Michigan Legends: Folktales and Lore from the Great Lakes State

The Talking Mare

   23 The Talking Mare Long ago, in early 1805, there stood an old, French-­ style house on what today is known asWoodward Avenue in Detroit. This was the home of Gabriel Godefroy, then the Indian agent in Detroit for the Pottawatomies and Chippewas.These were two of several tribes that lived largely in harmony with the early French settlers of Detroit. This house reflected its frontier bearings and its French ancestry. It had a huge fireplace stretched across one entire wall. Scattered on the floor were deer and buffalo skins. Guests, usually the chiefs of Indian tribes,sat on these skins to warm themselves by the great fire. Crude benches served as chairs, and an old bottle was used as a candlestick, so people had light as they talked into the night. Godefroy himself lived a spartan life.A large pumpkin bought at market was a typical source of food. He carried buckets of water up from the Detroit River.The realities of frontier life were partly responsible for this simple lifestyle, but so were the Indians with whom Godefroy often interacted.After all, the Indian agent was required by law to keep an open house for all representative Indians who happened to visit the Detroit outpost. 24   The Talking Mare By 1805, Godefroy was elderly and one of few Detroit inhabitants who had been born within the walls of Fort Pontchartrain, the original fort built by Antoine de la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, when he established Detroit in 1701. The area was part of New France when Cadillac arrived. But in the late 1700s, France began losing its vast dominions—­ which reached from Canada to New Orleans—­ to the British, who finally surrendered Detroit in 1796, some thirteen years after the Revolutionary War ended. Godefroy had lived to see all of this and served the American government as an Indian agent for forty years. Godefroy’s friends were also among Detroit’s early French pioneers , people who are now remembered by many street names in Detroit: Jacques Campeau,Antoine Beaubien,Antoine De Quindre, and others. Often, these Detroit pioneers were joined at the old house by many Indians who also are remembered today by street or city names:Tecumseh, Okemos (a nephew of Chief Pontiac), and others. Godefroy is remembered for all of this. But he also is remembered for having the most interesting (at times,comical and fanciful) mare ever known.A mare is an adult, female horse.This mare actually belonged to Godefroy’s clerk, Jean Beaugrand, a rather strange old man who walked around mumbling to himself. He lived in the loft of Godefroy’s barn, above his mare’s stable. TheTalking Mare   25 This mare had been around longer than anyone could remember . No one knew how old she was—­ only that she was very old and that she seemed to know it. Her name was Sans Souci—­ which means “carefree,” and carefree this mare was. She roamed anywhere she wanted to, eating corn from one neighbor’s cornfield or watermelon from another neighbor’s melon patch.When people threw sticks and stones at her, she ran off. But she kept at this behavior, always eating from people’s farm fields and dashing away. It was said that no fence was high enough to keep her out and that she had once even jumped over the picket fence of Fort Ponchartrain itself—­ some twelve feet high.A few people shot their guns at her, but then she just kicked up her heels and ran. If they whipped her, she just snarled. During the times she wasn’t stealing food,Sans Souci mostly just hung out on the streets of Detroit, watching the goings-­ on—­ dog fights here, people arguing politics there, others laughing. Sometimes , she seemed to laugh with them, opening her toothy mouth wide and hee-­ hawing loudly. Other times, she shook her head, as if in disapproval of their conversation. The only time Sans Souci really seemed to brighten up was when her owner,old Jean,came into sight and beckoned to her.Her ears went back, and off she went at an awkward gallop. It was almost a limp,and while many attributed it to her age,old Jean said that she had broken her leg in a race on the ice when she was young. She had just kept on running, he said, winning the race at the price...