[113] Daniel Jackson belonged to the firm of Suydam, Jackson and Company of New York, large importers of goods for the fur trade. Robert Stuart was manager at Mackinac for the American Fur Company. Porter’s appeal to these men is not entirely convincing, since they were important representatives of the fur trade merchants who, as a class, profited most largely by the gratuities and allowances concerning which complaint was being made. [114] Richard J. Hamilton came to Chicago in 1831 as first clerk of the circuit court of Cook County. During the next few years he held a large number of local offices of a legal or fiscal nature, much of the time holding several at the same time. He had much to do with the establishment and early administration of the public school system of Chicago. [115] Robert A. Forsythe of Ohio was an early trader at Maumee City in Lucas County. He was probably the son of James Forsythe, an early merchant and tavern keeper of Detroit. He was one of the founders of the lower Maumee Valley. [116] The pronouncement of Meriwether Lewis to President Jefferson on this point, given in a case which involved the same principle as the one here involved, is not without interest in this connection: “I am confident that, if the United States should never confirm the lands to the present claimants, it will not prove a source of disquiet on the part of the Osages; and should they be ever countenanced or receive confirmation, on the ground of their being Indian donations, it would introduce a policy of the most ruinous tendency to the interests of the United States; in effect it would be, the Government corrupting its own agents; for, I will venture to assert, that, if the Indians are permitted to bestow lands on such individuals as they may think proper, the meanest interpreter in our employment will soon acquire a princely fortune at the expense of the United States.” _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 767. [117] Billy Caldwell and Alexander Robinson, halfbreeds, who were influential with the Potawatomi and the Ottawa. [118] Unfortunately for Porter’s justification in this particular instance, the investigations of students have revealed much that is of questionable propriety in connection with Johnson’s conduct of his Indian school. [119] Joseph Loranger was a fur trader in the River Raisin and before the War of 1812 had a store in partnership with Lafontaine. In 1817 he platted the town of Monroe, Michigan, of which place his descendants were prominent citizens.