MGA9-Oakwoods-The Treaty of St. Mary's Traditional Cache

On September 20, 1818 the Wyandot Indians ceded their territory in Brownstown and Maguagua townships to the United States government in the Treaty of St. Mary's. The treaty provided replacement grants of the Wyandot Reserve Territory on the River Huron. Some of the signers of the treaty were:Lewis Cass, Ronesass or Honas, Haunsiaugh Boyer, Ronaess or Racer, and Ronioness or Joseph. The Wyandot Indians lived on this reservation until 1842 when the Treaty of Upper Sandusky ceded The Huron Reserve territory back to the United States Government. They agreed to be relocated onto an estimated 150,000 acres of land to the west of the Mississippi River. It was a journey fraught with illness, skirmishes and tragedy...but that is another story.

The area became farm land with several farms along both sides of the Huron River. In the early 1920s Henry Ford established one of his many “Village industry mills” in Flat Rock. The dam is still there. Ford owned several hundred acres of woods and floodplain up stream from the dam.

In the early 1950s the Huron-Clinton Metropolitan Authority purchased the land. In 1975 Oakwoods Metropark was opened. All of Oakwoods and two sections of Willow Metropark are on land that was set aside for the Wyandot Reserve Territory in the 1818 treaty.

Walking to the cache you will be on what used to be South Huron River Road as it goes west high above the river. You are encouraged to notice the large oak tree near the cache which was here when Wyandot Indians called this home. While you are in the park be sure to visit the Nature Center and especially look at the mural in the lobby that depicts this history.