had swept the country of the 

 Hurons, Petuns and Neutrals, there was to be found on the east bank 

 of the Detroit a prosperous band of Hurons, descendants of the original 

 Hurons who had come around the lake by way of Mackinac and possibly 

 containing also remnants of the Petuns and of the Neutrals. There 

 were also on the same side of the River Indians of other tribes, Ottawas, 

 Chippewas and Pottawaitamies ; but the Hurons appear to have been of 

 chief importance, with the Ottawas, their old neighbours and associates, 

 next in order of importance. In 1728 the Catholic Church of Detroit 

 established its first mission among the Hurons across the river, a plain 

 log building wae erected two miles below Detroit on the opposite side of 

 the river, and in it services were begun. This was the Huron Church 

 about which there gradually grew up a little settlement, later a village. 

 fThisi village is to-day the town of Sandwich, and the visitor to that 

 oldest town in southwestern Ontario can still see in a fair state of 

 preservation the old wooden Huron Mission, erected between the years 

 1747-1750, the oldest building now standing in the Province of Ontario. 



At the close of the war of American Independence, the chiefs of 

 the Hurons and Ottawas desired to express appreciation of their leaders 

 (inj the late war smà so, in 1784, they gave a tract of land seven miles 

 square at the mouth of the Detroit River (the present Township of 

 Maiden, Essex County) to Alexander McKee, Wm. Caldwell, Charles 

 McCormack, Robin Eurplilect, Anthony St. Martin, Mathew Elliott, 

 Henry Bird, Thomas McKeen and Simon G-irty. This grant was not 

 fully recognized by the British Governor, but it proved that the Hurons 

 claimed the east bank of the river and fought on the British side during 

 the war. Later, in 1790, the land from the Detroit River east to Catfish 

 Creelv was ceded to the Crown by the Indians and the Hurons were 

 among the contracting parties. But in this cession there was reserved 

 a tract of about thirty-six square miles on the Detroit River north of 

 Amherstburg, and also a small tract at the Huron Church opposite 

 Detroit. The former was known as the Huron Reserve, and upon it was 

 the Wjyandotte Burial G-round that has been in use for the burial of 



