John Okemos was born in Shiawassee County in the 1770's, along the Looking Glass River near Knagg's Station. He camped and farmed along the Grand River from Portland, Michigan to the Red Cedar in Okemos, Michigan.
John Okemos became chief of the Grand River Band of Chippewa (Ojibway) Indians. Other newspaper accounts and histories of Okemos have him listed as a chief of the Ottawa tribe.
His uncle was reported to be Chief Pontiac. Okemos was first mentioned in white man history books in 1796, when he took to the warpath on Lake Erie. Okemos and 16 others enlisted with the British and acted as a scout against the Americans.
One morning they lay in ambush near a road cut for passage of American Army and supply wagons. A group of American troops approached and the Indians immediately attacked. Many other American troops joined the battle and the Indians were defeated. They suffered many sword cuts and gashes. Okemos reportedly received a saber wound which severed his shoulder blade.
Okemos was one of only a few survivors and was nursed for many months before he regained his health by indian women. He always had terrible wounds on his forehead. One gash on his back never healed. The old records of the pioneers always mentioned this gash. The Indians felt that he must have been favored by the Great Spirit to survive and named him Chief out of respect for his great courage.
In 1814, he presented himself to a commanding officer at Fort Wayne in Detroit and announced that he would fight no more. For his valor he was made leader of a Red Cedar Band of Shiawassee Chippewa Indians, which was no outstanding position, but he did take the title Chief.
Okemos had enough of fighting and shortly after his recovery he and other chiefs signed a peace treaty with Lewis Cass, who was the Territorial Governor on Michigan. The peace treaty was faithfully kept.
Chief Okemos was just five feet tall. He usually wore a blanket coat with a belt, a shawl wound around his head, turban style, leggings and moccasins. He carried a steel pipe hatchet, a tomahawk and a long English hunting knife. He sometimes painted his face with vermillion on his cheeks and forehead and over his eyes. Some said they could tell if he was around because he always played his pipe or flute in the early morning.
In the 1830's, the smallpox and cholera epidemic, thought to have been brought by the white settlers, wiped out most of that tribe and Okemos became a wanderer, eventually making the Shimnecon area, near Portland, Michigan, his residence. Okemos was said to have four wives.
He is remembered by early settlers as always ready to boast of his exploits and ready for a free handout. He made his appearance at temperance picnics or any event along with 8 to 12 young ragged Indians all of whom he claimed as his children. He was seen in Lansing many times.
"On a bleak day on the 6th of December of 1858, a small train of Indians entered DeWitt, having with them drawn upon a hand sled the remains of an old Indian Chief of the tribe of the Ottawas. The body was that of Okemos and they who accompanied it were his only kindred. They brought it from five miles northwest of DeWitt where he had died on the previous day.
They brought tobacco and filled the pouch, powder for the horn and bullets for the bag. They also brought, contrary to the usual custom of their race, a coffin in which they placed the remains and then took up their silent march toward the Indian Village of Shimnecon on the Grand River, twenty-four miles below Lansing, near Portland, the principal residence of the Chief."
Hall Ingalls tells an entirely different story. He was known to be a friend of Chief Okemos and even spoke the Indian language and was working on the mission house in Shimnecon at the time. He claims that Okemos died there after an illness of several days and he was asked to bury the Chief. A direct quote from a newspaper article follows though it is not documented for name and date.
"The grave the Indians dug was larger than usual, for it had to hold the personal effects of the chief as well. It was four feet deep, seven feet long and wide. Mr. Ingalls had the Indians gather bark, a floor was laid on the bottom and the grave was also sided with bark.
It was so close to the hut where the remains were lying that but a few steps were required. The body was lowered and then covered with blankets. Blankets were placed under the head so that the August sun fell upon the face. At the Chief's right side were his tow guns. At his left his tomahawks, scalping knives and other personal effects were placed and over the whole went another blanket as a shroud. Bark was then laid over the whole and the grave was filled with earth."
Three years later the brother of Mr. Ingalls interupped vandals at the gravesite as they were digging for what they thought might be valuables said to have been buried with the Chief.
The Ingalls brothers then placed a number of stones in the hole which had been dug and so when the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) wished to place a gravestone in 1921, Mr. Ingalls was able to vouch for the fact that it was directly over the head of Chief Okemos for the stones were intact.
The gravestone is located south of Portland and is perhaps a half mile walk back from the main road on State land in the oxbow of the Grand River. This area sits high atop the river and is one of the most peaceful spots in the State of Michigan.
