DETROIT TO CHICAGO, 323 



72 West Main Street, 



Battle Creek, Michigan, 



August Seventeenth. 



Soon after breakfast I left Marshall for Battle Creek 

 on a freight train, as there were no passenger coaches 

 over the road until the afternoon. This mode of 

 travel, if not the most luxurious, was at least novel, 

 and we made very good time. Between the two 

 places the face of the country hardly changed in ap- 

 pearance. There were the same fields of wheat and 

 corn, and at Battle Creek evidently as much business 

 in the flour mills as at Marshall. 



The creek, uniting here with the Kalamazoo, after 

 a serpentine course of forty miles, supplies the water- 

 power and gives the necessary impetus to trade. 



I have heard that the tributary won its bellicose 

 name through a little difficulty between the first sur- 

 veyors of public laud who came to mark this section 

 and some Indians. The quarrel ended seriously, and, 

 as the tradition goes, two of the Indians were killed. 



It may have been that the latter were making an 

 attempt to hold the ground, and that it was but one 

 of the many similar occurrences which were to convince 

 the red man that he was snperfluous. Callioun 

 County was certainly worth making a stand for. Its 

 soil was rich, ])roviding abundantly for the simple 

 wants of the sava2:e, and in the clear waters of the St. 

 Joseph and the Kalamazoo tributaries many a |)addle 

 had descended with a deft stroke, upon the gleaming 

 back of pike and pickerel. 



