Nottawa Sepee Trail

Nottawa Sepee Trail. Indian travel route passed through Napoleon when American settlers arrived. , Part of an ancient network of travel routes extending across southern Michigan, Nottawa Sepee Street is a remnant of the old Nottawa Sepee Indian trail documented by University of Michigan Prof. W. B. Hinsdale in his 1931 Archaeological Atlas of Michigan. It continued in use as a travel route after American settlers arrived. Where the trail extended westward from Napoleon it became Stony Lake Road. Looking east, the street abruptly ends at the Napoleon sandstone quarry. The trail would have originally continued across exposed sandstone bedrock and followed what is now Austin Road eastward. Indians used sandstone to grind, shape, and smooth things they made from wood, antler or bone. Pieces of Napoleon sandstone showing indications of that use are found on nearby Indian campsites. "Nottawa" is what the Algonquan speaking Anishinabeg (Potawatomi, Chippewa, and Ottawa) called the Huron tribe, which fled to Michigan from Canada in the 1600's to escape Iroquois war parties. "Sepee" is the word for river. Rivers in southern Michigan where the Huron lived were called "Nottawa Sepee" and this trail was the route to some of those rivers., [Caption:] , The stone arrowhead, spearpoint, musket flint, and sandstone tool pictured below were found a short distance west of Napoleon at Stony Lake on former Indian campsites adjacent to the Nottawa Sepee trail. The spearpoint is approximately 12,000 years old and is one of Michigan's oldest artifacts. The musket flint is British., The blue arrow points to the Nottawa Sepee Trail, in use for thousands of years before European explorers or American settlers arrived. Map excerpt from Archaeological Atlas of Michigan.