Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" of the North-West

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" of the North-West CHAPTER XXXVIII CONCLUSION What we had long anticipated of the sufferings of the Indians, began to manifest itself as the spring drew on. It first came under our observation by the accounts brought in, by those who came in little parties begging for food. As long as it was possible to issue occasional rations their father continued to do so, but the supplies in the Commissary Department were now so much reduced that Col. Cutler did not feel justified in authorizing anything beyond a scanty relief, and this in extreme cases. We had ourselves throughout the winter used the greatest economy with our own stores, that we might not exhaust our slender stock of flour and meal before it could be replenished from “below.” We had even purchased some sour flour which had been condemned by the commissary, and had contrived by a plentiful use of saleratus, and a due proportion of potatoes, to make of it a very palatable kind of bread. But as we had continued to give to party after party, as they would come to us to represent their famishing condition, the time at length arrived when we had nothing to give. The half-breed families of the neighborhood, who had, like ourselves, continued to share with the needy as long as their own stock lasted, were now obliged, of necessity, to refuse further assistance. These women often came in to lament with us over the sad accounts that were brought from the wintering grounds. It had been a very open winter. The snow had scarcely been enough at any time to permit the Indians to track the deer, in fact, all the game had been driven off by the troops and war parties scouring the country through the preceding summer. We heard of their dying by companies from mere destitution, and lying stretched in the road to the Portage, whither they were striving to drag their exhausted frames. Soup made of the bark of the slippery elm, or stewed acorns, were the only food that many had subsisted on for weeks. We had for a long time received our food by daily rations from the garrison, for things had got to such a pass that there was no possibility of obtaining a barrel of flour at a time. After our meals were finished, I always went into the pantry, and collecting carefully every remaining particle of food set it aside to be given to some of the wretched applicants by whom we were constantly thronged. One day as I was thus employed, a face appeared at the window with which I had once been familiar. It was the pretty daughter of the elder Day-kau-ray. She had formerly visited us often, watching with great interest our employments—our sewing, or weeding and cultivating the garden, or our reading. Of the latter, I had many times endeavored to give her some idea, showing her the plates in the Family Bible, and doing my best to explain them to her, but of late I had quite lost sight of her. Now, how changed, how wan she looked! As I addressed her with my ordinary phrase, “ Tshah-ko-zhah? ” (What is it?) she gave a sigh that was almost a sob. She did not beg, but her countenance spoke volumes. I took my dish and handed it to her, expecting to see her devour the contents eagerly, but no—she took it, and making signs that she would soon return, walked away. When she brought it back, I was almost sure she had not tasted a morsel herself. The boats—the boats with the corn! Why did they not come? We both wrote and sent to hasten them, but alas! everything and everybody moved so slowly in those unenterprising times! We could only feel sure that they would come when they were ready, and not a moment before. We were soon obliged to keep both doors and windows fast, to shut out the sight of misery we could not relieve. If a door was opened for the admission of a member of the family, some wretched mother would rush in, grasp the hand of my infant, and placing that of her famishing child within it, tell us pleadingly, that he was imploring “his little brother” for food. The stoutest-hearted man could not have beheld with dry eyes the heart-rending spectacle which often presented itself. It was in vain that we screened the lower portion of our windows with curtains. They would climb up on the outside, and tier upon tier of gaunt, wretched faces would peer in above, to watch us, and see if, indeed, we were as ill-provided as we represented ourselves. The noble old Day-kau-ray came one day, from the Barribault, to apprise us of the state of his village. More than forty of his people, he said, had now been for many days without food, save bark and roots. My husband accompanied him to the commanding officer to tell his story, and ascertain ii any amount of food could be obtained from that quarter. The result was, the promise of a small allowance of flour, sufficient to alleviate the cravings of his own family. When this was explained to the chief, he turned away. “No,” he said, “if his people could not be relieved, he and his family would starve with them!” And he refused, for those nearest and dearest to him, the proffered succor, until all could share alike. The announcement, at length, that “the boats were in sight,” was a thrilling and most joyful sound. Hundreds of poor creatures were at once assembled on the bank, watching their arrival. Oh! how torturing was their slow approach, by the winding course of the river, through the extended prairie! As the first boat touched the bank, we, who were gazing on the scene with anxiety and impatience only equalled by that of the sufferers, could scarcely refrain from laughing, to see old Wild-Cat, who had somewhat fallen off in his huge amount of flesh, seize “the Washington Woman” in his arms, and hug and dance with her in the ecstasy of his delight. Their father made a sign to them all to fall to work with their hatchets, which they had long held ready, and in an incredibly short time, barrel after barrel was broken open and emptied, while even the little children possessed themselves of pans and kettles full, and hastened to the fires that were blazing around to parch and cook that which they had seized. From this time forward, there was no more destitution. The present abundance was followed by the arrival of supplies for the Commissary’s Department; and refreshed and invigorated, our poor children departed once more to their villages, to make ready their crops for the ensuing season. In the course of the spring, we received a visit from the Rev. Mr. Kent, and Mrs. Kent, of Galena.[ 127 ] This event is memorable, as being the first occasion on which the Gospel, according to the Protestant faith, was preached at Fort Winnebago. The large parlor of the hospital was fitted up for the service, and gladly did we each say to the other, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” For nearly three years had we lived here without the blessing of a public service of praise and thanksgiving. We regarded this commencement as an omen of better times, and our little “sewing society” worked with renewed industry, to raise a fund which might be available hereafter, in securing the permanent services of a missionary. Not long after this, on a fine spring morning, as we were seated at breakfast, a party of Indians entered the parlor, and came to the door of the room where we were. Two of them passed through, and went out upon a small portico—the third remained standing in the door-way at which he had at first appeared. He was nearly opposite me, and as I raised my eyes, spite of his change of dress, and the paint with which he was covered, I at once recognized him. I continued to pour the coffee, and as I did so, I remarked to my husband, “The one behind you, with whom you are speaking, is one of the escaped prisoners.” Without turning his head, he continued to listen to all the directions they were giving him about the repairing of their guns, traps, &c., which they wished to leave with the blacksmith. As they went on, he cautiously turned his head towards the parlor door, and replied to the one speaking to him from there. When he again addressed me, it was to say, “You are right, but it is no affair of ours. We are none of us to look so as to give him notice that we suspect anything. They are undoubtedly innocent, and have suffered enough already.” Contrary to his usual custom, their father did not ask their names, but wrote their directions, which he tied to their different implements, and then bade them go and deliver them themselves to M. Morrin. The rest of our circle were greatly pleased at the young fellow’s audacity, and we quite longed to tell the officers that we could have caught one of their fugitives for them, if we had had a mind. The time had now come when we began to think seriously of leaving our pleasant home, and taking up our residence at Detroit, while making arrangements for a permanent settlement at Chicago. The intelligence, when communicated to our Winnebago children, brought forth great lamentations and demonstrations of regret. From the surrounding country they came flocking in, to inquire into the truth of the tidings they had heard, and to petition earnestly that we would continue to live and die among them. Among them all no one seemed so overwhelmed with affliction as Elizabeth, our poor Cut-nose . When we first told her of our intention, she sat for hours in the same spot, wiping away the tears that would find their way down her cheeks, with the corner of the chintz shawl she wore pinned across her bosom. “No! never, never, never shall I find such friends again,” she would exclaim. “You will go away, and I shall be left here all alone .” Wild-Cat too, the fat, jolly Wild-Cat, gave way to the most audible lamentations. “Oh! my little brother,” he said to the baby, on the morning of our departure, when he had insisted on taking him and seating him on his fat, dirty knee, “you will never come back to see your poor brother again!” And having taken an extra glass on the occasion, he wept like an infant. It was with sad hearts that on the morning of the 1st of July, 1833, we bade adieu to the long cortege which followed us to the boat, now waiting to convey us to Green Bay, where we were to meet Governor Porter and Mr. Brush, and proceed, under their escort, to Detroit. When they had completed their tender farewells, they turned to accompany their father across the Portage, on his route to Chicago, and long after, we could see them winding along the road, and hear their loud lamentations at a parting which they foresaw would be forever. APPENDIX As I have given throughout the Narrative of the Sauk War, the impressions we received from our own observation, or from information furnished us at the time, I think it but justice to Black Hawk and his party to insert, by way of Appendix, the following account, preserved among the manuscript writings of the late Thomas Forsyth, Esq., of St. Louis, who, after residing among the Indians many years as a trader, was, until the year 1830, the Agent of the Sauks and Foxes.[ 128 ] The manuscript was written in 1832, while Black Hawk and his compatriots were in prison at Jefferson Barracks. “The United States troops under the command of Major Stoddard arrived here, [BD] and took possession of this country in the month of February, 1804. In the spring of that year, a white person (a man or boy), was killed in Cuivre Settlement, by a Sauk Indian. Some time in the summer following, a party of United States troops were sent up to the Sauk village on Rocky river, and a demand made of the Sauk Chiefs for the murderer. The Sauk Chiefs did not hesitate a moment, but delivered him up to the commander of the troops, who brought him down and delivered him over to the civil authority in this place (St. Louis). [BD] St. Louis, Mo. “Some time in the ensuing autumn some Sauk and Fox Indians came to this place, and had a conversation with General Harrison (then Governor of Indian Territory, and acting Governor of this State, then Territory of Louisiana), on the subject of liberating their relative, then in prison at this place for the above-mentioned murder. “Quash-quame, a Sauk chief, who was the head man of this party, has repeatedly said, ‘Mr. Pierre Choteau, Sen., came several times to my camp, offering that if I would sell the lands on the east side of the Mississippi river, Governor Harrison would liberate my relation, (meaning the Sauk Indian then in prison as above related), to which I at last agreed, and sold the lands from the mouth of the Illinois river up the Mississippi river as high as the mouth of Rocky river (now Rock river), and east to the ridge that divides the waters of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, but I never sold any more lands.’ Quash-quame also said to Governor Edwards, Governor Clark and Mr. Auguste Chouteau, Commissioners appointed to treat with the Chippewas, Ottowas, and Pottowattamies of Illinois river, in the summer of 1816, for lands on the west side of the Illinois river: “‘Your white men may put on paper what you please, but again I tell you, I never sold any lands higher up the Mississippi than the mouth of Rocky river.’ “In the treaty first mentioned, the line commences opposite to the mouth of Gasconade river, and running in a direct line to the headwaters of Jefferson [BE] river, thence down that river to the Mississippi river—thence up the Mississippi river to the mouth of the Ouisconsin river—thence up that river thirty-six miles—thence in a direct line to a little lake in Fox river of Illinois, down Fox river to Illinois river, down Illinois river to its mouth, thence down the Mississippi river to the mouth of Missouri river, thence up that river to the place of beginning. See Treaty dated at St. Louis, 4th November, 1804. [BE] There is no such river in this country, therefore this treaty is null and void—-of no effect in law or equity. Such was the opinion of the late Gov. Howard. (T. F.) “The Sauk and Fox nations were never consulted, nor had any hand in this Treaty, nor knew anything about it. It was made and signed by two Sauk chiefs, one Fox chief and one warrior. “When the annuities were delivered to the Sauk and Fox nations of Indians, according to the treaty above referred to (amounting to $1,000 per annum), the Indians always thought they were presents, (as the annuity for the first twenty years was always paid in goods, sent on from Georgetown, District of Columbia, and poor articles of merchandize they were, very often damaged and not suitable for Indians), until I, as their Agent, convinced them of the contrary, in the summer of 1818. When the Indians heard that the goods delivered to them were annuities for land, sold by them to the United States, they were astonished, and refused to accept of the goods, denying that they ever sold the lands as stated by me, their Agent. The Black Hawk in particular, who was present at the time, made a great noise about this land, and would never receive any part of the annuities from that time forward. He always denied the authority of Quash-quame and others to sell any part of their lands, and told the Indians not to receive any presents or annuities from any American—otherwise their lands would be claimed at some future day. “As the United States do insist, and retain the lands according to the Treaty of Nov. 4, 1804, why do they not fulfil their part of that Treaty as equity demands? “The Sauk and Fox nations are allowed, according to that Treaty, ‘to live and hunt on the lands so ceded, as long as the aforesaid lands belong to the United States.’ In the spring of the year 1827, about twelve or fifteen families of squatters arrived and took possession of the Sauk village, near the mouth of the Rocky river. They immediately commenced destroying the Indians’ bark boats. Some were burned, others were torn to pieces, and when the Indians arrived at the village, and found fault with the destruction of their property, they were beaten and abused by the Squatters. “The Indians made complaint to me, as their Agent I wrote to Gen. Clark, [BF] stating to him from time to time what happened, and giving a minute detail of everything that passed between the whites (Squatters) and the Indians. [BF] Superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. (Ed.) “The squatters insisted that the Indians should be removed from their village, saying that as soon as the land was brought into market they (the squatters) would buy it all. It became needless for me to show them the treaty, and the right the Indians had to remain on their lands. They tried every method to annoy the Indians, by shooting their dogs, claiming their horses; complaining that the Indians' horses broke into their cornfields—selling them whiskey for the most trifling articles, contrary to the wishes and request of the chiefs, particularly the Black Hawk, who both solicited and threatened them on the subject, but all to no purpose. “The President directed those lands to be sold at the Land Office, in Springfield, Illinois. Accordingly when the time came that they were to be offered for sale (in the Autumn of 1828), there were about twenty families of squatters at, and in the vicinity of the old Sauk village, most of whom attended the sale, and but one of them could purchase a quarter-section (if we except George Davenport, a trader who resides in Rocky Island). Therefore, all the land not sold, still belonged to the United States, and the Indians had still a right, by treaty, to hunt and live on those lands. This right, however, was not allowed them—they must move off. “In 1830, the principal chiefs, and others of the Sauk and Fox Indians who resided at the old village, near Rocky river, acquainted me that they would remove to their village on Ihoway river. These chiefs advised me to write to General Clarke, Superintendent of Indian Affairs at this place (St. Louis), to send up a few militia—that the Black Hawk and his followers would then see that everything was in earnest, and they would remove to the west side of the Mississippi, to their own lands. “The letter, as requested by the chiefs, was written and sent by me to General Clarke, but he did not think proper to answer it—therefore everything remained as formerly, and, as a matter of course. Black Hawk and his party thought the whole matter of removing from the old village had blown over. “In the Spring of 1831, the Black Hawk and his party were augmented by many Indians from Ihoway river. This augmentation of forces made the Black Hawk very proud, and he supposed nothing would be done about removing him and his party. “General Gaines visited the Black Hawk and his party this season, with a force of regulars and militia, and compelled them to remove to the west side of the Mississippi river, on their own lands. “When the Black Hawk and party recrossed to the east side of the Mississippi river in 1832, they numbered three hundred and sixty-eight men. They were hampered with many women and children, and had no intention to make war. When attacked by General Stillman’s detachment, they defended themselves like men, and I would ask, who would not do so, likewise? Thus the war commenced. * * * * “The Indians had been defeated, dispersed, and some of the principal chiefs are now in prison and in chains, at Jefferson Barracks. * * * * “It is very well known, by all who know the Black Hawk, that he has always been considered a friend to the whites. Often has he taken into his lodge the wearied white man, given him good food to eat, and a good blanket to sleep on before the fire. Many a good meal has the Prophet given to people travelling past his village, and very many stray horses has he recovered from the Indians, and restored to their rightful owners, without asking any recompense whatever. * * * * “What right have we to tell any people, ‘You shall not cross the Mississippi river on any pretext whatever?’ When the Sauk and Fox Indians wish to cross the Mississippi, to visit their relations among the Pottawattomies, of Fox river, Illinois, they are prevented by us, because we have the power! ” I omit, in the extracts I have made, the old gentleman’s occasional comments upon the powers that dictated, and the forces which carried on the warfare of this unhappy Summer. There is every reason to believe that had his suggestions been listened to, and had he continued the Agent of the Sauks and Foxes, a sad record might have been spared. I mean the untimely fate of the unfortunate M. St. Vrain, who, a comparative stranger to his people, was murdered by them, in their exasperated fury, at Kellogg’s Grove, soon after the commencement of the campaign. NOTES BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 1 (page page 2 ).— Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River in 1820; resumed and completed by the Discovery of its Origin in Itasca Lake in 1832 , by Henry R. Schoolcraft (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1855—the year in which Wau-Bun was written). 2 (page page 2 ).—The etymology of Michilimackinac (now abbreviated to Mackinac) is generally given as “great turtle,” and is supposed to refer to the shape of the island. The Ottawa chief, A. J. Blackbird, in his History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan (Ypsilanti, Mich., 1887), pp. 19, 20, gives a far different derivation; he traces the name back to “Mishinemackinong,” the dwelling-place of the Mishinemackinawgo, a small tribe, early allies of the Ottawas, but practically annihilated by the Iroquois, during one of the North-western raids of the latter. 3 (page page 3 ).—-Robert Stuart, born in Scotland in 1784, was educated in Paris; coming to America when twenty-two years of age, he went at once to Montreal, connecting himself with the Northwest Fur Company. In 1810, in connection with his uncle, David Stuart, he joined forces with John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company, and was one of the party which went from New York by sea to found Astoria, on the Pacific coast. In 1812, in company with Ramsay Crooks, he was sent overland to New York with important despatches for the company—a hazardous expedition, which consumed nearly a year in its accomplishment. He arrived at Mackinac in 1819, a partner with Astor in the American Fur Company, and manager of its affairs throughout the wide expanse of country which was then served from this entrepôt. After fifteen years upon the island, where he was the leading resident, Stuart went to Detroit in 1834, upon the closing out of the company’s affairs. At that place he took prominent part in business and public affairs. In 1887 we find him local director of the poor; in 1839, moderator of the school district; in 1840-41, state treasurer of Michigan, and from 1841-45, United States Indian agent for that state. Stuart also took active part in church work, was insistent on discountenancing the rum traffic, which always went hand in hand with the fur trade, and bore a high reputation for personal probity. Dying suddenly in Chicago, in 1848, his body was taken in a sailing-vessel around by the lakes to Detroit; at Mackinac Island, en route, it lay in state for several hours. 4 (page page 6 ).—Rev. William Montague Ferry organized the Presbyterian church at Mackinac in 1822; it later developed into a mission school. After suffering many trials and disappointments he was released from service August 6, 1834, at once settling at Grand Haven, Mich., his being the first white family at that place. He died December 30, 1867. Williams’s The Old Mission Church of Mackinac Island (Detroit, 1895) gives a history of this enterprise. 5 (page page 6 ).—Upon the downfall of New France (1763), the fur trade of the Northwest fell into the hands of citizens of Great Britain. In 1766, a few Scotch merchants reopened the trade, with headquarters at Mackinac, employing French-Canadians as agents, clerks, and voyageurs . In 1783-87, the Northwest Company was organized, also with Mackinac as a center of distribution, as the chief rival of the Hudson Bay Company and of the old Mackinaw Company. In 1809, John Jacob Astor organized the American Fur Company. Two years later he secured a half interest in the Mackinaw Company, which he renamed the Southwest Company. In the war of 1812-15, Astor lost his Pacific post of Astoria, which fell into the possession of the Northwest Company, and the trade of the Southwest Company was shattered. In 1816, Congress decreed that foreign fur-traders were not to be admitted to do business within the United States. Under this protection Astor reorganized the American Fur Company, which flourished until his retirement from business, in 1834. 6 (page page 8 ).—Large bateaux, about thirty feet long, used by fur-traders in the transportation of their cargoes upon the lakes and rivers of the Northwest. The cargo was placed in the center, both ends being sharp and high above the water. The crew generally consisted of seven men ( voyageurs ), of whom six rowed and one served as steersman; in addition, each boat was commanded by a clerk of the fur company, who was called the bourgeois (master). During rainstorms the cargo was protected by snug-fitting tarpaulins, fastened down and over the sides of the boat. 7 (page page 9 ).—Madame Joseph Laframboise, a half-breed, was the daughter of Jean Baptiste Marcotte, who died while she was an infant; her mother was the daughter of Kewaniquot (Returning Cloud), a prominent chief of the Ottawas. Joseph Laframboise, a devout man, of great force of character, conducted a considerable trade with the Indians. In 1809, while kneeling at prayer in his tent near Grand River, on the east shore of Lake Michigan, he was shot dead by an Indian to whom he had refused to give liquor. His wife, who had generally accompanied him on his expeditions, continued the business without interruption, and obtained a wide reputation throughout the Mackinac district as a woman of rare business talents, and capable of managing the natives with astuteness. Her contemporaries among Americans described her as speaking a remarkably fine French, and being a graceful and refined person, despite her limited education. She invariably wore the costume of an Indian squaw. Her children were placed at school in Montreal. One of her daughters, Josette, was married at Mackinac to Captain Benjamin K. Pierce, commandant of the fort, and brother of President Pierce. Madame Laframboise closed her business with the American Fur Company in 1821, and thereafter lived upon the island, where she lies buried. 8 (page page 10 ).—Samuel Abbott was one of the officials of the American Fur Company, and a notary and justice of the peace, for many years being the only functionary on Mackinac Island vested with power to perform marriage ceremonies. Edward Biddle was a brother of Nicholas Biddle, president of the United States Bank during Andrew Jackson’s administration. Edward went to Mackinac about 1818, and married a pretty, full-blooded Indian girl, step-daughter of a French fur-trade clerk named Joseph Bailly. The Biddies lived on the island for fifty years, and were buried there. Their eldest daughter, Sophia, was carefully educated in Philadelphia by Nicholas Biddle’s family, but finally died on the island, of consumption. She was, like her mother, a Catholic; but the other children, also well educated, became Protestants. 9 (page page 10 ).—For a character sketch of Mrs. David Mitchell, see Mrs. Baird’s “Early Days on Mackinac Island,” Wisconsin Historical Collections , vol. xiv, pp. 35-58. 10 (page page 11 ).—British and Indian forces under Captain Charles Roberts, from the garrison at St. Joseph, captured the American fort on Mackinac Island, commanded by Lieutenant Porter Hanks, upon July 17, 1812. The ease with which this capture was made, induced the British to throw up a strong earthwork on the high hill commanding the fort, about a half-mile in its rear. This fortification was called Fort George; August 4, 1814, an attempt was made by the Americans to retake the island, which has great strategic importance, as guarding the gateways to Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior. There were seven war-vessels under Commodore Sinclair, and a land force of 750 under Colonel Croghan. The vessels could effect only a blockade; the military disembarked at “British Landing,” where Roberts’s forces had beached two years before. In the consequent attack, which proved fruitless, Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, second in command, and an officer of great promise, was killed. When the island was surrendered to the United States by the treaty of Ghent (February, 1815), Fort George was rechristened Fort Holmes, a name which the abandoned ruins still bear. 11 (page page 12 ).—The author was evidently misled by a typographical error in some historical work which she had consulted. The date should be 1670. Father Jacques Marquette, driven with his flock of Hurons and Ottawas from Chequamegon Bay (Lake Superior) by the Sioux of the West, established himself at Point St. Ignace. There he remained for three years, until he left with Louis Joliet to explore the Mississippi River. 12 (page page 12 ).—When, in 1650, the Hurons fled before the great Iroquois invasion, some of them took refuge with the French at Quebec, and others migrated to the Mackinac region, and even as far west as northern Wisconsin. The refugees to Lake Superior and northern Wisconsin were driven back east again in 1670 (see Note 11 ), to Mackinac. When Cadillac founded Detroit (1701), some of them accompanied him, and settled in the outskirts of that town. They remained without a religious teacher until the arrival of the Jesuit La Richardie. He established his mission on the opposite bank of the river from Detroit, at where is now Sandwich, Ontario. This was in order to avoid conflict of ecclesiastical jurisdiction with the Récollets in charge at Detroit. The mission house built by La Richardie stood until after the middle of the nineteenth century; that portion of his church which was built in 1728 remained until the last decade of that century; but the addition, built in 1743, is still in good condition, and used as a dwelling. 13 (page page 12 ).—Near the modern village of Harbor Springs, Mich. It is frequently called “Cross Village” in early English-American documents. 14 (page page 14 ).—John P. Arndt, a Pennsylvania German, arrived in Green Bay in 1823. He was for many years the leader of the French fur-trading element on the lower Fox River. He kept the first ferry at Green Bay (1825), and was as well a miller and a lumberman. 15 (page page 15 ).—In 1820, Colonel Joseph Lee Smith moved the garrison from Fort Howard, on the west bank of Fox River, to new quarters, called Camp Smith, three miles above, on the opposite bank. Camp Smith was occupied for two years, when the garrison returned to Fort Howard. A polyglot settlement sprang up between Camp Smith and the river, popularly called Shantytown, but later (1829) platted as Menomoneeville. Shantytown was afterward abandoned by the most prosperous settlers in favor of a point lower down the river on the same bank, and is but a suburb of the present Green Bay. 16 (page page 16 ).—The site of Fort Howard (thus named from General Benjamin Howard), on the west bank of Fox River, was selected in 1816 by Major Charles Gratiot, of the engineer corps, who prepared the plans, and was present during the earlier portion of its construction; its completion was, however, left to the superintendence of Colonel Talbot Chambers. As per Note 15 , the fort was abandoned in favor of Camp Smith from 1820-22, but was otherwise continuously garrisoned until 1841. It then remained ungarrisoned until 1849, when it was occupied for two years. From 1852 forward the fort was unoccupied, save for a brief period in 1863 by militiamen. The buildings are now for the most part effaced. 17 (page page 16 ).—James Duane Doty was born at Salem, N. Y., November 5, 1799. Having studied law, he settled at Detroit in his twentieth year, and soon became clerk of the Michigan Supreme Court and secretary of the territorial legislature. In 1820 he made a tour of the upper lakes in company with Governor Lewis Cass, penetrating to the sources of the Mississippi. In 1823 he was appointed United States district judge for that portion of Michigan Territory lying west of Lakes Michigan and Superior, and for ten years held court both at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. In 1834, as a member of the territorial legislature, he drafted the act which made Michigan a state and Wisconsin a territory. From 1837-41 he served as delegate to Congress from Wisconsin, and from 1841-44 as governor of the new territory. Vigorously ambitious in behalf of Wisconsin, he long though vainly sought to regain from Illinois the strip of country north of a line drawn due westward from the southernmost part of Lake Michigan, the ordinance of 1787 having named this as the boundary between the two states to be erected to the west of Lake Michigan and the Wabash River; had his contention prevailed, Chicago would have been a Wisconsin city. Doty served in the Wisconsin state constitutional convention (1846); was a member of Congress (1850-53); in 1861 was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs of Utah, and signed the first treaty ever made with the Shoshones; and in May, 1863, was appointed governor of Utah, in which office he died, June 13, 1865. 18 (page page 17 ).—William Selby Harney, born in Louisiana, entered the array in 1818 as a second lieutenant. He was made captain in the First Infantry May 14, 1825, and major and paymaster May 1, 1833; promoted to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the Second Dragoons August 15, 1836; brevetted colonel December 7, 1840, for gallant and meritorious conduct in successive Indian campaigns, and became colonel of his regiment June 30, 1846. For conspicuous gallantry in the battle of Cerro Gordo, he was brevetted brigadier-general April 18, 1847, and became brigadier-general June 14, 1858. He was retired August 1, 1863, and two years later was brevetted major-general for long and faithful service. He died May 9, 1889. 19 (page page 18 ).—Joseph Rolette was a prominent fur trader of Prairie du Chien, and one of the most marked characters among the French Canadians of Wisconsin during the first third of the nineteenth century. In the War of 1812-15, he held a commission in the British Indian department, and piloted the British troops in their attack on Prairie du Chien in 1814. 20 (page page 20 ).—Rev. Richard Fish Cadle organized the Episcopalian parish of St. Paul’s, in Detroit, November 22, 1824. In 1828, his health failing, he went to Green Bay in company with his sister Sarah, and established an Indian mission school at the now abandoned barracks of Camp Smith (see Note 15 ). During the winter of 1828-29, the United States government granted a small tract of land for the purpose, and the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of his church erected suitable buildings thereon. In 1838 the Cadles withdrew from the work, which had not met with great success. The Indians were either indifferent to the scheme or bitterly opposed to it, objecting to rigid discipline being applied to their children. The French also disliked the enterprise, both because it was a Protestant mission and because it did not accord with their notions of the fitness of things. Solomon Juneau, the founder of Milwaukee, once wrote: “As to the little savages whom you ask about for Mr. Cadle, I have spoken to several, and they tell me with satisfaction that they are much happier in their present situation than in learning geography.” Mr. Cadle suffered greatly in health because of the ceaseless worry of his untenable position; but no doubt many of his troubles were the result of his own highly nervous temperament. The mission was carried on by others until 1840, and then succumbed. 21 (page page 21 ).—Reference is here made to Ursula M. Grignon, daughter of Louis Grignon, a Green Bay fur-trader, and grandson of Charles de Langlade, the first permanent white settler in Wisconsin. Later, Miss Grignon returned to her family at Green Bay, where she died February 22, 1887. 22 (page page 22 ).—Elizabeth Thérèse Baird was born at Prairie du Chien, April 24, 1810, a daughter of Henry Munro Fisher, a prominent Scotch fur-trader in the employ of the American Fur Company. On her mother’s side she was a descendant of an Ottawa chief, Kewaniquot (Returning Cloud), and related to Madame Laframboise (see Note 7 ). Marrying Henry S. Baird, a young lawyer of Mackinac Island, in 1824, when but fourteen years of age, the couple at once took up their residence at Green Bay. Baird was the first regularly trained legal practitioner in Wisconsin, and attained considerable prominence in the political life of the new territory. He died in 1875. Mrs. Baird was one of the most remarkable pioneer women of the Northwest; she was of charming personality and excellent education, proud of her trace of Indian blood, and had a wide acquaintance with the principal men and women of early Wisconsin. Her reminiscences, published in vols. xiv and xv of the Wisconsin Historical Collections , are as interesting and valuable of their kind as Wau-Bun itself. She died at Green Bay, November 5, 1890. 23 (page page 23 ).—Mrs. Samuel W. Beall. Her husband was a lawyer from Virginia, and she a niece of Fenimore Cooper, the novelist. In 1835, the Bealls, who were prominent in the social life of Green Bay, became rich through land speculation, but subsequently lost the greater part of their fortune. Beall was shot dead, in the Far West, in some border disturbance, and his wife devoted the remainder of her life to charitable work. 24 (page page 25 )—Major David Emanuel Twiggs was born in Georgia, and entered the army as captain of infantry in 1812. He became major of the Twenty-eighth Infantry in 1814; lieutenant-colonel of the Fourth Infantry in 1831; colonel of the Second Dragoons in 1836; brigadier-general in June, 1846; and for gallant and meritorious conduct at Monterey was brevetted major-general in September of the same year. Twiggs was dismissed the service in March, 1861, having while on command in the South surrendered army stores to the Confederates. He served as major-general in the Confederate army from 1861-65. 25 (page page 27 ).—Wife of Lewis Cass, then governor of Michigan. 26 (page page 27 ).—Charles Réaume was born of good family about 1752, at La Prairie, opposite Montreal. In 1778 we find him at Detroit as a captain in the British Indian department, in which capacity he accompanied Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton in the expedition against Vincennes in December of that year. When George Rogers Clark captured Vincennes in the following February, Réaume was among the prisoners, but was allowed to return to Detroit upon parole. He appears to have settled at Green Bay about 1790, and it is thought received his first commission as justice of the peace from the British authorities at Detroit. About 1801 he received a similar appointment from William Henry Harrison, then governor of Indiana Territory, of which what is now Wisconsin was then a part. In 1818, Governor Cass, of Michigan Territory, appointed him one of the associate justices for Brown County, of which Green Bay was the seat. In the same year he removed to Little Kaukaulin, ten miles up Fox River from Green Bay, and there engaged in trade with the Indians, in the course of which he fell into drunken habits. In the spring of 1822 he was found dead in his lonely cabin. He was unmarried. Réaume, as stated by Mrs. Kinzie, administered justice in a primitive fashion. During much of his career as a petty magistrate, he was the only civil officer west of Lake Michigan. Ungoverned by statutes or by supervision, he married, divorced, even baptized, his people at will, and was notary and general clerical functionary for the entire population, white and red. He is one of the picturesque characters in Wisconsin history. 27 (page page 28 ).—The father of Nicholas Boilvin was a resident of Quebec during the American Revolution. Upon the declaration of peace, Nicholas went to the Northwest, and engaged in the Indian trade. He obtained from the United States government the position of Indian agent, and in 1810 went to Prairie du Chien. In 1814, when the British attacked that post, Boilvin and his family, with other Americans, retired to a gunboat in the Mississippi River and fled to St. Louis. In addition to his Indian agency, Boilvin was a justice of the peace, his first commission being issued by the authorities of Illinois Territory in 1809. He died in the summer of 1827 on a Mississippi River keel-boat, while en route for St. Louis. At one time he furnished the war department with a Winnebago vocabulary. 28 (page page 29 ).—For other Canadian boat-songs, see Hunt’s Merchants' Magazine , vol. iii, p. 189; Bela Hubbard’s Memorials of a Half Century , and Ernest Gagnon’s Chanson Populaires du Canada . 29 (page page 30 ).—The Grignon family are prominently identified with Wisconsin pioneer history. Their progenitor was Pierre, who had been a voyageur on Lake Superior at an early date, and an independent fur-trader at Green Bay before 1763. For his second wife he married Louise Domitilde, a daughter of Charles de Langlade, the first permanent settler of Wisconsin (about 1750). By her, Pierre Grignon had nine children—Pierre Antoine (1777), Charles (1779), Augustin (1780), Louis (1783), Jean Baptiste (1785), Domitilde (1787), Marguerite (1789), Hippolyte (1790), and Amable (1795). The elder Pierre died at Green Bay in 1795, his widow subsequently marrying Jean Baptiste Langevin. Of the sons of Pierre Grignon, most won prominence as fur-traders—Augustin, whose valuable “Seventy-Two Years' Recollections of Wisconsin” are given in vol. iii of Wisconsin Historical Collections , is best known to students of Western history. 30 (page page 31 ).—Variously spelled in contemporary documents, Grand Kaccalin, Cacalin, Cockolin, Kackalin, Kakalin, and Kokolow; but later crystallized into Kaukauna, the name of the modern manufacturing town now situated upon the banks of this rapid. Dominic Du Charme was the first white settler there (1793), being followed by Augustin Grignon (1812). A Presbyterian Indian mission was established at the place in 1822 (see Note 31 ). 31 (page page 32 ).—Rev. Cutting Marsh was born in Danville, Vt., July 20, 1800. Prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., he graduated from Dartmouth in 1826, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1829. In October, 1829, he departed for the Northwest as missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, in the employ both of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. The Stockbridges were originally a New England tribe who had been moved to New York. In 1822-23, along with Oneidas, Munsees, and Brothertowns, they went to the Fox River Valley in Wisconsin. The mission to the Stockbridges was first established at what is now South Kaukauna (see Note 30 ), and was called Statesburg; later (1832), it was moved to Calumet County, east of Lake Winnebago, the new village being called Stockbridge. Their first missionary in Wisconsin was Jesse Miner, who died in 1829. Marsh served from 1830-48; thereafter he was an itinerant Presbyterian missionary in northern Wisconsin, and died at Waupaca July 4, 1873. Marsh’s letter-books and journals, a rich mine of pioneer church annals, are now in the archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society; his annual reports to the Scottish Society were published in Vol. XV of the Wisconsin Historical Collections . They bear a curious resemblance in matter and style to the Jesuit Relations of New France, in the seventeenth century. 32 (page page 32 ).—Rev. Eleazer Williams was an Episcopalian missionary to the Oneida Indians, some of whom moved to Wisconsin from New York in 1821-22. In 1853, Williams, who was imbued with a passion for notoriety, suddenly posed before the American public as Louis XVII., hereditary sovereign of France, claiming to be that son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette who was officially reported to have died in prison after his parents had been beheaded by the Paris revolutionists. Although he was too young by eight years to be the lost dauphin, was clearly of Indian origin, was stoutly claimed by his dusky parents, and every allegation of his in regard to the matter was soon exposed as false, many persons of romantic temperament believed his story, and there are those who still stoutly maintain that his pretensions were well founded. Williams died in 1858, discredited by his church, but persisting in his absurd claims to the last. A considerable literature has sprung up relative to this controversy, pro and con; the most exhaustive account is W. W. Wight’s monograph, Parkman Club Papers (Milwaukee), No. 7. 33 (page page 40 ).—Petit Butte des Morts (little hill of the dead) is a considerable eminence rising from the shores of the Fox River in the western outskirts of the present city of Menasha; a widening of the river at this point bears the name of the butte . The hill, still a striking feature of the landscape, although much reduced from railway and other excavations, commanded the river for several miles in either direction, and appears to have been used in early days as the site of an Indian fort; as such, it was probably the scene of several notable encounters during the Fox War, in the first third of the eighteenth century. Because of these traditions, and the existence of a large Indian mound on its summit, it was long supposed by whites that the entire hill was a gigantic earthwork, reared to bury as well as to commemorate the thousands of Indians whom the French are alleged to have here slain. But this is now known to be mere fancy; the hill is of glacial origin, although no doubt it was at one time used as an Indian cemetery. Grand Butte des Morts, upon the upper waters of the Fox River, above the present Oshkosh, has similar traditions as to its inception, but is of like character; and does not appear to have been the scene of any important fight. 34 (page page 45 ).—The present Island Park, an Oshkosh summer resort. 35 (page page 46 ).—See Gardner P. Stickney’s “Use of Maize by Wisconsin Indians,” Parkman Club Papers , No. 13. This contains numerous bibliographical citations. An exhaustive treatise on the use of wild rice among the northern tribes, by Alfred E. Jenks, will soon be published by the American Bureau of Ethnology. 36 (page page 48 ).—John Lawe, whose father was an officer in the British army. John came to Green Bay in 1797, when but sixteen years old, as assistant to his uncle, Jacob Franks, an English Jew, who represented at Green Bay the fur-trade firm of Ogilvie, Gillespie & Co., of Montreal. On the outbreak of the War of 1812-15, Franks returned to Montreal, turning over his large business to Lawe, who was, until his death in 1846, one of the leading citizens of Green Bay; not only conducting a large fur trade, but serving the public as magistrate and in other capacities. 37 (page page 49 ).—Jacques Porlier, a leading fur-trader, and chief justice of Brown County court. He was a business partner of Augustin Grignon. 38 (page page 52 ).—The Sacs and Foxes maintained an important confederacy for about a hundred years, reaching between the routing of the Foxes by the French, in the first third of the eighteenth century, and the decimation of the Sacs by the Americans in the Black Hawk War (1832). 39 (page page 52 ).—This is incorrect. The French popularly called the Winnebagoes “Puants” (stinkards), a term long supposed to be a literal translation of Winepegou , the name given this tribe by its neighbors. But later investigation proves that Winepegou meant “men from the fetid water,” or “the fetids.” At first, these people were called by the French, “Tribe of the Sea,” because it was thought that salt-water must be meant by the term “fetid.” As the continent was not then thought to be as wide as it has since proved to be, the early French inferred that the Winnebagoes must live on or near the ocean, and might be Chinese. When Champlain sent Jean Nicolet to make a treaty with the Winnebagoes, he equipped the latter with an ambassadorial costume suitable for meeting mandarins. Nicolet was much disappointed to find them at Green Bay, merely naked savages. Baye des Puans (or Puants) was the French name for Green Bay, until well into the eighteenth century. It is now thought that the Winnebagoes came to Wisconsin from the Lake Winnipeg region, and obtained their name from sulphur springs in the neighborhood of which they had lived. They are an outcast branch of the Dakotan stock. 40 (page page 54 ).—Alexander Seymour Hooe was born in Virginia, and graduated from West Point Military Academy in 1827. At the time of Mrs. Kinzie’s visit, he was a first lieutenant in the Fifth Infantry; he was made a captain in July, 1838. In 1846 he was brevetted major for gallant and distinguished conduct at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and died December 9, 1847. 41 (page page 57 ).—Pierre Paquette, local agent of the American Fur Company, and government interpreter. He was a French half-breed, and attained wide reputation because of his enormous strength and his almost despotic control over the Winnebagoes, to whom he was related. 42 (page page 59 ).—Reference is here made to Jefferson Davis, at this time second lieutenant in the First Infantry. 43 (page page 60 ).—This portage was the one used by Joliet and Marquette in their expedition towards the Mississippi in 1673, and thereafter persistently followed as one of the chief pathways to the Mississippi, by French, English, and Americans in turn, until the decline of the fur trade, about 1840. A government canal now connects the two rivers at this point; but it is seldom used, for the upper Fox is very shallow, and the Wisconsin is beset with shifting sandbars, so that few steam craft can now successfully navigate these waters, except at seasons of flood. 44 (page page 63 ).—Old Decorah (sometimes called “Grey-headed” Decorah, or De Kauray) was a village chief of the Winnebagoes, who served in the British campaign against Sandusky in 1813. At the time of his death, soon after Mrs. Kinzie’s visit, he was popularly alleged to be one hundred and forty-three years old. 45 (page page 64 ).—Robert A. Forsyth, an army paymaster, long engaged in the Indian department. He died October 21, 1849. 46 (page page 65 ).—Kawneeshaw (White Crow), sometimes called “The Blind,” was a civil chief and orator of the Winnebagoes. His village was on Lake Koshkonong. White Crow’s devotion to the whites, during the Black Hawk War, was open to suspicion; like most of his tribe, he was but a fair-weather ally. 47 (page page 65 ).—Dandy was the son of Black Wolf, a Winnebago village chief. He died at Peten Well, on the Wisconsin River, near Necedah, in 1870, aged about seventy-seven years. 48 (page page 71 ).—Stephen Hempstead, a Revolutionary soldier who had served as a sergeant in the company of Captain Nathan Hale, moved from Connecticut to St. Louis in 1811. His daughter Susan was married to Henry Gratiot, a leading settler in the Wisconsin-Illinois lead region. Hempstead had two sons, living at Galena, who attained prominence among the pioneers of the lead region, Edward being a commission merchant and lead-ore shipper, and Charles a lawyer of distinction. It is uncertain as to which of these two is meant by Mrs. Kinzie. 49 (page page 72 ).—Joseph M. Street was born in Virginia, about 1780. Emigrating to Kentucky in 1805-6, he published the Western World at Frankfort, and took a conspicuous part in political controversy. In 1812 he became one of the first settlers of Shawnee-town. Ill. As a result of his efforts as a Whig partisan, he obtained in 1827 an appointment to the Winnebago Indian agency at Prairie du Chien, at a salary of $1,200 per year, to succeed Nicholas Boilvin (see Note 27 ). It was to him, as agent, that Winnebago spies delivered up Black Hawk in 1832. In November, 1836, he was ordered to open a Sac and Fox agency at Rock Island; and in the fall of 1837 accompanied Keokuk, Wapello, Black Hawk, and other Indian chiefs and head men to Washington. He died in office, May 5, 1840, at Agency City, on the Des Moines River, Wapello County, Iowa. His military title came from a commission as brigadier-general in the Illinois militia, which he held for a brief period. 50 (page page 75 ).—Yellow Thunder, a Winnebago war chief, had his winter camp at Yellow Banks, on Fox River, about five miles below Berlin, and his summer camp about sixteen miles above Portage, on the Wisconsin River. In the War of 1812-15, he took part with his tribe on the side of the British. He died near Portage, in February, 1874, at the alleged age of over one hundred years. 51 (page page 88 ).—Richard M. Johnson was born in Kentucky in 1780. From 1807-19 he was a member of Congress from that State. In 1813 he raised a volunteer cavalry regiment, of which he was colonel, to serve under General William Henry Harrison. He distinguished himself at the battle of the Thames, and was long thought to have killed Tecumseh by his own hand; but to this doubtful honor he was probably unentitled. Appointed an Indian commissioner in 1814, he was early in the region of the upper Mississippi; he is known to have been at Prairie du Chien in 1819. In that year he left the lower house of Congress to go into the Senate, where he served until 1829. He was then re-elected to the house, in which he held a seat until 1837, when he was elected Vice-President of the United States. He died in Frankfort, November 19, 1850, while a member of the Kentucky legislature. Johnson had the reputation of being a courageous, kind-hearted, and talented man. 52 (page page 95 ).—Apparently a son of François Roy, a Portage fur-trader. 53 (page page 102 ).—Lake Kegonsa, or First Lake, in the well-known Four Lakes chain. These lakes are numbered upward, towards the headwaters. Among early settlers they are still known by the numbers given them by the federal surveyors; but about 1856, Lyman C. Draper, then secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, gave them the Indian names which they now bear on the maps—Kegonsa (First), Waubesa (Second), Monona (Third), and Mendota (Fourth). A fifth lake, called Wingra, also abuts Madison, but is not in the regular chain. 54 (page page 104 ).—Colonel James Morrison, who had in 1828 started a trading establishment at what was called Morrison’s (or Porter’s) Grove, nine miles from Blue Mounds. Later, Morrison became one of the first settlers of Madison, where for many years he kept a hotel. 55 (page page 107 ).—Rev. Aratus Kent was born at Suffield, Conn., January 15, 1794, and graduated from Yale in 1816. After serving pulpits in the East, he was, in March, 1829, assigned to Galena, Ill., by the American Home Missionary Society, having previously asked the society “for a place so hard that no one else would take it.” He organized at Galena the first Presbyterian church in the lead mines, and there labored zealously until December, 1848, when he withdrew to other fields. He died November 8, 1869. 56 (page page 107 ).—The villages and hunting and fishing grounds of the Indians were connected by a network of such trails through the forests and over the prairies. Many of the most important of these were no doubt originally made by buffalo, in their long journeys between pastures, or in their migrations westward in advance of oncoming settlement. The buffalo traces were followed by the Indians upon their hunts; and the best passes over both the Alleghanies and Rockies were first discovered and trod by these indigenous cattle. The natural evolution has been: First the buffalo trace, then the Indian trail, next the pioneer’s path, broadened and straightened at last for wagons, then the military road, or the plank-road, and finally the railroad. Broadly speaking, the continent has been spanned by this means. There are still discoverable, in isolated portions of the Middle West, remains of a few of the most important of the old Indian trails, such as have not been adapted into white men’s roads. 57 (page page 112 ).—William Stephen Hamilton, the sixth child of the famous Alexander Hamilton, was born August 4, 1797. In 1814 young Hamilton entered the West Point Military Academy, but resigned in 1817, having received an appointment on the staff of Colonel William Rector, then surveyor-general of Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. He appears to have resigned after a few years of service, and sought his fortune in what is now Wisconsin. We first hear of him in Wisconsin in 1825, when he bought a herd of cattle in Illinois and drove them overland to Green Bay, via Chicago, for sale to the garrison at the former place. Two years later he appeared in the lead mines, toward which was then a heavy emigration, and settled at and founded what is now Wiota, La Fayette County. He at once took high rank among the mine operators of the region. In 1827 he commanded a company of volunteers in the Red Bird uprising, and during the Black Hawk War (1832) commanded a company of rangers. Emigrating to California in 1850, enticed thither by the gold excitement, he settled on a large ranch near Red Bluff, Tehama County, where he died about 1865. At first buried upon the ranch, his remains were later removed to Sacramento, but the exact location of the grave is now unknown. While at Wiota he was visited by his aged mother and one of his sisters, then residing at Washington, D. C. By his Wisconsin contemporaries, Hamilton was ranked as a profound thinker; but his ambition to become a member of the state constitutional convention failed, because his views were thought to be too aristocratic to enable him to be a wise law-maker for a frontier commonwealth. His various business enterprises were unfortunate in their result.

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