The Potawatomi Indians of Farmington

The Potawatomi Indians of Farmington. . The Potawatomi, the Algonquin-speaking tribe most closely associated with this region, were often more friendly to the French and British than to the Americans. Religious and unwarlike, they had no permanent village here as they considered Farmington a hunting ground. They often camped overnight at a stopping place near the Minnow Pond at Halsted and Fourteen Mile Road. Burial grounds have been discovered on Gill Road at Nine Mile and on Drake Road at Twelve Mile. , , The last of the Potawatomi, numbering less than 100, lived on a reservation in Kansas. It is believed that descendants of the local tribe may still reside on Walpole Island at the mouth of the St. Clair River. , , The Great Maple Tree on Gill Road is all that remains to mark the three ancient paths which once traversed the Farmington area - the Shiawasee Trail, the Grand River Trail and the Orchard Lake Trail. All are believed to have been used by the great Ottawa chief, Pontiac.