The Fox Indian Episode
In the summer of 1712, a large band of Fox Indians, with some Sauks and Missaukas, arrived from Wisconsin. Probably there were some 100 warriors, but with their families they numbered about 1,000. They had come in belated response to an invitation Cadillac had issued, to make their home near the fort. They ignored the orders of the acting commander to leave their camp, ignored the hostility of the local tribes, and laid siege to the fort.
When the Indians finally were subdued and faced disaster, they fled on a stormy night, encumbered by their families. They were overtaken by the French and their Indian allies on what we call Windmill Pointe.
The Fox were besieged for four days without access to drinking water. Nearly all were taken prisoner or killed. Captives were taken to the fort and suffered lingering deaths, "four or five a day for the satisfaction of the local Indians who had lost relatives in the battle."
Remnants of the vanquished tribe, perhaps a hundred in all, found their way back to Wisconsin. Early Grosse Pointe residents told that elders of the Fox Nation sometimes came in to pilgrimage to the shores of the lake and creek where their people had died. For many years on the high ground local people found Indian relics, usually treating them with scant respect. The stream came to be known as Fox Creek, and a historical marker has been placed on the median of Windmill Pointe Drive.
Life in the Mid-1700s
Following the Fox episode, Detroit enjoyed a period of relative quiet, but also of stagnation, and the government at Quebec considered closing the post.
Grosse Pointe was not unknown in those first decades, despite the grand marais (great marsh) which stretched from present Waterworks Park approximately to today's Bishop Road, but the marsh grass and swamp were not conducive to travel, much less to settlement. The Indians called it beaver country.
During the 1740s, Frenchmen in positions of authority became increasingly worried over the growing English influence. The Indians were easily won over by the cheaper prices of English goods now available in the Ohio Valley. New France finally was stirred into offering financial enticements to settlers, and sizable groups came from 1749-51.
Except for the feeble efforts of some of the priests, there were no schools for several decades. Ste. Anne's Church was very important to the people, and whatever the distance or weather, everyone went to Mass on Sundays and holy days. Farmers often took produce to town to sell after services, a practice that was to seem scandalous to later Protestant arrivals.
The easternmost grant shown on the de Lery map of 1749/52 was located on R. du Grand Marais-Conner Creek. By 1758, the site of the Grosse Pointe Club (Little Club) was being farmed by Nicholas Patemaud.
