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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
GIFT OF
COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS
THE STORY OF THE STATES
THE STORY OF WISCONSIN
BY
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES
REVISED AND ENLARGED
Illustrations by L J BriJgman
®
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Copyright, 1891,
BY
D. LoTHROP Company.
Copyright, 1899,
BY
LoTHROP Publishing Company.
F PREFACE.
Wisconsin is situated at the head of the chain of Great Lakes. It is touched on the east by Lake Michigan, on the north by Lake Superior, on the west by the Mississippi, and is drained by interlacing rivers which so closely approach each other that the canoe voyager can with ease pass from one great water system to the other ; he can enter the continent at the Gulf of St. Lawrence and by means of numerous narrow port- ages in Wisconsin emerge into the south-flowing Mississippi and eventually return to the Atlantic through the Gulf of Mexico. From Lake Michigan, the Fox-Wisconsin river system was the most popular highway to the great river ; into Lake Superior, there flow numerous streams from whose sources led short portage trails over to the headwaters of feeders of the Mississippi. In their early voyages to the head of lake navi- gation, it was in the course of nature that the French should discover Wisconsin ; and having discovered it, soon learn that it was the key-point of the Northwest and the gateway to the mysterious " River of the Southern Sea."
Thus the geographical character of Wisconsin became, very early in the history of New France, an important factor. The trading posts and Jesuit missions on Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior, and on Green Bay of Lake Michigan, soon played a prominent part in the history of American explora- tion. Two and a half centuries ago, when the Puritan colonies on Massachusetts Bay were yet in their infancy, and long before much of the intervening country had been visited
361:0
PREFACE.
by white men, the general features of the map of Wisconsin and the route thither were familiar to the rulers of Quebec.
Wisconsin was notable, too, in those early days, as a hiding place for tribes of Algonkins who had been driven beyond Lake Michigan before the resistless onslaught of the Iroquois, who, however, often ventured into these forest fastnesses and massacred the crouching fugitives. The country was, for a century and a half, a happy hunting-ground for the easy-going French — licensed traders and coureurs de bois as well. In the French-and-Indian war it was a favorite recruiting field for those disciplined bands of redskins who periodically broke forth upon the borders, filling the life of American pioneers with scenes of horror. And it was a Wisconsin leader of these savage allies of the French, who caught Braddock in his slaughter pen and whose swarthy fellows bore away to their rude lodges in the trans-Michigan woods a goodly share of the scalps and spoils won by them on that fateful day.
When New France fell, Wisconsin — now a part of the Province of Quebec — remained essentially French, The flag of England waved over the rude stockade at Green Bay, but the woods were filled with French and Indians in all grades of blood relationship, who had transferred their allegiance to the conqueror. French and half-bloods, throughout the War of the Revolution, wore the scarlet uniforms of officers in His Majesty's army. Wisconsin was again a recruiting ground, and the self-same savages who ambushed Braddock were sent out against the colonial borderers or against George Rogers Clark in his expedition for the conquest of the Northwest.
Although the Northwest was given to the United States in the treaty of 1783, the English were practically in military possession of Wisconsin until the close of the war of 1812-15. But the French and half-bloods, still held her woods and streams, and the fur-trade was the chief industry. Little by
PREFACE.
little, this French predominance was undermined ; at first by the advent of Americans into the lead mines, then by agricult- ural settlers. The Black Hawk War was largely instrumental in opening the region to public view. American colonization, and development along American lines, now began in earnest. The fur-trade ceased to be of importance, the non-progressive French element subsided into insignificance, and thenceforth Wisconsin was an American territory which rapidly grew into a powerful and patriotic State.
The story of the long and checkered career of Wisconsin, is replete with suggestive and romantic incidents. Necessarily, a treatment of the topic from a picturesque standpoint must chiefly dwell upon the romantic pioneer period. A Western State, after reaching maturity, progresses upon pretty much the same lines as kindred commonwealths, and no longer furnishes a unique story. This will account for the fact that the for- mative epochs receive by far the most generous recognition in this volume.
I am indebted to Professor Frederick J. Turner, of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, for assistance in the revision of proof-sheets, and for many helpful suggestions. To General David Atwood, Major Frederick L. Phillips, Professor Albert O. Wright, Gen- eral Edwin E. Bryant, Doctor Lyman C. Draper and Professor Jesse B. Thayer, my thankful acknowledgments are also due, for valuable aid. Mr. James S. Buck has been so kind as to give me the privilege to freely apj^ropriate any of the wood-cuts in his excellent Pioneer Flistory of Milwaukee, and one or two of these the artist has taken the liberty to use as a basis for his own sketches.
(^ .TV'V.CvJi-
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
IK THE BEGINNING ....«•• 1 1
CHAPTER II.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI . . . • •
1658-1673.
CHAPTER TIL
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS OF NEW FRANCE .
1674-1760.
CHAPTER IV.
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG ......
1761-1783.
36
61
89
CHAPTER V.
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED "9
1783-1815.
CHAPTER VI.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED .... 149
1815-1836.
CHAPTER Vn.
TERRITORIAL DAYS ^93
1836-1855.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
" BARSTOW AND THE BALANCE " .
1844-1856,
CHAPTER IX.
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON .
1854-1856.
CHAPTER X.
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING
1860-1865.
230
247
270
DEEDS OF VALOR
CHAPTER XI.
1860-1866.
291
SINCE THE WAR .
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
PROGRESS FROM 189O TO 1898
• • *
IZ^
368
I WE CHRONOLOGICAL STORY
387
THE PEOPLES COVENANT
397
BOOKS RELATING TO WISCONSIN .
401
IXDEX
405
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Coming to a session of the Territorial Legislature
A Winnebago chief. Initial
Nicolet and the Winnebagoes .
Robert de la Salle. Initial
In the Wisconsin forest
A W^isconsin home in the old days .
Relics of Jesuit and voyageur. Initial
The GrifiSn
Milwaukee in 1795. Initial
The perils of the frontier .
Solomon Juneau. Initial
In the British camp .
The old Legislative Building at Belmont
Black Hawk. Initial
Indians attacking a stockade
Governors Dodge and Doty. Initial
" King Strang " and his saints
Governors Bashford and Barstow. Initial
By lake and river
The State Capitol
Governor Dewey. Initial
Some Wisconsin scenery .
Governor Randall. Initial
Answering the President's call
Stanley and Oskhosh. Initial
Charging the Battery
On the line of battle .
In La Crosse. Initial
Picturesque Milwaukee
E Pluribus Unum. Initial
At the end of the century .
Frontispiece,
PAGE
II
21
36 42
53 61
73 89
103 119 127 141 149 165
193 209
231 233 243 247
257 270 279 291 295 309 330
*345 368
277
THE STORY OF WISCONSIN
CHAPTER I.
IN THE BEGINNING.
A Wi'iconvn Vv innebago.
LAURENTIAN is- land, almost alone amidst a world of waters, such if scien- tists read her rocks aright, was the begin- nins: of the State of ,, ,. . _, ^ Wisconsin. Geolo-
\ "o 4 '^' ^ gists say that a con-
siderable portion of the area of the State (the whole northern third) had doubtless risen from the ancient ocean before much else of the American continent, and while most of Europe was still submerged. Thus its story reaches back to almost the days of " Chaos and ftld Night." Lofty mountains occupied the pres- ent plains of Central Wisconsin — peaks which pierced the clouds and rivaled the Himalayas of
II
12 IN THE BEGINNING.
our day. But the waves of the ahtiost shoreless ocean beat against their bases, the elements disin- tegrated their peaks, and rivers furrowed their slopes, these leveling processes being interrupted by intermittent periods of submergence ; until at List, after a series of such remarkable movements, lasting through ages of unknown and unknowable length, and after the entire continent had emerged and taken form, the irresistible glacier came upon Wisconsin from the north, " planing down the prominences, filling up the valleys, polishing and grooving the strata, and heaping up its rubbish of sand, gravel, clay and bowlders over the face of the country."
One monster tongue of ice pushed through the valleys of the Fox and Rock rivers, another plowed the bed of Lake Michigan, while two others separa- ted by Keweenaw Point moved southward and west- ward through the trough of Lake Superior into Wisconsin and Minnesota. The territory em- braced in Southwestern Wisconsin was alone left intact. This was the unique " driftless area," the wonder of American 2:eoloQ:ists.
The thousands of depressions scooped out by the mighty floes, when they rudely tore their way through the land, were filled with water upon the melting of the ice, thus giving rise to the beautiful Wisconsin lakes, isolated and in chains, with their
IN THE BEGINNING. I 3
picturesque river outlets. " With the retreat of the glacier, vegetation covered the surface, and by its aid and the action of the elements our fertile drift soils, among the last and best of Wisconsin's formations, were produced ; and the work still goes
on." *
Man then came upon the scene. How long after, no one knows, but his coming opens the next chapter in Wisconsin's progress. Its details are lost in mystery, although scientific investigation and ingenious conjecture have of late framed for us a reasonable hypothesis.
Upon the level benches of noble streams, upon ridge tops, upon the summits of commanding bluffs, upon the sloping banks of both inland and Great Lakes, there are in Wisconsin many thousands of artificial earthworks that have attracted the atten- tion of whites since the time of the European con- quest. Some are mere hemispherical tumuli ; others are grotesque in shape, and it does not re- quire a great stretch of imagination to discover among them the rude outlines of birds, beasts, fishes and reptiles, the predominating forms being appar- ently those of the turtle, the lizard, the snake, the bird, the squirrel, the deer and the buffalo,! while not a
• President T. C. Chamberliii, in Snyder, Van Vechten & Co.'s " Historical Atlas of Wisconsin " (Milwaukee, 1878), p. 151.
t The so-called " elephant " mound, in (>rant County, over which there has been so much speculation, is very likely but a distorted buffalo, the prolongation of the nose probably being occasioned by a land-slide.
14 IN THE BEGINNING.
few maybe likened to men and even to implements of war, such as the club and the spear. Again, there are parallel lines, with circles and corners, and within such earthworks as these are often isolated mounds of considerable height. The best example of this latter class of structure is the field of Azta- lan near the village of Lake Mills, in Jefferson County, where are to be found prehistoric ruins of a character quite similar to the famous works at Marietta, Ohio, presumably familiar to our readers. The effigy mounds of Wisconsin are, however, unique.
There has been a vast amount of literature pub- lished concerning the mounds of the United States, and those in Wisconsin have received particular attention. Much of what has appeared, however, has been the product of lively and romantic imag- ination. It has been sturdily maintained that because the Indians whom the whites first met generally claimed to be ignorant of the origin of these earthworks; because the Indians of our dav do not build mounds ; and because nothing in the customs or beliefs of modern Indians appears upon superficial examination to be connected with the practice of mound building, that the prehistoric mounds were built by another and a singular race of men.
It has been held that the builders of the mounds,
IN THE BEGINNING. 1 5
coming from the mysterious north, commenced their most active labors in the Upper Mississippi valley and were gradually driven southward and eastward before the inroads of our modern Indians, until at last this mystic people made stand in Mexico, the progenitors of the Aztecs whom Cortez conquered, and the Pueblos who have sur- vived to our own time.
This theory has been so persistently advanced for the past half-century, that doubtless the greater part of the reading public have at last come to accept it as an established historical fact. As to the purposes for which the mounds were built, spec- ulation has been rife, each set of theorists adopt- ing in their writings a descriptive terminology to agree with their peculiar notions, thereby giving rise to much confusion.
Some would have us believe that the mounds were totems of the several clans — a sort of native heraldry; others imagine the mounds to have been built almost solely for purposes of worship, others for defense, others as symbols of mystic rites in which human sacrifice and sun worshij) played prominent parts, others as cem^iteries and sites for dwellings.
It has remained, however, for the United States Bureau of Ethnology to dispel much of the fog of romance which has heretofore enveloped the long-
1 6 JN THE BEGINNING.
mooted question of " Who were the Mound-build- ers ? " For several years past, competent special- ists have been engras^ed in the work of mound exploration upon a scientific basis, in various sec- tions of the country. It has been discovered that many mounds, heretofore supposed to be of great antiquity, contained articles of European manufac- ture at their base, undoubtedly placed there when the mounds were erected.
The conclusion has been reached after careful investigation, that there was nothing in the habits or character of the Mound-builders, so far as the excavations show, which necessarily divorce them from the Indians whom the whites first met. That burial and dwelling-site mounds were erected, notably in the Southern States, after the advent of Europeans, is well established by the journals of many of the earliest travelers, who carefully de- scribed these works, the manner of building them and the curious customs then in vo2:ue amons; the savages relative to burial and sun worship. Several early explorers have stated that traditions relative to these mounds were abundant among some of the tribes, for instance the Cherokees, the Kaskaskias and the Creeks ; and that old men attributed the erection of the works to their ancestors.
It is not a unique fact in human history that the Indian came to abandon their ancient custom of
IN THE BEGINNING. 1 7
mound building. The people of Egypt no longer fashion pyramids and sphinxes, yet the descendants of the builders of these mysterious structures still live in the country; the people of England no longer build abbeys, yet no one will deny that the descendants of the abbey builders still live within siijht of the olden ruins.
The Indians dropped many of their customs and rites with the advent of the whites : for instance, the maintenance of a perpetual fire in each village, an evidence in itself of sun worship ; they came no longer to manufacture wampum and implements and utensils of copper, flint and clay ; in the matter of clothing, it was not long before European articles of dress became common among them ; while their habits of daily life were at last so altered by contact with the whites that they ceased to be self-reliant and were absolutely dependent on the invaders of their country for domestic utensils, weapons, tools, cloth- ins: and often food. It is indeed remarkable how soon the imitative American savage abandoned many of the long-established customs and methods of his ancestors, for those of the whites. So complete has been the transformation, that to-day the old gossips of many of the Western tribes assert with earnestness that their ancestors neither made nor used flint arrow-heads, and that those plowed up in the fields and fondly treasured in museums,
1 8 IN THE BEGINNING.
were made and placed in the ground by spirits ; such is the value of Indian tradition, such the significance of the lack of it.
The formal conclusion of the Bureau of Ethnol- ogy is, that " The links discovered directly con- nectino: the Indians and Mound-builders are so numerous and well established, that there should no longer be any hesitancy in accepting the theory that the two are one and the same people."*
The Bureau inclines to the belief that Wisconsin was occupied by two or three different mound- building tribes of Indians, the effigies and the groups being probably traceable to Dakotan stock, of which the Winnebagces are the modern representa- tives. There are reasons for believing that the Mound-builders came into the State from the southwest, through Northern Iowa, and moved frequently back and forth between the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan, but that some opposing element kept them from advancing around the
* " Work in Moinid Exploration," Bureau of Ethnology- Report, 1887, p. 11. See also "The Mounds of the Mississippi Valley Historically Considered" (Kentucky Geological Survey Memoirs, Vol. II.), by Lucien Carr of the Peabody Museum of Archjeology and Ethnology; "Who Huilt the Mounds?" by P. R. Hoy (Trans. Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Art and Letters, Vol. VI.), and " Antiquities of Wisconsin " (Smithsonian Contri- butions, 1855), by I. A. Lapham.
"That the Mound-builders were Indians, pertaining to or ancestors of the tribes inhabi- lating this coun;ry when discovered by Europeans, is now too well established to admit of a reasonable doubt. Those who question this conclu.sion are certainly not familiar with the evidence." — Cyrus Thomas, of the Bureau of Ethnology, in Magazine of American History, Sept., 1SS8, p. 193.
See also, Gerard Fowke, on " Some Popular Errors in Regard to Mound-buiiders and Indians," in Ohio Archieological and Historical Quarterly , Vol. II. p. 3, and Winsor's Nar- rative ami Critical History 0/ A tnerica. Vol. I. Index.
IN THE BEGINNING. 19
south end of the lake. The most ancient works in Wisconsin, probably originating in a very distant past, appear to be the effigy and elongated mounds, the evidence being that their builders came after- wards to abandon these forms and erect only burial tumuli. Even this latter species they had pos- sibly abandoned .before the advent of the whites, althouo:h the Illinois Indians who entertained Mar- quette practised in his presence the rites of the ancient sun worship, the undoubted religion of the Mound-builders.
As to the use of the effigies and more compli- cated forms, antiquarians still disagree, but it has been quite generally concluded that the other shapes were mostly erected as sites for dwellings, council houses and worship huts, also for purposes of defense. Fortified villao^es were common amono; the Mound-builders, as among their descendants within historic times, and the evidences of ancient palisaded inclosures in Wisconsin are not in- frequent.
The child born upon the Mayflower was but in her fourteenth year when Wisconsin entered upon the stage of history. It was in 1634 that Jean Nicolet, agent of the inquiring and politic Cham- plain, set foot upon Wisconsin soil, the first white man known to have visited the Old Northwest.
20 IN THE BEGINNING.
Champlain had planted his feeble colony of French Catholics upon the rock of Quebec, twenty-six years before, but progress into the far West had been necessarily slow. The search for peltries had led adventurous fur-traders to Georgian Bay and Lake Huron ; Recollet missionaries were, amidst a thousand lurking dangers, saying masses upon those distant shores and vainly endeavoring to bring the red men to a realizing sense of the enormity of their pagan rites ;* while Champlain himself had, in 1615, ventured upon the waters of the orreat " Fresh Sea." But all bevond was, to the authorities of New France, an unknown land. It is possible that cotireurs de bois, those lawless Canadian adventurers who became Indians in habit and prosecuted the fur trade far beyond all licensed bounds, had by this time pushed their way into the Lake Superior country; but if so they discreetly kept quiet about it and left no record behind.
It had been reported to Champlain, by Western traders, that the Indians told of two lakes beyond that of Huron : of a large body of fresh water, at the outlet of which was a saiilt, or rapids — after- wards ascertained to be the Lake Superior of our modern maps ; and of another lake that was smaller, styled by the Indians " Winnepegou," — the Winne- bago of our day, — while this smaller lake had a
■•Brdbeuf's Jesuit mission was not begun until 1634.
■n
< -5
3
D
IN THE BEGINNING. 23
river outlet, the Fox of later maps. Champlain had long wished to have this geographical mystery of the Northwest penetrated, and the Indians of that far-away region instructed in the benefits of religion and the fur-trade, for the love of Mammon had no small share in the missionary aspirations of the governors of New France. The opportunity at last came, and Jean Nicolet, interpreter at Three Rivers, was commissioned to undertake the haz- ardous enterprise.
Nicolet was a native of Cherbourg, in Normandy, but emigrated to Canada in 16 18, when a young man. At that time, Champlain, filled with ambi- tious schemes of exploration, was in the practice of occasionally sending young men to live among dis- tant tribes of Indians to learn their languages and customs in order to be of service to him as inter- preters and explorers. Nicolet was one of the per- sons thus selected, and soon after his arrival at Quebec was dispatched first to the Algonkins on the Ottawa River and next to the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name. Upon his return to the colony, after many years of intimate associ- ation with the savages, Nicolet was employed as interpreter at Three Rivers, where he acquired the reputation of being adroit in his management of the hordes of red men who annually assembled there from the upper country, for purposes of trade
54 IN THE BEGINNING.
and council. In 1634, this hardy adventurer was dispatched by the governor to visit the tribes dwelling upon the shores of the Winnepegou and other fresh-water seas of the Northwest, and endeavor to secure their good-will and their atten- dance upon the councils of the French on the low^er St. Lawrence.
Nicolet proceeded up the Ottawa River as far as the Isle des Allumettes, in company with Fathers Brebeuf, Daniel and Davost, Jesuit priests who were on their way to the Huron country to re- establish the mission commenced but afterwards abandoned by the Recollets. At the Isle, he parted company with his priestly comrades, and proceeded by way of Lake Nipissing and French Creek to Georgian Bay. He appears to have spent some time among the Hurons there, and finally to have secured seven men of the tribe to accompany him upon his voyage of discovery to the North- west. Nicolet was himself a demi-savage, quite equal in endurance to any of his red companions and allowing none of them to outdo him in the weary task before them. In their long canoe of birch-bark, propelled solely by paddles, they slowly skirted the northern shores of Lake Huron ; upon their right the gloomy pine forest swept down in solemn grandeur to the water's edge or thickly mantled the towering bluffs, while to their left the
IN THE BEGINNING. 25
dark green waters stretched to the horizon in mys- tic sublimity. Their frail bark was often tossed about like a chip, in the white-capped swells which swept with but little warning around the awesome headlands. There were times when storms too severe even for Indian boatmen compelled them to camp upon the shore in the shelter of the woods, for days at a time, until the wind had gone down and the sea was again quiet. Thus, through storm and calm, they pursued their spasmodic voyage, picking up their food as they went along, from the sea and the forest, veritable children of nature alone in the mighty wilderness. There were no doubt times when the Hurons, unimpelled by the spirit of exploration or the hope of gain, wearied of their seemingly useless task, but Nicolet was fired by the zeal of his mission and could brook no human opposition to his progress. Finally, the shore lines led them throu2:h the North Channel to the outlet of Lake Superior, the Strait of St. Mary. A considerable distance up this strait, and fifteen miles below the foot of the Great Lake, they encountered the falls, where — on the site of the present thriving city of Sault Ste. Marie, in Upper Michiojan — there was a considerable villa2:e of Al- gonkins. Landing here, Nicolet, first of all recorded white men, set foot upon the sciil of what a century and a half later became the Northwest Territory.
26 IN THE BEGINNING.
It is not known whether Nicolet ever saw Lake Superior, which was within a few hours' walk of the Algonkin village. Probably he did not, as so notable a discovery would have been placed to his credit by his Jesuit admirers. It is certain, however, that he remained long enough at the falls to thoroughly refresh his men, whereupon the party again ventured forth, this time to the southward, seeking what they might find.
The voyage now became more fraught with inter- est to a lover of nature. Islands in great variety appeared upon either hand — great masses, the size of a German principality, densely covered with mighty forests of dark-hued pine and skirted by broad, glistening beaches of sand and bowlders; pretty islets, a few square miles in extent, with cool and inviting shades, indented with restful coves and crowned by rocky observatories of fantastic form ; low, barren patches of storm-swept rock, covered with lichens and scrub pine, telling tales of deadly struo^orjes with ice and wind and wave. ThrouQ^h this sylvan archipelago, Nicolet's bark threaded its way as rapidly as eight men could propel it, and in due time entered the Straits of Mackinaw; ascend- ing this now famous highway, the waters of Lake Michigan soon burst .upon the sight of their first white discoverer.
Closely skirting the northern coast of this inland
IN THE BEGINNING. 27
sea, and frequently camping upon the edges of tlie deep forest which framed it, either to await the pas- sage of storms or refresh the weary crew, our in- trepid explorer finally rounded far-stretching Point Detour and beached his craft on the shores of Bay de Noquet, a northern arm of the great Green Bay. Here was another Algonkin tribe, with w^hom he smoked the pipe of peace, obtaining particulars from them of the country beyond.
His next stopping place was the mouth of the river afterwards called Menomonee, from the tribe of Algonkins then inhabiting its valley ; this rugged stream, now one of the boundary lines between Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, is the principal northern affluent of Green Bay. He only tarried here long enough to hold a brief council with the Menomonees and dispatch one of his Hurons to herald his approach to the W'inneba- oroes who were established at the mouth of Fox River.
Green Bay is shaped like a monster letter V ; it opens to the northeast, and the Fox River flows into it from the south, at the vertex of the an^rle. The western shores arc now, as they were in Nico- let's time, low, irregular in outline and densely wooded with pine and tamarack, presenting a sin- gularly somber and depressing appearance; while the eastern banks are generally high, with many
28 IN THE BEGINNING.
bold headlands and abrupt slopes, well covered with both hard and soft woods.
At Red Banks, so called from the red clay sub- soil predominant here, the height of the shore is about seventy-five feet sheer, the summit of this picturesque cliff of clay being crowned for some miles back into the country with interesting mounds. The Winnebagoes have a tradition that the Adam and Eve of their race first lived at Red Banks ; also that the French first visited the tribe at this place. The last half of the tradition we know to be baseless.
The bay is a wild and stormy estuary, much troubled by cross winds and cross tides,* and a dangerous passage for small craft; but Nicolet, seizing the opportunity of favorable weather, pur- sued his venturesome way and soon came within sisht of the enormous marshes of wild rice which bar the mouth of Fox River, vivid in their mass of changing greenery when swayed by the breeze and lightened by the sun.
This was the day when the China Sea was sup- posed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes, there being as yet no knowledge of the immense width of the American continent. Nicolet had heard when among the Nipissings, that
* There is no longer any question of there being tides in Green Bay, but whether caused by the winds or by lunar affection is undecided.
IN THE BEGINNING. 29
at Green Bay he would meet a strange people, who had come from beyond " a great water" lying to the west. He was therefore prepared to find there a colony of Chinamen or Japanese, if indeed Green Bay were not the Orient itself. His mistake was a natural one, considering the crudity of the geo- graphical information then current.
The " strange people " proved to be Winnebago Indians. A branch of the Dakotas, or Sioux, a distinct race from the Algonkins, they appear to have been stranded in Wisconsin, when the great body of their kin, probably the original Mound- builders, had withdrawn from the State to the trans-Mississippi country. They were as a wedge remaining in the heart of the Algonkin territory and long maintaining, despite all changes in political mastery, a firm foothold on the interlocked water- way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. The "great water" spoken of by the Nipissings and supposed by Nicolet to mean the China Sea, was the Missis- sippi River, beyond which the Dakota race held full sway.
The canoe was run into a cove just below the mouth of the Fox, and a short halt made while Champlain's forest ambassador attired himself in a gorgeous damask gown, decorated with gayly- colored birds and flowers, a ceremonial o-armcnt with which he had taken care to provide himself at
30 IN THE BEGINNING.
Quebec, expecting to meet mandarins who would be similarly dressed. As he stepped ashore, a short distance up the river, and thus, first of all Euro- peans, trod the soil of what is now Wisconsin, Nicolet was met by a horde of nearly naked Winne- bagoes who hailed him as a Manitou, or " wonder- ful man."
It must have been no small disappointment to the explorer to be thus met by breech-clouted sav- ages when he had fondly anticipated the formal greetings of Oriental courtiers. But the politic envoy smothered his chagrin and, the rustling skirts of his silken robe sweeping the ground, advanced boldly among the astonished barbarians, discharg- ing the pistols which he held in either hand. The warriors were much startled at this singular appari- tion, while women and children fled in terror from the Manitou who carried with him lightning and thunder.
But after duly impressing them with the solem- nity of his mission, Nicolet soon doffed his fanciful costume and met the Winnebagoes in friendly council. The news of his arrival quickly spread to neighboring villages and tribes, and a great feast was held, at which some four or five thousand Indians assembled, according to the old chronicle,* and devoured one hundred and twenty beavers with
* Jesuit " Relation," 1643.
IN THE BEGINNING. 3 1
divers other viands. There was a great deal of prolix oratory in various tongues, accompanied by the exchange of wampum belts and other presents and the smoking of innumerable pipes of tobacco, with the usual result of an agreement on the part of the red men to forever keep the peace towards all Frenchmen.
Leaving the Winnebagoes at the mouth of the Fox, Nicolet pursued his way up that stream. He was obliged to make portages around the falls of Des Peres, the two Kakalins, Grand Chute and Winnebago Rapids — where the cities of Depere, Kaukauna, Appleton and Neenah are located in our day. The Lower Fox is a picturesque, deep and rapid stream. It flows between terraced, vine- clad banks which for the most part rise from twenty to fifty feet in height, varied now and then by park- like glades and bold, rocky bluffs. The river is now lined with prosperous towns whose numerous factories are dependent upon its abundant water- power.
When Nicolet carried the banner of France along this dimpled flood, the valley was the seat of a considerable Indian population, there being vil- lages at each of the rapids and on Doty's Island, at the outlet of Lake Winnebago, while upon the table lands which stretch away on either side were large fields of maize ; for these people were thrifty,
32 JN THE BEGINNING.
as Indians go, placing their grain in caches for winter use and bartering their surplus with neigh- boring tribes.
Emerging upon the broad expanse of Lake Winnebago, among the most charming of our Western inland waters, Nicolet cautiously wended his way from headland to headland, until at last he found the point where the Upper Fox empties its flood into the lake — a broad bay fringed with marshes of wild rice, beyond which rose gentle prairie slopes, backed on the horizon by agreeable oak openings. Where to-day is the city of Osh- kosh — with its thirty-odd thousand industrious inhabitants, the river lined with saw mills and their outlying rafts, their lines of piling, and their great yards of newly-sawn lumber — w^ere then but a half- dozen Indian wigw^ams at the junction of the river and lake, a few canoes on the gravelly beach and elsewhere solitude.
There is no record of Nicolet pausing here, afterwards a famous camping ground for French voyageurs. He pushed on in search of the Mas- coutins, or Fire Nation, whose principal camp was still some thirty miles to the southwest, up the Fox. While the shores of the Fox below Lake Win- nebago are rugged and gloomy, and the dark pine forest closed in the view of the explorer as though solid ramparts lined his narrow path, the Upper
IN THE BEGINNING. 33
Fox was alike depressing, although from another cause.
The Indians have a tradition that the numerous rivers called by them Fox were so named because their winding paths resembled the course of a pur- sued fox. In regard to this particular Fox River, above Lake Winnebago, there is still another tale. The Upper Fox valley is for the most part an im- mense widespread tract of reeds, wild rice and willow clumps, with dark, forest-girt ridges hemming in the marshy expanse, through which the gleaming river doubles upon itself like a serpent in agony. The red men, who have an eye to the picturesque in Nature, tell us that once a monster snake lay down for the night in the swamp between the Wisconsin River portage and the Lake of the Winnebagoes. The dew accumulated upon it as it lay, and when the morning came it wriggled and shook the water from its back, and disappeared down the river which it had thus created in its nocturnal bed.
Through this sedgy couch of the serpent, Nicolet pushed on, often losing his way in some vexatious cul-de-sac, obliged to retrace his steps with the frequent danger of mistaking a branch for the main channel ; for such was the height of the wall of reeds upon either side that it was impossible to overlook it even when standing upright in the
34 JN THE BEGINNING.
canoe, and the view was generally confined to the few rods of winding river ahead and astern.
Above where Omro village now lies nestled upon a fertile bench which is hugged closely by the flood, cranberry bogs were first encountered. Near the present city of Berlin, in Green Lake County — in our day the seat of an extensive cranberry in- terest— prairies came down to the southern bank. Upon a clayey beach Nicolet stranded his canoe, for upon an eminence two miles or so south of the river * lay the palisaded town of the Mascoutins, the object of his search.
Had Nicolet proceeded up the river he would in three days have reached the low plain of but a mile and a half in width, which, at the modern city of Portage, separates the waters of the Fox from the Wisconsin — a slight and often overflowed water- shed between the basins of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. Small exertion on his part, had he been aware of the fact, might have made him the first white discoverer of the Upper Mississippi. This was, however, reserved for others of his race. He went no farther west than the village of the Mascoutins, and then, having secured them to the French interest, took up his path over the prairies to the south and visited the nation of the Illinois,
♦Father Allouez, who visited the Mascoutins in 1670, locates the fort of these people a French league (2.4 English miles), " over beautiful prairies," to the south of the river.
IN THE BEGINNING, 35
returning to Quebec by the way of Lake Michigan the following year.
Thus had the redoubtable Jean Nicolet pursued an amphibious journey of over two thousand miles through a trackless wilderness, won to New France the fealty of half a dozen heretofore unknown tribes and made the first step in the European conquest of Wisconsin and the Northwest.
CHAPTER II.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
OON after the return of Nicolet and his resumption of duty at Three Rivers, the governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain, died at Quebec. It was on Christmas Day, 1635, that this fearless ge- nius passed away, and with him appeared to depart, for a time, the spirit of the colony. The Iroquois, whom Champlain had sadly offended, took advan- tage of the lack of military leadership in New France, to wreak their vengeance on the French and the Algonkin tribes that had communion with them. The Dutch traders at Albany, ever their firm friends, had plentifully supplied the Five Nations with fire-arms and ammunition, and these, the best-brained of American Indians, were soon a match for the finest shots in Canada. They
36
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 2>7
now began to repay the French in their own coin.
The colonists were chased within their gates, and the Algonkin allies sadly harried, whole tribes being driven as far west as Wisconsin, with great slaughter and suffering. Exploration ceased for some years ; although in 1641 two Jesuit mission- aries, Isaac Jogues and Charles Raymbault, pro- ceeded on a tour of inspection as far as Sault Ste. Marie, following the path pointed out by Nicolet, and there preached to two thousand Ojibways and other Algonkins, who had been collected to meet the visitors. But Jogues was captured by the Iroquois, a year later, while on his return to the lower St. Lawrence, and Ravmbault died about the same time, so nothing came of this adventurous expedition.
There is no record of any white man being in Wisconsin between the autumn of 1634, when Nicolet made the initial canoe voyage up the Fox, and the winter of 1658-59. It was in the month of June, 1658, when Pierre d' Esprit, Sieur Radisson, set out with his sister's husband, Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, upon a voyage up the Ottawa River to the far Northwest, determined "to travell and see countreys." Radisson was already much of a traveler in sava^re wilds. In i6s2, hav- ing been captured near his home in Three Rivers,
38 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
by a band of marauding Iroquois, he was adopted into the Mohawk tribe ; but he finally made his escape to the Dutch at Albany and sailed to Holland, returning to Three Rivers in 1654. In 1657, he went with the Jesuits Ragueneau and Du Peron to their Onondaga mission, which was clandestinely abandoned during the night of March 20, 1658, hardly three months before his departure for the Northwest, in the company of Groseilliers.
Seven years later, when these two adventurers offered their services to King Charles II., to open up Hudson's Bay to English fur-trading interests — they were alternately employed under the flags of Great Britain and France, as fancy or their self- interest dictated — Radisson wrote out his Memoirs in English, for the edification of the King. An unlearned but brave and witty Frenchman, Radis- son's narratives, in a language he was ill versed in, are unique specimens of " English as she is wrote ;" they are, however, valuable records of a series of most remarkable explorations in the American wilderness of the seventeenth century. Radisson was an acute observer and very much of a philoso- pher in his way.
Some Hurons served these adventurous mer- chants as their guides to the upper country, and they staid for some time in the villages of the former — apparently on one of the Manitoulin
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 39
islands. On the Great Manitoulin, they visited the Ottavvas, and when winter came on pushed south- westward to the Pottawatomie country — the islands at the mouth of Green Bay, and the mainland to the southward along the western shore of Lake Michigan. They spent several months among these friendly Wisconsin people.
In the spring, Radisson and Groseilliers followed the wake of Nicolet by going up Fox River, through the Winnebago country, to visit the Mascoutins. The latter told them of the Sioux, their neighbors to the west ; also of a wandering tribe, the Christi- nos or Crees, who lived on the shores of Hudson's Bay in the summer and along the south shore of Lake Superior in the winter.
Radisson speaks with enthusiasm of their kindly treatment by the Mascoutins and says, "We ware 4 moneths in our voyage without doeing any thing but goe from river to river." He alludes, in- cidently, to "ye great river" into which he and Groseilliers were conducted by their Indian friends, and describes a stream which answers to the Mis- sissippi. It is reasonable to conclude that in the course of these four months of water journeys as guests of the Mascoutins, wherein they were anxious " to be knowne with the remotest people " and to see all there was to be seen, the adventurers trimmed their bark to tlie current of the Missis-
40 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
sippi — antedating the discovery claimed for La Salle* by not le:>s than eleven years, and tliat of Joliet and Marquette by fourteen years.
Upon the conclusion of their visit to the Mas- coutins, the adventurers returned by the way of Green Bay and the Straits of Mackinaw, in company with a party of their hosts, to Sault Ste. Marie. After cruising along a portion of the southeastern shores of Lake Superior, in the neigh- borhood of the Sault, in the prosecution of their fur trade, they returned to Lower Canada by way of the accustomed route of the Ottawa River, arriving at Three Rivers about the first of June, 1660.
Radisson again set out for the upper country, in company with Groseilliers, in August, 1661. With them were six other French fur-traders, and the aged Jesuit missionary, Rene Menard, together with several small bands of Hurons and Ottawas return- ing home from a trading trip to Three Rivers. The little fleet of canoes closely skirted the rugged south shore of Lake Superior, and the whites were the first of their race to see the Pictured Rocks. At Keweenaw Bay, where they arrived the fifteenth of October, Menard and the other Frenchmen, together with a party of Ottawas, were left; while Radisson and Groseilliers pushed on to the west. Portaging across the great Keweenaw
• Margry, Vol. I. pp. 324, 378, 379.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 4 1
Point, they visited a village of Christinos, some miles northeast of Montreal River, where there was an abundance of buffalo, moose and beaver. While there they learned of the copper mines which were then being worked from time to time by the Indians ; the metal was pounded smooth with stones and fashioned with much skill into a great variety of curious implements which, with those of stone, were afterwards abandoned when the spread of the French fur-trade enabled the savages to secure European implements at a far less expenditure of labor.
Near the Montreal River, some of the Huron companions of the adventurers left them, to proceed overland by a well-worn trail to their village about the sources of the Chippewa River. The French- men pushed on with the remainder of the Hurons and after a portage across what is now known as Oak Point, in Ashland County, entered Chequame- gon Bay — a noble sheet of water, fringed by the picturesque Apostle Islands, and to-day the most popular of the Lake Superior summer resorts.
It was lonely and dreary enough, however, when Radisson and his companion scrambled ashore from their bark canoe, after a tedious voyage, and stretched their cramped legs upon the beach near where the city of Ashland nestles to-day. Winter was just setting in, the waters of the bay were
42 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
taking on that black and sullen aspect peculiar to the season, the islands looked gloomy indeed, in their dark evergreen mantles, while before the venturesome traders a dense and dark forest stretched southward for hundreds of miles. Here and there in the primeval depths was a small cluster of starveling Algonkins, still trembling from fear of a return of the Iroquois who had chased them from Canada into these far-away swamps and matted woods, where their safety lay in hiding. At great intervals, uncertain trails led from village to village, and the rivers were in places convenient highways ; these narrow paths, however, beset with danger in a thousand shapes, but em- phasized the unspeakable terrors of the wilderness. The Frenchmen built near where they landed, what they called a "fort" — a small log hut oc- cupying the extremity of a spit of land ; the door opened towards the water front, while the land side, to the rear of the house, was defended by a salient of palisades stretching from bank to bank of the narrow promontory. All about the fort they laid boughs, one upon another; and in addition to this stretched a long cord upon which were strung a number of the small hawk-bells commonly used in the fur-trade for purposes of gift and barter. It was expected that in case of a night attack the enemy would run afoul of the bells, the ringing of which
IN THE WISCONSIN FuKEST.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPT. 45
would arouse the garrison. These ingenious de- fenses were not put to the test, although they doubtless had a good moral effect in keeping the thieving Hurons at a respectful distance from the white men's stores.
At the end of a fortnight, the bulk of these stores were secretly cached and the traders pro- ceeded with their dusky companions to the prin- cipal Huron village at the head of the Chippewa River, passing the winter of 1661-62 in that vicinity. The season was phenomenally severe and the Hurons could not find enough game to properly sustain life. A famine ensued in the camp, the tragical details of which are painted by Radisson with a painful minuteness worthy of Hogarth. In the early spring, upon a search for provisions, they visited the Buffalo band of the Sioux, in the Mille Lac region of Minnesota, staying with them for some six weeks, and then the Frenchmen returned to Chequamegon Bay, where they built another fort, this time on Oak Point. After a time spent here, during which Radisson fell ill and when both the explorers encountered much hardship from the backwardness of the season, they ventured with their goods as far northwest as the Christino villages on Lake Assiniboine, and appear to have returned to Three Rivers in 1662.
Father Menard, who had been left at Keweenaw
46 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Bay by Radisson and Groseilliers in October, 1661, was not successful in his attempts to convert the Ottawas there, and set out the following June for the Huron villages on the upper waters of the Black and Chippewa rivers. There has been some question as to how Menard reached Black River — whether across country by Indian trails, or by the way of the Menomonee River, Green Bay, the Fox-Wisconsin watercourse and the Mississippi. The weight of testimony is in favor of the latter route which was, as well, the easier of the two.*
It is probable, therefore, that Menard and his ser- vant, Jean Guerin, a gunsmith by trade, were upon the waters of the Upper Mississippi two years after Radisson's voyage and eleven before that of Joliet. The journey had been a long and painful one, in the heat of midsummer; they suffered from hunger, bruised feet and myriads of mosquitoes, while the Indian guides were often insolent and cruel in their exactions. On the seventh of August, while portaging around some rapids in the Black River, Menard lost the blind trail and was never after seen by his party. He was either killed by lurking savages, or died from exposure. His kettle was afterwards seen by Guerin in the hands of a Sac Indian, while his breviary and cassock were said
* See Tailhan's Perrot, p. 92 ; also P'ranquelin's map (1688), in Winsor's Narrative and Critical H istory of America, Vol. IV. p. 230.
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 47
to have been found in the possession of the Sioux.
Menard's death left the Ottawa mission on Lake Superior vacant, and in August, 1665, Claude Allouez, another Jesuit priest, was sent to reopen it. He chose his site on the southwestern shore of Chequamegon Bay, probably between the present cities of Ashland and Washburn. This region came to be called La Pointe, while the mission it- self was named in honor of the Holy Ghost.* To the summer tourists who now flock by hundreds to Chequamegon Bay, are shown some ruins at the La Pointe of to-day, on Madeline Island, opposite Bayfield, which they are assured are those of the ancient Jesuit mission house. But the original La Pointe mission was on the mainlaiid, fifteen miles or so to the southwest. The island mission house, widely advertised as that of Allouez and Marquette, is scarcely sixty years old.
At La Pointe, Father Allouez found in progress a council wherein a dozen petty bands were trying, after their blustering fashion, to agree upon a scalp- ing expedition against the Sioux ; but the good Father persuaded them to the contrary and thus secured for a time that tranquillity so essential to his aims. The news of his coming was soon spread far and wide and there flocked to his rude bark
* La Pointe dii Saint Esprit.
48 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
chapel the representatives of many tribes, to stare in open-mouthed wonder at his glittering altar ornaments and silken vesture, as well as to barter for utensils, weapons and ornaments of European manufacture; for Allouez's mission was likewise a trading post. The Ottawas and Chippewas, with their large fields of Indian corn and their stationary villages, were his immediate neighbors, the visi- tors from distant parts being the Pottawatomies and the Miamis, from the shores of Lake Michi- gan ; the Kickapoos from Western Wisconsin ; the Sacs and Foxes from the country about the Fox and Wolf Rivers; the Illinois, livine still farther to the south, and the Sioux of the western plains, these latter bringing him news of the " Messipi," a great river which ran through their lands. But despite his large congregations, Allouez made little headway among them, being consoled for his hardships and ill-treatment by the devotion of a mere handful of insignificant followers.
Allouez labored thus alone in the wilderness, hoping against hope, for four years, varying the monotony of his dreary task by occasional canoe trips to Quebec, to report progress to his superior. Father James Marquette, a more youthful zealot, was at last sent to relieve him, and in September, 1669, arrived at La Pointe from Sault Ste. Marie, where he and Father Claudius Dablon, newly
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 49
appointed as Jesuit Superior of the upper country, had been enQ:aQ:cd durincr the summer in establish- ing a successful mission. It took Marquette, sadly hampered by snow and ice, a full month to make the trip from the Sault to Chequamegon Bay.
Father Allouez, upon being thus relieved from a work that had doubtless palled upon him, proceeded upon invitation of the Pottawatomies to Green Bay, where he arrived early in December. While the en- tire region thereabout was styled " Bay des Puants " — afterwards Green Bay — the St. Francis Xavier Mission now opened by Allouez was not on the bay shore, but upon the south side of the Fox River, some six miles above its mouth — the site of the present manufacturing city of Depere.* This was the second Jesuit establishment within what is now Wisconsin. At Depere are the first rapids en- countered in the ascension of Fox River; it is therefore the head of natural naviofation for the large vessels of our day, and was then the first canoe portage. The banks are high and command a fine view up and down the river and out into the bay beyond ; the soil is fertile and spring- water abundant. It was from earlv davs a favorite rallying point for the natives ; and this fact, added to its natural advantages, made the site an admira- ble one for Allouez's enterprise.
* Corrupted from Mission des pires, or " Mission of the Fathers."
50 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIFPI.
It was a hybrid village that the Father had come to, at this Depere portage. There were here rep- resented the Winnebagoes, who were lords of the manor ; the Pottawatomies from the nei^hborine shore of Lake Michigan and the united Sacs and Foxes who practically controlled the highway to the Mississippi. There were few members of these intermarried tribes eager to be baptized, but they looked pleased when, during the winter, the good man went among the rude bark lodges and matted tepees of his shiftless parishioners and cared for the sick and spoke words of encourage- ment to the downhearted ; and when he visited neighboring villages on similar errands of mercy, he was, as a rule, kindly received.
In April, Father Allouez established the mission of St. Mark among the Foxes on the forest-girt waters of Wolf River, the chief tributary of the Fox ; probably near Lake Shawano, later the chief seat of the Chippewa nation. In the course of the summer he went to the Sault to see his superior, Dablon, who returned with him to St. Francis Xavier in September. About this time serious trouble had arisen on Lake Superior. The Ottawas and Hurons at La Pointe, arrogant in the possession of fire-arms obtained from the French in trade, had at last provoked the western Sioux to war, and Mar- quette was powerless to prevent the outbreak of
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 51
the latter, who rejected his peace proposals and imperiously sent back the presents which he had forwarded to these autocrats of the plains. The result was that the La Pointe Indians were driven eastward along the southern shore of the lake, like leaves before an autumn blast, the Ottawas taking up their home in the Manitoulin Islands of Lake Huron, and the Hurons accompanying Marquette to the Straits of Mackinaw.* There he established on the mainland west of Mackinaw island a mission which he called St. lo-nace.
The Great Lake now beinor closed to the French, it became necessary to stimulate St. Francis Xavier mission, in the hope that the nations beyond might be reached by the Fox- Wisconsin river route, the entrance to which it was important to keep in the control of the Jesuits. Dablon and Allouez therefore made an expedi- tion up the Fox River, At the Kakalin rapids, they found on a high bank an Indian idol that had been set up by the Winnebagoes. Dablon de- scribes it as "a rock formed naturally in the shape of a man's bust," and says that, it being the deity of the waterfall, its face was daubed in fantastic colors by Indians who had successfully stemmed the torrent, and that "sacrifices of tobacco or
*The Roman CathoKc mission at La Pointe was not re-established until one hundred and seventy years later.
52 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
arrows or paintings " were made to it. This gaudy god of the heathens the priests toppled over into the river and went on their way rejoicing. Above Lake Winnebago, they visited the Foxes and the Mascoutins — the hatter still occupying the vil- lage in which they were found by Nicolet and Radisson. Dablon records that in their journey they frequently met great droves of "wild cows," prob- ably deer, and often found buffalo grazing in the rich pastures along the Fox ; and noticed that because of this abundance of food the Indians of the region were " not obliged to separate by families during the hunting season, as the savages of other countries do."
Later in the year, Dablon went down to Quebec to become superior of his order in Canada, send- ing to the Sault as his district successor, Henry Nouvel. In 1671, Nouvel sent to Green Bay another priest, Louis Andre, to assist Allouez in ministering to the savages at St. Francis Xavier and St. Mark. Andre appears, however, to have become the chief ministrant at these two missions, leaving Allouez to rove among the Foxes, the Mascoutins, the Kickapoos, the Illinois, the Miamis and the Weas — the first regularly-installed itiner- ant preacher in W'isconsin. We are told that Andre was particularly successful with the chil- dren at Depere rapids, where he taught them to
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
5,
sing psalms of Christian praise and spirited songs ridiculing superstition, whilst he accompanied them with more or less harmony upon the flute. The chiefs were stubborn idolators, however, and stoutly argued with him, sometimes getting very angry, as theological disputants are apt to. " The
A
y;i3Con^in
^-
H
orne
In the ola di'.ys.
devil," exclaimed a chief, " is the great captain : he put Christ to death, and will kill you!" It was a hard field for the Christian devotee, but he appears to have had the blood of the martyrs in him, and neither faltered nor complained, even when during a temporary absence his hut was
54 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
burned down by his enemies and his entire winter stock of food destroyed.
Meanwhile Allouez had met with a certain degree of success upon his travels. At the Mascoutin vil- lage, he had reared a chapel of reeds which he styled the mission of St. James ; and there, on Assump- tion Day, 1672, this pioneer apostle planted a tall cross and fervidly preached before it to a large audience in which five distinct tribes were represented.
The Jesuit priests were not the only whites in Wisconsin during these years of missionary ac- tivity. The coureurs de bois were not long in fol- lowing the paths pointed out by the traders Nicolet, Radisson and Groseilliers and the gunsmith Guerin. The trading companions of Menard, at Keweenaw Bay, had, as early as the spring of 1662, penetrated to Green Bay, probably by way of the Menomonee, and when Allouez set out from the Sault for Green Bay, seven years later, the Pottawatomies, he tells us, did not want him to come to their country for the purpose of instructing them in the faith, "but to soften some young Frenchmen who were among them for the purposes of trading, and who threat- ened and ill-treated them."
A leader in this band of lawless traders, whose roving operations extended along Fox River and the western shore of Lake Michigan, was Nicholas
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 55
Perrot. He was intelligent, had some education, was an accomplished woodsman, and from boy- hood had spent his life among the western savages. He was but twenty-six years of age when he left Green Bay for the lower country in charge of a fleet of canoes laden with Wisconsin furs and pro- pelled by Indians.
Upon his arrival at Quebec, in July, he was en- gaged to pilot the Sieur Saint Lusson, deputy of Intendant Talon, to Sault Ste. Marie and act as his interpreter. The objects were, to regain the friendship of all the tribes living upon the shores of Lake Superior and thus cut off the rivalry of the English, who were now receiving large con- signments of fur from that quarter ; to search for copper mines in the Northwest; and to " discover the Sea of the South," * the thrifty agent paying his way from the profits of the fur trade in which he was permitted to engage while upon the expedition. Saint Lusson and Perrot proceeded, in October, to the Manitoulin Islands, in Lake Huron. While Perrot went on alone to attend to his affairs at Green Bay, Saint Lusson spent the winter upon the islands hunting and trading. They met in May, 1 67 1, at the Sault.
On the fourteenth of June, after the conclusion of a treaty of friendship with the naked representa-
♦ The Gulf of California.
56 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
tives of a dozen forest tribes, Saint Lusson took formal possession of the Northwest, in the name of Louis XIV., King of France. His witnesses were, the Jesuits Dablon, Allouez, Andre and Dreuil- letes, Perrot as interpreter, Louis Joliet and a number of other coureiirs de bois. Thus peacefully did Wisconsin, together with pretty much all of the neighboring country east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio, come under the domination of France.
Joliet returned to Quebec with Saint Lusson's party and there met the recently appointed gov- ernor of New France, Count de Frontenac, a man imbued with energetic enterprise and an ambition to rival Champlain in extending the boundaries of the province. Frontenac selected Joliet as the proper person to regularly explore the Fox-Wis- consin waterway and the Mississippi, and to ascer- tain whether the great river really flowed into the South Sea as the Indians alleged. That Radis- son, Groseilliers, Menard and Guerin had already been upon the Upper Mississippi, may be set down as reasonably certain, and we know that the lower reaches of the river were visited by De Soto's ill- fated Spanish expedition as early as 1541. But the Spaniards had added but little to the general fund of knowledge regarding the mighty stream, and the chance voyages of Radisson and Guerin
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 57
were scarcely more productive of information. The fact that Joliet's expedition resulted in the first definite knowledge of the river and its Wisconsin approach from Green Bay to the mouth of the Arkansas, and blazed a broad path for later ad- venturers, entitles his name to high credit as an original explorer.
At the Straits of Mackinaw, Joliet met Father .Marquette, with whom he was on friendly relations, for this coiireur de bois had in his youth been a brio^ht scholar in the Jesuit school at Quebec. Marquette, himself a hardy woodsman and expert canoeist, had probably been invited by Frontenac to join Joliet, that both material and spiritual inter- ests might be duly represented. At all events, when Joliet started out from St. Ignace, May 17, 1673, Marquette was in his company, though in no wise ofificially connected with the enterprise. Five voyageurs, or boatmen, paddled their two canoes, and it can well be imagined that as the expedition set forth that gay spring morning, and Imgged the forested southern shore of Upper Michigan, the hearts of the adventurers swelled with enthusiasm, thinking of the strange lands and stranger people they were destined soon to behold.
They made such excellent progress that they arrived at the now well-known Mascoutin village on the Upper Fox. the seventh of June. Here they
58 DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
obtained guides, for the Fox above this point is but a narrow creek winding through immense reed swamps ; in Joliet's time this watery labyrinth was frequently choked with vegetation, and without guides passage was well-nigh impossible. The swampy portage which separates these sluggish and insignificant waters from the broad, swift channel of the Wisconsin, is but a mile and a half in width. With high water in the Wisconsin, this plain has been frequently flooded within the memory of men now living, so that continuous canoe passage from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi was possible for weeks at a time.
But such fortune did not await Joliet and Mar- quette, and they were obliged to make the portage. The Wisconsin River, upon which they were now embarked, presents a striking contrast to the Fox. Its valley is from three to five miles broad, flanked on either side, below the portage, by an undulating range of imposing bluffs, from one hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty feet in lieight. They are heavily wooded as a rule, although there is now, as then, much variety — pleasant slopes and pocket fields, on the sweet herbage of which the travelers saw deer and buffalo peacefully grazing; naked water-washed escarpments, rising sheer above the stream ; terraced hills, with eroded faces, as- cendino^ in a reoular succession of benches to the
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 59
cliff-like summits ; steep uplands whose forest growths have been shattered by tornadoes, and ro- mantic ravines worn deep by spring torrents im- patient to reach the river level.
Between these ranges stretches a wide expanse of bottoms, either bog or sand plain, through which the swift current twists and bounds, constantly cut- ting out new channels and filling old ones with the debris. As it thus sweeps along, w^herever its fancy listeth, here to-day and there to-morrow, it forms innumerable islands which greatly add to the picturesqueness of the view. These islands are often mere sand-bars, sometimes as barren as Sa- hara, again thick-grown with willows and seedling aspens ; but for the most part they are heavily wooded, their banks gay with the season's flowers and luxurious vines hanging in deep festoons from the trees which overhanfj the flood. It is no won- der that the gentle Marquette found this bewitch- ing valley a land most fair to see, and writes in his journal with enthusiasm, of " the vine-clad islets."
On the seventeenth of June, the canoeists swiftly o^lided on the bubbled torrent, throuG^h the flood- washed delta of the Wisconsin, into the broad, sweeping current of the Mississippi, at this point nearly a mile in width. They gazed with rapt- ure upon one of the noblest scenes in America, and Marquette tells of the devout sentiments which
6o DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
possessed their hearts when they had at last found the object of their search, after thousands of miles of arduous journeying through a savage-haunted wilderness.
The story of their journey southward, as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, is well-known. On his return, Joliet lost his box of papers at the foot of the La Chine rapids, within sight of the Montreal settlement. It was left to Marquette to publish to the world a report of this remarkable expedition, and to reap, for the glory of his order, the lion's share of fame.*
* The Jesuit Father, though merely a subordinate in the expedition, has been accorded by most writers far greater credit than its leader. It is his statue, rather than Joliet's, which the Wisconsin legislature has recently voted to place in the Capitol at Washington ; and while Marquette has a county and a town in Wisconsin named in his honor, Joliet has not even been remembered in the list of cross-roads post-ofiBces. Illinois has been more con- siderate of historical truth.
CHAPTER III.
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS OF NEW FRANCE.
OLIET and Marquette had returned to Green Bay, from their canoe trip to the mouth of the Ar- kansas, by the way of the IlUnois River and the Chicago portage. Thence they leis- urely made their prog- ress down the west coast of Lake Michigan and were at St. Francis Xavier mission in September. While Joliet hurried on to Montreal to report his memorable discoveries, his Jesuit companion was forced from severe illness to tarry at the Bay and later in the vear to forward his written account of the expedition through the apparently uncertain agency of a party of Ottawas en route for Three Rivers. But we have seen that Joliet's oflficial re- port never reached its destination, while the Indians succeeded in delivering Marquette's simple narra- tive to his Jesuit superior.
6i
62 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
While the worldly Joliet was vainly seeking authority from the home government in France, to proceed with twenty persons to the Illinois country and there establish a trading post, Marquette was bent on saving souls. His malady grievously op- pressed him until the summer of 1674. In October of that year he received orders from his superior to undertake the task he had so earnestly sought, of establishing a mission at Kaskaskia, among the Illinois Indians. With two white assistants and a number of Pottawatomies and Illinois, the Father proceeded northward down the eastern shore of Green Bay until he reached the deep indentation now know as Sturgeon Bay.
So deep is this incision into the great neck of land separating the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan, that the canoeists penetrating to the head of Sturgeon Bay found but a mile and a half of heavily-forested sand-plain stretching southeast- ward between them and the waters of the lake. What was then a peculiarly favorable portage, sav- ing one hundred and fifty miles of stormy passage through the dreaded " Death's Door," between Green Bay and Chicago, is now the site of the Sturgeon Bay ship canal, one of the most useful of Government improvements on the upper lakes.
Traversing this lonely cut-off through the dark pine woods, Marquette again set his canoes afloat
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 63
upon the green waters of Lake Michigan and made such haste as November windstorms would allow, along the dreary shores of Eastern Wisconsin. Arriv- ing at the mouth of the Chicago River on the fourth of December, the missionary and his two white fol- lowers painfully passed the winter upon a wind- swept sand dune. In the spring they pushed on to the Illinois River, but the shadow of death was upon the devoted zealot and he hastened back, along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, resolved to die at Mackinaw among his religious brethren. The good man passed away May 18, 1675, while still upon his journey, a victim to exposure and improper nourishment; quite as much a martyr to the faith that was in him as any of his order who were roasted by the Iroquois.
Joliet was denied the privilege of reaping mate- rial advantage from the discovery which he had made for Frontenac. That astute ofBcial was inter- ested in the far-reaching fur-trade adventures of Robert Cavelier, known to history as La Salle, one of the most remarkable characters developed dur- ing the career of New France.
La Salle's appeals to the court for permission to explore the Mississippi region at his own cost, and recompense himself by trade with the Indians, were backed by Frontenac and at last granted in May, 1678. La Salle had, previous to this, had some
64 EXPLORERS AND EUR-TRADERS.
trade with the upper country by means of courcurs de bois sent out under his auspices. And it has been claimed for him that in 1671 he went in person to Green Bay and coasted the west shore of Lake Michigan as far south as the Chicago River ; that he portaged to the IlHnois River and descended the Mississippi to the thirty-sixth degree of latitude two years before Joliet's voyage. But this claim lacks the support of proof.
It is certain, however, that in 1673 Sieur Raudin, the engineer who planned La Salle's fort at Fron- tenac, now Kingston, on Lake Ontario, went to the western extremity of Lake Superior with presents from La Salle to the Chippewas and Sioux. And in the summer of 1679, Daniel Grayson du Lhut,* by Count Frontenac's permission, was trading amono- these same Sioux in the Mille Lac reo;ion of Minnesota. Du Lhut was a hardy soldier of fortune and had fought in some desperate European cam- paigns. He proved himself a daring explorer and peculiarly successful in his treatment of the Indians. Ascending St. Louis River, now on the dividing line between Wisconsin and Minnesota, it is thought that he made the easy portage to Sandy Lake of the Upper Mississippi and thus was, after Radisson, the first white trader upon the head-waters of that great stream so soon to be
* For whom the city of Duluth, Minn., was named.
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 65
the scene of active operations on the part of his contemporaries.
That same summer of 1679, La Salle's small vessel, the Grif^n — the first sailing craft on the Great Lakes above the cataract of Niagara — put in its appearance among the islands at the mouth of Green Bay, much to the amazement of the simple Pottawatomies who were there domiciled. Here La Salle found a party of his traders who, having been sent in advance by canoe the previous autumn, had accumulated a considerable stock of furs from the Wisconsin tribes. The Griffin, beinor loaded with these peltries and ordered to Niagara, was never again seen by its owner. Some Indians afterwards reported that the vessel was wrecked ; but La Salle heard another story, and perhaps the most likely, to the effect that the pilot, who was known to be an insubordinate rascal, was with four of his companions afterwards trading on the Upper Mississippi with goods stolen from the ship.
La Salle does not appear to have visited the St, Francis Xavier mission, still in progress at Depere, notwithstanding his proximity to that spiritual abode. And, indeed, this lack of courtesy was natural on his part, for the Jesuit order was not friendly to his cause and the missionary would very likely have reported him at Quebec; for in pene- trating the waters of Lake Michigan, he had ex-
66 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
ceeded his licensed bounds and was holding an illicit traffic.
Upon parting with his ship, with instructions to the master to meet him at the head of Lake Michigan on the return trip, La Salle and four- teen of his men had proceeded southward in four deeply-laden canoes along the Wisconsin shore. The island in Green Bay, on which the party had rendezvoused, was a considerable distance from the mainland, and the navigators were about midway when what was a glassy flood in the afternoon became transformed into a raging sea. They were in great jeopardy, but kept their spirits up and the fleet united by shouting to each other through the inky night until at last they reached a compara- tively quiet cove and pitched camp under the dreary pines. They were storm-bound here for five days, being fed by the neighboiing Pottawatomies with Indian corn and pumpkins.
At last they reembarked, but the tempest broke forth again and this time they took refuge upon a barren little isle, spending there two days of misery, washed by the spray and buffeted by the gale. And thus, again and again, did treacherous Sep- tember storms interrupt their progress. They were spent with hunger, fatigue and exposure, and a mutinous spirit arose among the men ; for La Salle now declined to allow his party to stop at the Indian
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 67
villages occasionally seen along the coast, being fearful of the opportunity thus afforded his follow- ers to steal the merchandise and desert to the savages.
On the first of October, the adventurers were nearly lost while attempting to land their frail barks upon a sandy beach over which the surf rolled with frightful fury. Many were capsized and with diflficulty brought to land ; but despite the general fatigue, the fear of famine induced La Salle to order a raid upon an Indian village, from which the Pottawatomie inhabitants had fled at the ap- proach of the whites; and here a considerable quantity of corn was confiscated, goods being left behind by way of compensation.
The voyagers were in a desperate strait when at length they entered a bay which was apparently that of Milwaukee River. The almost ceaseless storms had greatly protracted the journey and made canoe- ing through the great swells a labor both weari- some and hazardous ; the landinsfs each ni^ht, through the breakers, grew more and more diflfi- cult and the banks higher and more cliff-like, the farther south they proceeded ; their provisions had at last become restricted to a handful of corn each day, per man, and dejection, sickness and exposure had worn them to a pitiful condition.
On the forested shores of this beautiful bay, they
68 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
were startled to find the print of a human foot, where they had anticipated, a period of rest in an uninhabited wild. It rained heavily all that night, but the white camp was alert ; and well it was, for a party of Fox Indians approached the bivouac under cover of the bluff and startled the sentries before dawn, although the unwelcome visitors withdrew upon discovery, mumbling the excuse that they had imagined the new arrivals to be Iroquois, The red men stole articles from under the upturned canoes during the night. La Salle went out the next day and single-handed captured a young Fox, as a hostage for their return. A battle was imminent. Sixscore Indians surrounded the little camp with loud cries of vengeance, but the Frenchmen finally won them over to reason and were abundantly recompensed for the thefts , while, in accordance with Indian custom, per- petual amity was henceforth promised.
After spending a brief season with his new- found friends. La Salle proceeded along-shore to the mouth of St. Joseph's River, where he built a fort and on the third of December started upon that notable expedition which resulted in the first civilized occupation of the Illinois country — at Fort Crevecoeur. On the twenty-ninth of Feb- ruary, 1680, La Salle sent Father Louis Hennepin, one of three Franciscan friars who had accompanied
EXPLORERS AND ELR-TRADERS. 69'
him upon his tour from Green Bay, together with two coureiirs de dots, Michel Accau and Antoine Auguel, upon an exploring expedition up the Mis- sissippi River. Accau was the leader of the party, but Hennepin being its historian generally gets the credit for its explorations. They proceeded in their canoe down the Illinois River to its mouth, and thence breasted the current of the Father of Waters — some six and a half years later than Joliet. They took especial notice of the Wisconsin and Black rivers. Meeting a party of Sioux going south upon a scalping expedition, Accau induced them to turn back on their path and take them to ■*;heir village, where a considerable trade was trans- acted, for the French canoe was well laden w'ith European articles used in forest barter. About three miles below the present city of St. Paul, the canoes were hidden in the reeds and an overland journey undertaken to the Mille Lacs Sioux. From here the adventurers w^ent upon a buffalo hunt with a party of their entertainers, below St. Croix River, on the Wisconsin side.
And now to return to that daring and successful chief of coureurs de bois, Du Lhut. We have seen that during the summer of 1679, he was trading with the Sioux on the headwaters of the Mississippi and the Mille Lacs countrv. The succeedinoj winter, he spent in profitable commerce with the
JO EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
Assineboines, Crees and other northern tribes in the neighborhood of Grand Portage, on the present dividing line between Minnesota and Canada. In June, 1680, he set out with a small party of em- ployes to reach the Mississippi River, probably not being aware that he could have easily reached it from the Mille Lacs by way of the Rum River. Coursing the extreme southwestern shore of Lake Superior, he entered the narrow and turbulent Bois Brule, in our day perhaps the most famous of Wisconsin trout streams, and with difficulty made his way over the fallen trees and beaver dams which then choked its course. From its headwaters, there is a short portage to the Upper St. Croix ; and this traversed, Du Lhut was upon a romantic stream which swiftly carried him through dashing rapids and deep, cool lakes, into the mighty Mississippi.
Here he was surprised by the information that Europeans were hunting with the Sioux near the mouth of the Chippewa River, on the Wisconsin shore. Pressing forward, he soon met the traders and the priest, the latter being an old acquaintance. The Indians had, towards the last, sadly maltreated Hennepin and his companions, robbing them of their valuables and practically making them prison- ers. The arrival of the fur trader was therefore timely. He roundly abused the savages for their
EXPLORERS AND EUR-TRADERS. 7 1
ill-treatment of his friends and at the same time sharply reproved the friar for suffering such insults without resentment. Du Lhut and the others now returned with the Sioux to Mille Lacs, where they were handsomely treated, and in the autumn returned home — descending Rum River, which is the outlet of Mille Lacs; portaging around the Falls of St. Anthony, then and there named by the devout Hennepin ; drifting down to the mouth of the Wisconsin ; ascending the Wisconsin and descend- ing the Fox amid many curious adventures, and spending the winter at Mackinaw. Du Lhut made the trip over the Fox-Wisconsin route several times in later years.
An adventurous voyageur named La Sueur was the next man to imprint his name on the page of Wisconsin history. In 1683, he made a tour with a few companions over the now familiar Fox- Wisconsin River route, from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, and ascended to the Falls of St. Anthony and beyond, where he traded with the Sioux.
We have already mentioned the early adventures of Nicholas Perrot in Wisconsin, and the part he took in St. Lusson's expedition to Sault Ste. ]\Larie in 1670-71. In 1685, De la Barre, who had succeeded Frontenac as governor of New France, appointed the redoubtable Perrot " commandant of the West"
72 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
and gave him an army of twenty men to hold that vast territory in subjection. He proceeded to Green Bay in as much state as was practicable with such a contingent, and found at St. Francis Xavier mission Father John Enjalran — the only priest then west of Lake Michigan ; for the Wis- consin Indians had proven so obdurate, despite apparent successes in the early years, as to wholly discourage the Jesuits. Enjalran himself was withdrawn three years later, no attempt being made to resuscitate the cause at Green Bay, until a quarter of a century afterwards.
At Green Bay, Perrot met some Indians from the West, who were visiting there, and they told him of many strange things — of the brilliantly- colored sandstones of the Minnesota country; of white men riding on horses, in the far south — doubtless the Spaniards of New Mexico ; and of other whites in the far north, who lived in houses that " walked on the water " — the English, who were now well-established in a profitable fur-trade on Hudson's Bay, having been led thither in 1667 by our old friends Radisson and Groseilliers, then in the service of the British.
Perrot was familiar enous^h with the Wisconsin country, but these tales were fraught with fresh information to him, and imbued him with an in- tense desire to at once seize upon the treasures of
•(5
J
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 75
the West and establish the claims of the French before these mysterious whites to the north and soutli, whoever they were, had penetrated the interior and blocked the progress of New France.
At the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin, Perrot's party had some difficulty with thirteen Hu- rons, who were opposed to his project of establish- ing a trade with their enemies, the Sioux, but there does not appear to have been anything worse than a wordy Cjuarrel. Perrot's Memoir makes no men- tion of a post established either on the banks or near the mouth of the \\ isconsin River by La Salle, some two years before ; * perhaps it was no longer in existence. Buffalo were then numerous along this noble stream, and the earliest French traders found here a considerable source of supply, in the coveted pelts of these animals.
Upon reaching the Mississippi, Perrot sent out some Winnebago runners to notify the Sioux that he proposed to build a trading post some distance up the river, and that occasional prairie fires would be set alomj the banks to serve as a "'uide for the
o o
Indian hunting parties, in following him. The savages of the Upper Mississippi region had by this time become largely dependent upon the white traders for weapons, ammunition, domestic utensils and ornaments, and were ever anxious to welcome
* Margry, Veil 11. p. 254.
76 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
the advent of a French trading party ; although the latter were obliged to fortify themselves, from fear that the cupidity of their wily customers, or some strange freak of suspicion on their part, might induce treachery.
During the winter of 1685-86, Perrot's head- quarters were a rude stockade built at the foot of a commandinor bluff on the east bank of the Missis-
O
sippi, about a mile above the modern village of Trempealeau ; and from here he sent out his coiireurs dc bois to trade with the Sioux of the Min- nesota plains, just beyond the great river. What are thought to be the ruins of these winter quar- ters of Perrot were unearthed in the fall of 1887 and the spring and summer of 1888, under the direction of a party of Wisconsin and Minne- sota antiquarians.
Moving up stream, in the spring of 1686, Perrot entered Lake Pepin, now far-famed for the rugged beauty of its shores, and upon the eastern, or Wis- consin bank, above the present village of Pepin, erected a second and more substantial stockade, which he called P'ort St. Antoine. Perrot appears to have been commandant of the West until about 1699, and during that period made frequent trips between the Upper Mississippi and the Lower St. Lawrence. He built several forts alonor the Mis- sissippi, for the protection of his fur trade and the
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 77
lead-mining industry which he inaugurated in the Galena country ; one of these posts was Fort St. Nicholas, near the mouth of the Wisconsin — probably on the site of the Prairie du Chien of our day. It was at Fort St. Antoine, on the eighth of May, 1689, that Perrot took formal possession, in the name of his royal master, of the region drained by the rivers St. Croix, St. Peter and the Upper Mississippi and the basin of the Mille Lacs. These stockade posts erected by the early traders were as a rule placed at vantage points, such as a strait, a portage, at the mouth of a river or on the shores of an important lake, and at such places there were quite apt to be Indian villages.
In 1802, there was plowed up at Depere, on the site of the ancient mission-house, a silver soleil or ostensorium, made to contain the consecrated wafer ; upon the rim was found an engraved inscription, in French : " This soleil was given by Mr. Nicholas Perrot, to the mission of St. Francis Xavier, at La Baye des Puants, * 1686." The soleil is still in existence and was exhibited at the Marietta Centennial, in 1888, as probably the oldest exist- ing relic of the European conquest west of the Alleghany Mountains.
* Baye des Puants is literally, Bay of the Stinkards, sometimes rendered Bay of the Fetid. It refers to an old tradition that the Winnebasoes on Green Bay came from where the water wa? stinking or fetid — in fact, salt. This tradition was one of the causes which led Nicolet to imagine the Winnebagoes to have come from the China Sea.
78 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
In 1703 there was published in France a remark- able work in two volumes, professing to be the ad- ventures in America of Baron la Hontan, a well- educated Gascon who had come to Canada in 1683 and by ability had risen from the post of a common soldier to be a favorite of Frontenac, and in after years deputy governor of Placentia. In this journal La Hontan claims to have arrived at Green Bay in the fall of 1689, a few months after Perrot's act of taking possession, and to have traveled over the Fox-Wisconsin waterway to the Mississippi, into which stream he entered the twenty-third of Octo- ber. He gave a marvelous account of his discov- eries in the Upper Mississippi basin, and traced rivers which were long accepted by geographers. But modern scholarship has discarded Hontan's narrative as largely, if not wholly, fabulous.
Pierre le Sueur, the coureuer dc bois whose trip over the Fox-Wisconsin route in 1683 has already been alluded to, continued for many years to be a notable character in the Story of Wisconsin. Among the witnesses to Perrot's act, of 1689, was this same Le Sueur, then a considerable trader among the Indians of the Upper Mississippi coun- try. A Canadian by birth, and related to men of prominence in the councils of New France, he was among the favored few who were granted trading licenses in the Northwest.
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 79
Toward the close of the seventeenth century, the Foxes, who then controlled the valleys of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, had become so hostile to the French, partly through cupidity and partly through injuries wrought by the latter, the sense of which was heightened by overtures from the Dutch-En- glish traders at Albany, that these divergent streams were no longer safe as a gateway from the Great Lakes to the Great River. The tendency of the prolonged Fox war was to force fur trade travel to the portages of Chicago and St. Joseph's on the south, and those of Lake Superior on the north.
It was with a view to keeping open one of the north- ern routes, the approach to the Mississippi by the way of the Bois Brule and St. Croix rivers, that Le Sueur was dispatched by the authorities of New France, in 1693. ^^ built a stockaded fort at La Pointc, the old mission site on Chequamegon Bay, convenient for guarding the northern approach to this route ; and another on an island in the Mis- sissippi, below the mouth of the St. Croix and near the present town of Red Wing, Minnesota. This latter post soon became "the center of commerce for the Western parts."
Four years later we find Le Sueur in France, a successful suitor for a license to operate certain "mines of lead, copper, blue and green earth," which he claimed to have discovered "at the source
8o EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
of the Mississippi." After many delays he set out from France late in 1699, in Iberville's second ex- pedition, having in his charge thirty experienced miners. His reporter and companion, Penicaut, says that in their voyage up the river in the summer of 1700, they found lead mines on the sites of the modern cities of Dubucjue and Galena, which Perrot had discovered before them ; and supplied themselves w^ith lead from what came to be after- wards known as " Snake diggings," near the pres- ent village of Potosi, Wisconsin. Le Sueur made note of the Wisconsin, Black, Buffalo, Chippewa and St. Croix, all of them Wisconsin rivers, and spent the winter in a stockade which he built on Blue River, in Minnesota. He traded to a consid- erable extent for beaver skins, but owing to the hostility of the marauding Foxes, his mining operations were confined to sending four thousand pounds of comparatively valueless blue and green earth to be assayed in Paris.
On the eighteenth of October, 1699, Father St. Cosme, a native of Quebec, arrived at Green Bay on his way to the Lower Mississippi, whither he had been ordered by his missionary chief. He found upon his arrival there that his proposed route by way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers was impracticable, owing to the opposition of the Fox Indians, " who will not suffer any person to pass, for
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 8 1
fear they will go to places at war with them," and supply their enemies the Sioux with fire-arms. He was therefore compelled to direct his boatmen to proceed southward, closely skirting the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan — La Salle's old route. On their way they stopped at a small Pottawatomie village, possibly the site of Sheboygan, "where Rev. Father Marest had wintered with some Frenchmen and planted a cross." The seventh of October found them at Milwaukee Bay, where they made a brief stay and found a considerable population of Mascoutins, Foxes and Pottawatomies, some of the same people who had annoyed La Salle's unfor- tunate party several years previous.
We have seen that the Foxes, aided at times by the Mascoutins, had for some time been acting badly toward the French, one of their complaints being that the latter were carrying arms to the Sioux ; and true enough, for the roving fur-traders had developed an extensive custom among the savages of the trans-Mississippi country, having already pushed as far west as the Upper Missouri; while but few streams of importance in Wisconsin or Minnesota had not been floating the canoes and batteaux of coureurs de bois for many years. Im- mense sums of money were invested in these en- terprises, the coureurs being generally but the agents — the commercial travelers, in fact — of rich
82 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
companies of merchants quartered on the Lower St, Lawrence, or having their offices in France. The risks from forest fires, accidents en route, the cupidity of murderous savages and the treach- ery of \.\\^ coiircui's themselves, were enormous; but the percentage of profits, when realized, was often reckoned by the hundreds, so that while many failed the few prospered sufficiently to make the risks attractive, and the woodsman who could pro- cure a government license to trade seldom failed to obtain sufficient financial backing for his venture.
The Fox-Wisconsin route from Canada to the Mississippi, while farthest from Montreal, was the first of the six* great portage highways between the Great Lakes and the Great River, to be used by the French ; and, from the opposition of the Iro- quois, it continued to be long preferred by many to the more convenient southern portages. When the Fox outbreak, therefore, shut the Wisconsin gate in the face of the French, and forced them to use the Chicago and Lake Superior routes, much hard- ship was occasioned to the most important busi- ness interest in New France.
• The principal routes between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi were:
1. By the Miami River from the west end of Lake Erie to the Wabash; thence to the Ohio and the Mississippi.
2. By the St. Joseph's River to the Wabash; thence to the Ohio.
3. By the St. Joseph's River to the Kankakee, and thence to the Illinois and the Mississippi.
4. By the Chicago River to the Illinois.
5. By Green Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin River.
6. By the Bois Brule River to the St. Croix River.
EXPLORERS AXD EUR-TRADERS. 83
The Foxes in the principal villages on the Fox and Wolf rivers had been profitably employed, as were the Menomonees before them, in helping the boats of traders and explorers over the numerous rapids and in " toting " cargoes over the portage trails. Their first offense consisted in collecting a tariff on goods entering their country, in addition to their fees as common carriers. The French, unlike some modern political economists, deemed a tariff to be a tax, and it being an unauthorized tax resisted it even to bloodshed. And thus, with complaints upon both sides, the trouble grew into formidable dimensions.
It is related, that in the winter of 1706-07 a bold French captain, Marin by name, was sent out by the Quebec government to chastise the rascally Foxes. At the head of a large party of soldiers, couretirs de bois and half-breeds, he ascended the frozen surface of the Lower Fox on snow-shoes, surprised the enemy who had assembled near the great village of their allies, the Sacs, at Winnebago Rapids, where is now the city of Neenah, ana slew them by the hundreds.
Afterwards, this same Marin — a famous par- tisan leader, by the way, who died in 1753, while commander of Duquesne's expedition to occupy the Ohio country — conducted a summer foray against the persistent Foxes. His boats were
84 EXPLORERS AND EUR~TRADERS.
filled with armed men, but when they approached the Indian village the soldiers were covered down with oilcloth, as traders were wont to treat their goods €71 voyage, to escape a wetting. Only two voyageurs were now visible in each boat, paddling and steering. Nearly fifteen hundred dusky tax- gatherers were discovered squatting on the strand at the foot of Winnebago Rapids, awaiting the arrival of the flotilla, apparently an easy prey. The canoes were ranged along the shore. Upon a signal be- ing given, the coverings were thrown off and volley after volley of hot lead poured into the mob of un- suspecting savages, a swivel-gun in Marin's boat aiding in the slaughter. Tradition has it that over a thousand Foxes fell in that brutal assault.
Still they were not vanquished. In 171 2, in company with the Mascoutins, they advanced to the attack of Detroit ; their attempts were futile, however, and they retired discomfited. But upon their own soil their depredations on the fur-trade became more extended than ever ; and so wide an area did they range over, that French interests in what is now Wisconsin and Minnesota were almost wholly annihilated. In 1716, De Louvigny, another captain of New France, is reported to have stormed the audacious Foxes, Far from being extermi- nated by previous forays, five hundred warriors and three thousand squaws and other non-combat-
EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS. 85
ants are allesfed to have been collected within a
O
palisaded fort somewhere in the neighborhood of Winnebago Rapids. De Louvigny is credited with having captured the fort after a three days' siege, but the bluff old ranger was so pleased with the pluck and endurance of his enemy that he granted him the honors of war.
Twelve years later the Foxes had again become so troublesome as to need renewed chastisement. This time the agent chosen was De Lignery, among whose lieutenants was Charles de Langlade, a fierce partisan whom we shall meet hereafter in the capacity of first permanent white settler in Wiscon- sin.* But the redskins had become wise, after their fashion, and fled before the Frenchmen, who found the villages on both the Lower and the Upper Fox deserted. The invaders burned every wigwam and cornfield in sight, from Green Bay to the portage. This expedition was followed by others — notably one under De Villiers in 1730, and another com- manded by De Noyelle in 1735 — until the Foxes, with their Sac allies, fled the valley never to return.
Some time between 1718 and 1721, a French military station was established at Greeen Bay and styled Fort St. Francis, in honor of the former mission; and in July of the latter year, Father
* Another of De Lignery's lieutenants was Beaujeu, who was killed while leading the French troops- at Braddock's defeat, in 1775.
86 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
Charlevoix, traveler and historian, made a trip hither from Mackinaw, in company with M. de Montigny who was to take command of the new post. Five years later, we find Fort St. Francis under command of Sieur Amoritan ; and the follow- ing year (i 727), the Sieur de la Pierriere stopped here and made a successful run over the Fox- Wisconsin river route to the Upper Mississippi, where on the shores of Lake Pepin he planted another fort for the protection of fur-traders operat- ing in the Sioux country. This new post, called Fort Beauharnois, was planted at Pointe au Sable, on the Minnesota shore,* some eight or ten miles above the old site of Perrot's Fort St. Antoine, and was placed in command of Rene de Boucher, notorious for his bloody sack of Haverhill, Mas- sachusetts. In 1728, a river flood destroyed it, and it was afterwards rebuilt on a hioher level. In 1766, however, Jonathan Carver found here but a crumbling ruin.
The very same year that high water washed out Fort Beauharnois, De Lignery razed the fort at Green Bay, from fear of its falling an easy prey to the Foxes, when they should return over their smoking fields to wreak vengeance upon the de- stroying race. But two years afterward, another military stockade was built, this time on the west
• Two miles east of the present railway station of Frontenac.
EXPLORERS AND FCR-TRADERS. 87
side of the Fox River, on the site of the later Fort Howard ; and until the fall of New France this proved the rallying point and defense of a floating French Creole and half-breed population, engaged in a wide-spread but spasmodic trade with the Wisconsin aborigines.
This new station, given the general title of La Baye, was an important recruiting post for the French army during its long struggle with the British forces for supremacy on the Ohio and St. Lawrence. It was here that Langlade, Marin, Gautier and other partisan captains assembled their scalping parties of naked Menomonees, Foxes, Sacs, Winnebagoes, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, Chip- pewas and Sioux, to assist in those bloody forays upon the western borders of Pennsylvania which sent a thrill of horror through the English colonies. It was Langlade, with his feathered and painted demi-demons from Wisconsin, who led the fright- ful onslaught, that fateful ninth of July, 1755, when Braddock's army was sacrificed to the te- merity of its commander ; Langlade's Ottawas were prominent in the successful siege of Fort George, two years later; w^hile Wisconsin Indians under his command did effectual service before Quebec and frequently harried the army of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham.
But the power of the French on the North
88 EXPLORERS AND FUR-TRADERS.
American continent, came at last to an end. The red Indians of the West deserted their old-time allies, when the latter were most in need of them ; and when, on the eighth of September, 1760, the banner of the fleur-de-lis was lowered in New France and the union jack floated to the breeze, Wisconsin savages were among the first to ap- plaud the change.
CHAPTER IV.
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
T was with no small degree of exultation that the British fur- traders at Albany and on the Atlantic sea- board, greeted the announcement that the Northwest was at last opened to the m. Their in- trigues with Wisconsin Indians had materially contributed to the bitterness of the Fox war, ham- pered the operations of the French and proved profitable for themselves. Indeed, the red fur- hunters, although having a decided preference for the French, whose mercurial natures were so readily adaptable to the habits of the barbarians and to whom they were often allied by ties of blood as well as of comradery, were quick to perceive that the English traders, with all their lack of courtesy towards the natives and their evident greed,
89
90 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
offered the best prices for peltries. English over- tures for trade were therefore gladly met whenever opportunity offered, and the Indians could do barter without attracting the notice of their French friends, who deemed such traffic akin to treason- able connivance with an enemy.
A few days after the surrender of Canada, Major Robert Rogers's famous rangers — the heroes of Lakes George and Champlain — were dispatched to take immediate possession of the important posts of Detroit, Mackinaw, Sault Ste. Marie, Green Bay and St. Joseph's. But there were numerous delays, and the French commander at Detroit had no sooner lowered the flao^ of France and reluctantly transferred his charge to the plucky Rogers, than winter closed in upon this advance guard of England, and the upper posts were un- disturbed until the following year.
The first of October, 1 761, Captain Belfour of the 80th, and Lieutenant James Gorrell of the 60th, or Royal American regiment, set out from Mackinaw with a detachment selected from both commands, to take possession of the now abandoned French post at Green Bay. They arrived on the twelfth of the month, and found the place temporarily deserted. The establishment consisted of a rotten, tumble-down stockade, inclosing a number of roofless cabins originally designed for soldiers
UNDER THE BRITISH EL AG. 9 1
and traders, while a few families of Menotnonee Indians had their wigwams just without the walls. The savages were at this time off upon their usual winter's hunt, while the French traders were just then in the Sioux country, beyond the Mississippi.
Belfour remained two days at Green Bay; long enough to christen this dismal outpost with the high-sounding title of Fort Edward Augustus, and then returned to Mackinaw, leaving Gorrell with one sergeant, a corporal and fifteen privates, to hold for King George all that portion of the American wilderness lying west of Lake Michigan.
It was a lonesome winter for the little garrison at Fort Edward Augustus. Upon the banks of the Mississippi, eight hundred miles of canoe journey to the southwest, were a half-dozen small French villages, with a floating population of per- haps twenty-five hundred souls ; the nearest white settlement was the meager trading hamlet of Mackinaw, two hundred and forty miles away ; while between Green Bay and St. Joseph's,* the only other civilized community accessible from Lake Michigan, there lay a dangerous water route of four hundred miles. All between was savagery. Here and there a wretched Indian community had
•The site of the modern city of South Bend, Ind.
92 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
its conical tepees of bark and matted reeds pitched on the shore of a lake, at the foot of some portage trail or on the banks of a forest stream. Hard by were their fields of corn and pumpkins, rudely cultivated in the summer time by women, boys and slaves — the latter generally from the Pawnees and other tribes to the south, acquired by barter from man-hunting bands which annually raided the southern belt to obtain material for this traffic in humanity.
When the first snowflakes filled the air and brittle ice along the shores gave warning of a speedy close of navigation, these summer habita- tions were abandoned and the Indians scattered in small family groups through far-away hunting- grounds, returning only in April or May to make their planting for another season. In former times, when the crop was in, the bucks took their winter's stock of peltries down the waterways to the near- est fur-trader's station and there spent a few weeks in wordy traffic and debauchery : at first to Mon- treal, then to Fort Frontenac, then to Detroit and Mackinaw or Green Bay, St. Joseph's, or some of the old French posts on the Upper Mississippi, with an occasional secret trip to their more liberal patrons, the British traders at Albany. But the post traffic gave way, at last, to personal visitation on the part of the traders. Every winter the hunting
UNDER THE BRITISH EL AG. 93
bands were followed through the woods and along the streams by traders and their agents, the furs beine bars^ained for almost before the animals which wore them were stiffened in death. The natural result of this method, which lasted unto our own day, was that the improvident savages spent their gains on the spot, as fast as acquired, re- turning to their summer homes as poor as when they left them, and absolutely dependent for exist- ence on the miserable crop of corn until the fol- lowing winter. The life of our Northwestern Indians was not one of sweetness and light ; it yielded no material for romance. The squaws were overworked and became wrinkled hags and great-grandmothers at fifty ; the bucks were gen- erally cruel, immoral, slothful and always improvi- dent; filth and squalor everywhere prevailed, sanitary laws were unknown, and between the ex- tremes of gluttonly excesses and prolonged famine, the Indian fell an early victim to disease. The red man is usually depicted as silent and astute. He was, under natural conditions, often hilarious and generally unthinking — a temper well fitting him to be the boon companion of happy-go-lucky French voyagcurs and courcurs dc dais.
And thus, while Gorrell's little band of red-coats shivered in their dilapidated post on the far-away marshes of Green Bay, the gloomy forest wilds be-
94 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
fore them, to the north, to the south and to the west, harbored hundreds of little camps of savage hunters and demi-savage traders, wherein the change of political ownership was being sharply discussed and the attitude of Wisconsin Indians determined.
The English o-arrison had Introduced two traders upon the scene — one McKay of Albany, and one Goddard from Montreal ; but they do not appear to have been at first successful in their venture. The winter passed in repairing the fort and securing fuel, with no small difificulty, from the distant forest. Now and then small squads of Indians came strag- gling in from the hunting camps, spies sent to feel the British pulse ; being well treated they invari- ably returned to the woods in good spirits and helped prepare the way for an era of friendship, althouQ-h the P>ench did their best to poison the minds of their dusky friends against the overtures of Gorrell.
In the spring, when the bands came in, verbal treaties were made with the neighboring Menom- onees, Winnebagoes and Ottawas, Gorrell being forced to literally "eat dog" with his Algonkin friends and school himself in the not difficult art of forest oratory. Here, as at their other wilder- ness outposts, the British soon won the respect of the Indians. While never intimately associating
UNDER THE BRITISH EI AG. 95
with the red men — inclined indeed to rather brusque and contemptuous treatment of them, in a social way — the fastidious English made up with diplomacy and the exercise of shrewd business capacity for what they lost in failing to treat with the aborigines on an equal footing. Fair words, a judicious distribution of presents and the best ruling prices for furs, captivated the Indian heart.
The episode of the Pontiac war disturbed these pleasant relations for a time, but when the savages of the Northwest were at last overawed by superior force they became once more the firm and lasting- friends of the British. The latter were also politic in securing the adhesion of tlie coureurs de bois and other French and half-breed elements, so closely intermingled with the Indian life. French- men and mixed bloods were freely given positions as traders' clerks, interpreters and voyagairs, while military commissions, medals and uniforms were issued to those having especial influence with the Indians ; thus both conquered races were soon made to feel that the change in political mastery was rather to their advantao-e than otherwise. This admirable policy of the British government — so sharply contrasted, in after days, with that lack of conciliation generally shown by native Americans in their treatment of the savages — stood England
96 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
in good stead in the Northwest, during the wars of the Revolution and i8 12-15, as will be hereafter seen.
It was not until the tenth of February, 1763, that France formally handed over to England her vast territory east of the Mississippi River.
In April, partly in a spirit of revenge for private wrongs, partly inspired by personal ambition and largely by patriotism, Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, commenced to organize a conspiracy of North- western Indians for the overthrow of the new British garrisons.
The sad story of the massacre at Fort Macki- naw, on the fourth of June, is a familiar one in Western annals. Captain Etherington, Lieutenant Leslie and eleven other Englishmen had been saved from the fort by friendly Ottawas and taken in canoes to L'Arbre Croche. On the eleventh, Etherinfjton sent a letter bv an Ottawa messenorer to Lieutenant Gorrell, informing him of the tragedy and commanding him to evacuate Green Bay and come to their relief. The letter arrived at Fort Edward Augustus on the fifteenth. Gorrell at once assembled a council of Menomonees, of whose attachment he was the most assured, announced that he was ooins: to Mackinaw to restore order and asked them to take care of the fort in his absence. Sacs, Foxes and Winnebagoes then ap-
UNDER THE BRITISH IT AG. 97
peared on the scene in considerable numbers, and all were at once loaded with presents.
At first there was some desire upon the part of the Indians to prevent the departure of the garrison, Pontiac's emissaries having made them fearful of the consequence of offending him. But at this critical juncture, it fortunately happened that a dele- gation of Sioux arrived and espoused the cause of Gorrell. Their especial enemies the Chippewas being engaged in the support of Pontiac, the Sioux proposed to help the English and threatened dire punishment to those who dared interfere with the commandant's wishes.
This message from across the Mississippi decided the question and all were now eager to assist at the embarkation. On the twenty-first of June, the lit- tle fleet paddled out of Fox River into the broad expanse of Green Bay, making a rather imposing array, for the garrison batteaux were escorted by canoes containing ninety painted warriors gaily bedecked with feathers and singing their war-songs in anticipation of greeting the foe. They had a fair passage through " Death's Door " and across Lake Michigan, arriving at L'Arbre Croche on the thirtieth. After many councils and some danger- ous delays, the united garrisons set out on the eighteenth of July, via the great northern route of the Ottawa River, for Montreal, which they reached
98 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
on the thirteenth of August. Mackinaw was re- occupied the following year, but the British flag was not again seen waving over a Wisconsin fort until the temporary invasion of 1814.
The sudden departure of Gorrell left the fur-trade at Green Bay once more in the hands of the French. The Enoiish traders had left their stocks with
O
Creole clerks, and very soon the post settled down into a more or less permanent French trading vil- lage, the precursor of the Green Ba) , Fort Howard and Depere of to-day. Many of the new-comers cultivated small plats of land on both sides of Fox River — the ribbon-like strips so familiar in French- Canadian cotes — and ever since that day the habitan has retained his foothold upon the district and indelibly impressed upon it his well-marked characteristics.
His system of agriculture was of the simplest kind. The rude wheeled plows were of wood throuohout, the strais^ht beam endins^ in a cross- bar lashed with thongs to the horns of oxen, which were then more commonly used than horses. Often a crooked stick did duty as a colter. The crops were chiefly of wheat and vegetables, no more being raised than was absolutely necessary to existence. A flower garden was an indispensable adjunct to every cabin, which was a crude struct- ure, either of logs or frame, roofed with strips of
UNDER THE BRITISH I LAG. 99
bark or thatched with straw, and everywhere put together with wooden pegs in default of nails. These houses were small, and for the most part of but one story, the attic lighted by a profusion of dormer windows. The furnishings were slight, the beds being the chief articles of furniture; the floors were covered with Indian mats, the fireplaces were ample, neatness everywhere prevailed, and the general aspect was one of rude and unpreten- tious comfort. The cattle ranged upon the com- mon ; the men, in their moccasins and blanket suits, met and roystered in the inevitable tavern, in front of which was ever a row of little, two-wheeled carts ; the aproned women gossiped over the picket fences which separated the narrow holdings — nar- row, so as to give each a front upon the river high- way ; everywhere was evident the French desire for social intercourse, the love of aggregation, the capacity for making the most of to-day with little res^ard for the morrow.
Just as the reins were slipping from the hands of the governor of New France, Vaudreuil, that pliant tool of his friends, made a grant to his brother Rigaud, of the Green Bay fort and an extensive fur-producing tract west of Lake Michigan, embrac- ing a goodly portion of what is now Wisconsin. This Rio^aud was an arrant rascal ; when he and Marin were in control of affairs at Green Bay, they
lOO UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
had stolen three hundred and twelve thousand francs by a system of false vouchers and misappro- priation of Government property quite general among army of^cers throughout New France at this time. Rigaud sold his claim to one William Grant, who was financially backed by a number of English merchants in Canada. But the London government when it gained control, promptly re- jected Grant's claim, which was never after heard of. Thus Green Bay was left to its own resources, and the habitans were fortunately undisturbed by proprietary interference.
Augustin and Charles Michel de Langlade, father and son, were decidedly the most picturesque characters in this little group of fur-trading French- men, who can hardly be called pioneers as we of Anglo-Saxon blood understand the term, and the date of whose advent cannot be accurately deter- mined— for they were essentially rovers and some had, like Hood's tars, a wife and progeny in every port. The Langlades appear to have been among the first whites to call Green Bay their home, althousfh we have seen that other French traders were stationed there much earlier; it is believed, however, that these latter kept their families in Mackinaw and merely regarded themselves as tem- porary occupants of Wisconsin soil. The Langlades — the elder of whom had owned a stockade at Green
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG, lOJ
Bay since the middle of the century — removed their domestic establishment thither soon after Gorrell's departure, and may therefore be deemed as among the fathers of the settlement. They were extensive fur-traders and commanded the confidence and practical control of large bands of Wisconsin Indians. Charles had become especially well- known as a partisan leader in the conflicts which resulted in the downfall of New France — havinsf been foremost in the attack on Braddock and head- ing Wisconsin Indians on the Plains of Abraham — and was continued by the British in the position which he had held under Vaudreuil, of superintend- ent of Indians and militia captain for the district of Green Bay. it is claimed by his friendly biog- raphers that this Langlade, w^ho was present on the occasion, was instrumental in saving Etherine- ton and other whites at the massacre of Mackinaw; but the historian Parkman, in his " Conspiracy of Pontiac," takes the view that Langlade was a passive spectator of the atrocities on that occasion and encouraged the Indians by merciless indifference to the Englishmen's appeals for his protection.
We have seen that La Salle established a post either on the Wisconsin River, or at its mouth, as early as 1683, for the trade in buffalo skins ; and that Perrot built his Fort St. Nicholas near the mouth of the same stream. But these stations fell
I02 UNDER THE BRI2JSH FLAG.
into disuse either before or during the prolonged difficulties with the Foxes, and ceased to be reco^'-- nized on the maps of the period. The broad, high prairie lying on the east bank of the Mississippi, a mile or two above the marshy delta of the Wisconsin, had, from the earliest days of the European con- quest, been a convenient and favorite rendezvous for Indians and traders.
Here, each autumn, the traders and engages on their return from Mackinaw or the lower country, by way of the Fox-Wisconsin route, would tarry for awhile and often hold high carnival before setting out in small parties for either the Upper or the Lower Mississippi, or for the country of the Sioux. Here again, in the spring, they were wont to as- semble after the winter's hunt and make up their fleets for the homeward journey ; as well as to meet occasional delegation's from some of the more re- mote tribes to the west and northwest, bringing furs with them for disposal to the whites. Here innumerable councils were held with the red bar- barians of the forest and plain, much tobacco and brandy consumed and protracted oratory indulged in ; while at night about the great camp fires stalked and lounged sleek, wily savages clad in gay and greasy blankets, and swarthy, devil-may- care Creoles, their dress a curious mixture of French and Indian : oaudv mob-caps, curlouslv-
Till-; rKRlI.S OF THE IKUXriER.
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG. 105
colored neckcloths, leather shirts, fringed leggins and moccasins resplendent in the quills of the "fretful porcupine;" a motley company this, but for the time jolly fellows all, cheek by jowl — the air frequently resounding with the wild cries of the medicine dancers, and the quavering, metallic notes of the voyagcurs as they chanted in minor key their quaint melodies : rude songs of the voy- age, of the chase, of love and the wassail.
Thus Prairie du Chien, or the " Prairie of the Dog" — so called from Le Chien, a village chief who long made this prairie his summer camping ground — became quite as famous as Green Bay itself. Biit it was not until 1726 that any white person is known to have claimed Prairie du Chien as his home. In that year, one Cardinell, a French soldier who had served in one of the raids against the Foxes, settled down here with a wife whom he brought from the Lower St. Lawrence — possibly the first white woman to settle as far west as this. Cardinell became a hunter, but in the summer cultivated a small patch of ground on the prairie, after the crude, hap-hazard fashion of the habitajis. His wife survived him and lived until 1827, then accredited with being one hundred and thirty yeare of age. She is said to have married a dozen hus- bands in succession, after Cardinell's death, no sooner burying the old love than taking up with a
Io6 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
new, being by all means the most thrifty widow who fitrures in the annals of Wisconsin.
These early French settlements were not imbued with the spirit of growth, or indeed of continuity. The Cardinells were many years alone on the prairie. By 1755, there were not more than half a dozen families on the spot, and they w^ere addicted to roving after the Indian fashion. That year, the government of New France re-established its old post there ; but eleven years later, Jonathan Carver does not appear to have found either fort or white settlers at the mouth of the Wisconsin. In any event, he makes no mention of an establishment there, in the journal of his tour.
During 1764-65, because of Indian disturbances, traders were not permitted by the British to pro- ceed into the western country farther than Mack- inaw, nor to bring furs from west of Lake Michigan to the lower country. On account of this embargo on commerce, the little coterie of French traders at Green Bay opened negotiations for the sale of their peltries at New Orleans, where their country- men had acquired a strong foothold. But these overtures alarming the English authorities, the embargo was raised and once more Saxon traders and travelers entered the reijion of W^isconsin and the Far West.
In 1766, Captain Jonathan Carver, first a medical
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG. 107
student, then a Massachusetts militia officer during the protracted struggle which ended in the fall of New France, and lastly an inveterate traveler, conceived the notion that he could discover a north- west passage to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Upper Mississippi. After a toilsome journey of some fifteen hundred miles, from Boston to Green Bay, which he reached the eighteenth of Septem- ber, he ascended the Fox and descended the Wis- consin, thence proceeding by the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony and the adjacent country. Afterwards ascending the Minnesota River, he wintered with the Sioux of the plains and the fol- lowing spring reached Lake Superior byway of the Chippewa and St. Croix Rivers, from whence he was obliged to return home disappointed in his ambitious expectations, but nevertheless having made a remarkable tour, the details of which he gave to the world in a book of travels which was an important contribution to the geographical literature of his time.
Not far north from the site of the modern city of St. Paul, Minnesota, Carver found a remarkable sandstone cave, which was used as a council cham- ber by some of the neighboring Indian bands. He claimed to have attended such a council on the first of May, 1767, and to have been the recipient of a considerable grant of land at the hands of
Io8 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
his generous Sioux hosts. This tract, as described in the deed signed by the granting chiefs, included the sites of the present cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, some of the choicest lands in Minne- sota and the whole or portions of the counties of Pierce, Pepin, Dunn, Clark, Buffalo, Trempealeau, Jackson, Chippewa, Eau Claire, Polk, Barron, Tay- lor, Price and Marathon in Wisconsin. The claim was transferred to others by Carver's children, for the sum of fifty thousand pounds sterling, and in 1822 the Mississippi Land Company was organized in New York for its prosecution before Congress. That body, after an elaborate investigation, decided against the petitioners ; but long after the decision, lands under the Carver title were sold in Wiscon- sin and Minnesota by Eastern speculators, and frau- dulent deeds of this character are to-day on record at St. Paul and Prairie du Chien.
During the" War of the Revolution, Wisconsin was chiefly notable as a recruiting ground for Indian allies for the British army. Charles Michel de Langlade and his half-nephew, Charles Gautier de Verville, were constantly employed in this work by the commandant at Mackinaw and were as suc- cessful as could be hoped for among a vacillating people, who were always hanging back for larger rewards, and required persistent coaxing and not infrequent threats.
UNDER THE BRITISH FIAG. 109
The country north of the Ohio River was claimed by the British as a part of tlie province of Quebec, but Virginia also laid claim to it. This vast region, styled the Northwest, contained among others three rude stockade forts — Kaskaskia and Cahokia in what is now Illinois, and Vincennes, in the present Indiana — which were in themselves the keys to the situation. The British held these places, but not with sufficient garrisons. So long as Indian scalping parties could be raised north of the river and let loose upon the settlers who were just then pouring into Kentucky and Tennessee, not only was the further colonization of the South- west impracticable, but the British were given an opportunity to harass the southern coast settle- ments through their back door.
In 1778, therefore, General George Rogers Clark, with the authority of Virginia, advanced into the Northwest with a little army of Kentuckians ; and, as the result of a series of remarkable exploits, which figure among the most romantic incidents in American history, seized Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vincennes and held the disputed territory for the United States till the close of the War. From his headquarters at Kaskaskia, he sent active emissaries among the Wisconsin Indians and in- tensified among them the prevalent feeling of doubt, besides winnino^ over several Fox and Win-
no UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
nebago chiefs to at least a position of neutrality. Indeed Godefroy Linctot, a trader of some impor- tance at Prairie du Chien, forsook the British cause in the spring of 1779 and yielded so far to Clark's advances as to openly side with the Amer- icans and lead a picturesque company of four or five hundred French and half-breed horsemen in sev- eral important expeditions connected with Clark's movements in the West.
It was in October, 1777, that Gautier started from Montreal upon his first recruiting expedition through Wisconsin. He proceeded by way of the Fox River, across country to the Rock River and thence northwesterly to Prairie du Chien, talking with traders and Indian delegations at Green Bay and several points en route, and sending runners with war belts and presents to outlying bands. One of these overtures was directed to " Milwaki," * where a French trader was stationed in the midst of a polyglot village clustered about the mouth of the river and on the bluffs overlooking; Lake Michi- gan. From Prairie du Chien, where he met -a trader whom, in his official report to General Guy Carleton he styles Sieur Lise, he sent out run- ners among the Sioux.
He found that " the Bostonniens," as he calls the Americans, had preceded him among some of the
* Milwaukee.
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG. Ill
tribes, and that there was much disaffection in con- sequence ; although the Spaniards at St. Louis had taken care to inform the Indians that the Americans had " Venimous and empoisoned Mouths," and must not be heeded. Gautier was, however, enabled to gather up two hundred and ten Sioux, Sac, Fox and Winnebago warriors and their families and deliver them in June, 1778, to the Indian agent, Langlade, as pledged to aid the British.
These allies were sent on to Detroit and were a part of the hybrid expedition under Colonel Henry Hamilton, which recaptured Vincennes in Decem- ber following, from the captain and one private whom Clark had left there as a winter garrison. The gallant American, however, soon won back the fort and sent Hamilton as a prisoner to Virginia.
We find Langlade and Gautier frequently in Wisconsin on similar errands, throughout the con- tinuance of the war. One notable Indian expedition led by Gautier, under orders from Major De Pey- ster, then in command at Mackinaw, was a raid in the summer of 1779 upon Le Pe, an important French fur-trading station within the present city limits of Peoria, Illinois. It was feared that the rude stockade there mifjht become a harbor for the Americans, and it was consequently burned by Gautier, who thereupon beat a hasty retreat, for
112 UNDER THE BRITISH EI AG.
Clark's influence had now well permeated the Illinois country, and " rebels " were becoming un- comfortably numerous both among Indians and traders.
Early in 1780 news was received at Detroit and Mackinaw of Spain's declaration of war against Great Britain. The western commandants were notified by General Haldimand, governor of Canada, that an English fleet and army under General Campbell, were to ascend the Mississippi to attack New Orleans and other Spanish river communities, and that it was advisable that an expedition pro- ceed southward by the river to co-operate with Campbell's. The Spanish were at the same time threatening Natchez and other English settlements on the east bank of the Mississippi.
A small detachment of troops, with the neces- sary half-breed interpreters, was sent among the Sioux west and southwest of Lake Superior, with the effect of inducing Chief Wabashaw to collect several hundred warriors of that nation for the proposed expedition. This party was met at Prairie du Chien by the French traders Hesse, Du Charme and Calve, and the interpreters Rocque and Key. These men were in command of a motley throng of Indians, chiefly made up of Menomonees, Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes who had been rendezvoused at the Fox-Wisconsin
UNDER THE BRITISH EL AG. II3
portage by Hesse, and a contingent of Chippewas under Chief Matchekewis, \\\\o had been a promi- nent character in the Mackinaw massacre of 1763.
The combined forces, now numbering seven hundred and fifty whites, mixed-bloods and red- skins, moved slowly down the river towards St. Louis, the first object of the proposed attack. Off the mouth of Turkey River they met and captured a barge-load of provisions in charge of an Amer- ican trader and a Creole crew. The prisoners were at once sent north, by way of the Fox and Wis- consin, to Mackinaw, while the goods were appro- priated to the commissariat of the expedition. On the twenty-sixth of May the outlying cabins of St. Louis were raided, and about a dozen persons shot and scalped by the screeching savages, who were soon driven off by the neighboring inhabitants. A small detached band of Indians crossed the river and looted the outskirts of Cahokia, on the Illinois bank, but otherwise the foray was a dismal failure, the frightened marauders flying in squads to Chicago and Prairie du Chien and there quickly disbanding.
The British officials, who had enijaQ^ed Lanijlade to descend the Illinois by way of the Chicago por- tage and unite his forces with those of the invaders, thought the attack on St. Louis altogether too pre- cipitate, as it was made before Langlade's appear- ance on the scene, and bitterly accused Hesse,
114 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
Du Charme and Calve with bald-faced treachery. And there seems to be little doubt that this thrifty trio were but faint-hearted partisans, ready to sell their influence to the highest bidder, or to both, and chiefly anxious to be at the close of the war on friendly terms with the victors, whoever they might be.
Indeed, this was the attitude of most of the French traders in the Northwest, who in this respect were quite like the Indians themselves. For nearly a century a bone of contention between conflicting races, it mattered but little to them who were their political owners so long as they were to have any. They prudently affected friendship for those in immediate control of their territory and trade, be the latter French, English, Spanish or American ; but experience had led them to value the importance of cultivating the good graces of the enemy, who might by some sudden turn of fortune become their masters. Hence we find these simple but wily Indians, traders, coureurs de bois, voyageiirs and habitans constantly playing double, often waging a sly guerrilla warfare upon both parties to the fray, selling themselves to who- ever would buy and making promises not intended to be fulfilled. Generally, it was not until the out- come seemed well determined, that these people took sides definitely ; thus we see the ranks of the
UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG. I 15
western forest allies of either the Americans or the British, swelling or depleting just as the quality of the war news was hopeful or depressing. This un- certainty of savage or demi-savage support, has ever been a feature of American frontier wars, the side the most dependent upon Indian support having invariably lost in the long run. And this was the position of the British during the Revolu- tionary War in the Northwest.
The British navy upon the upper lakes, in this period, was chiefly available for the transport of troops and stores. This division of the " upper lakes " included Lake Erie, whereon were em- ployed some half-dozen small craft. The sloops Welcome, Felicity and Archangel appear to have been the only vessels operating on Lake Michi- gan, transportation on Lake Superior apparently being restricted to traders' bateaux.
An interesting voyage was undertaken on Lake Michigan, in 1779, by Samuel Robertson, master of the Felicity. Robertson made the circuit of the lake, between October 21st and November 5th, en- countering exceptionally stormy weather. Traders and Indians were visited and sujjplied at the mouths of Michigan, Kalamazoo and Grand rivers, on the Michigan shore. Milwaukee Bay was reached the third of November, and here Robertson found a French trader whom he calls " Morong."
Ii6 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
This man, who professed a warm attachment for His Britannic Majesty, was given a quantity of presents and stores for the neighboring Indians ; and from him information was received of another French trader, named Fay, located at Two Rivers, some fifty miles north of Milwaukee, on the lake shore. Robertson has left us his log of the voy- age,* a curious specimen of English composition, as witness the following paragraph from his ex- perience at " Millwakey : "
" Mr. Gautley gives them [Morong and chief Lodegard] a present 3 bottles of Rum & half carrot of Tobaco, and also told them the manner governor Sinclair could wish them to Behave, at which they seemd weall satisfeyed, he also gave instructions Monsieur St. Pier to Deliver some strings of Wampum and a little Keg of rum to the followinor & a carrot of Tobaco in orovernor Sin- clairs name; likewise the manour how to behave; he also gave another small Kegg with some strings of Wampum with a carrot of Tobaco to Deliver the indeans at Millwakey which is a mixed Tribe of different nations."
An English trader named John Long arrived at the little French and Indian hamlet of Green Bay in June, 1780, en route to Prairie du Chien, where Langlade, in anticipation of his coming, had accu-
♦ Wisconsin Historical Collections, \'ol, XI. pp. 203-12.
UNDER THE ' BRITISH FLAG. II J
mulated a quantity of furs ; for that active partisan's mission among the Wisconsin Indians had some- thing of a commercial as well as of a military char- acter. Long spent some days at Green Bay and tells us in his gossipy journal that the houses of both races there were covered with birch-bark while the rooms were decorated with bows and arrows and more modern weapons. He obtained from the people, without difificulty, an abundant supply of deer and bear meat, and Indian corn, besides melons and fruit. The settlement at this time did not contain much more than fifty whites, old and young, divided into six or seven families. The men, for the most part, were engaged as assistants or engages to the two or three traders; their winters were spent in the woods, while in summer they listlessly cultivated their small gardens, leading a narrow existence in which seasons of arduous labor en z/<?y^^'^ alternated with periods of sloth and thought- less merriment.
In 1 78 1, Captain Patrick Sinclair, then the Eng- glish lieutenant-governor for the Mackinaw district, in which was included the country west of Lake Michigan, held a treaty with the Indians, at which he individually purchased from them the island of Mackinaw and the settlements of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, with all intervening territory. But the Revolutionary War closed with the follow-
Il8 UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG.
ino- year and the entire Northwest, under the defini- tive treaty of peace in 1783, was, regardless of all private claims, apportioned to the United States, having been fairly won with the sword by George Rogers Clark and kept for our inheritance by the shrewd diplomacy of Franklin, Adams and Jay.
CHAPTER V.
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED.
ET US briefly recapitu- late the changes in political master y . The region of which Wisconsin was a part, was Indian country, undisturbed by white intrusion, until Nico- let's discovery, in 1634. \V hat the French call " the Conquest " may be said to date from that year. In 1671, at Sault Ste. Marie, Saint-Lusson formally took possession of the North- west for France. The F'rench surrendered their claims to England, in the treaty of February, 1763. On the seventh of October, that year, the king of England divided the greater part of his new pos- sessions on the American mainland into the three governments of Quebec, East Florida and West Florida — but the Northwest not beinsf included in
any of these districts was presumed to be left as
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the property of the coast colonies. In 1774, prob- ably with the purpose of hemming in the restless colonists to the Atlantic slope and thus preventing them from spreading westward of the Alleghanies and becoming" a powerful people, Parliament passed what is known in history as the Quebec Act. This act attached the country north of the Ohio and west of Pennsylvania — the Northwest Territory of later days — to the province of Quebec and prac- tically placed its people under French law and Roman Catholic supervision. What is now Wis- consin was of course included in the region affected by the bill. The measure was not passed without sharp and protracted opposition in Parliament, and in America created such a storm of indignation as to be among the many causes which precipitated the Declaration of Independence, two years later. Thus the Quebec Act, so far as the Northwest was concerned, was on account of the American up- rising practically a dead-letter statute from the start. We have seen that under the treaty of peace with England, in 1783, the Northwest was conceded to the United States, England recognizing the Great Lakes as the international boundary.
But the change in proprietorship was merely nominal. Great Britain still held her posts in the Northwest, on the ground that certain stipulations in the treaty of peace had not been fulfilled by the
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 12 I
United States. As a matter of fact, the Revolu- tionary War was not over when the treaty of 1783 was signed. Great Britain, for eleven years after this, was, to all intents and purposes, still waging war with Indian cat's-paws upon our trans-Alleghany region and eagerly contemplating the day when she could once more annex the coveted Northwest to the Province of Quebec.
In 1787, the United States Congress adopted an ordinance rearing the country " beyond the River Ohio" into the Northwest Territory, and in the following spring a settlement was made under this ordinance, by Revolutionary veterans, at Marietta.
There was ah'eady a sparse settlement of Ameri- cans * at what is now Cincinnati, at Clarksville and other places along the Ohio ; while small clumps of French and half-breed traders and voyageurs were to be found at Fort Wayne, South Bend and Vin- cennes, in the present State of Indiana, at Peoria, Kaskaskia and Chartres, in the Illinois country, at Detroit and Sault Ste. Marie, in Michigan, and at Green Bay, Prairie du Chien and La Pointe, in Wisconsin. A census of these widely scattered settlements at that time would not have revealed the presence in all that vast territory of over thirty thousand white persons.
*The term " Americans," in this volume, is used in the customary sense — meaning the people of the United States.
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But the Indians were abundant. As the seasons went and came, the red savages drifted restlessly between planting field and hunting ground, now and then scalping American intruders on their domain when they could do so with impunity, but when close-pressed making treaties with their pale- face brethren with much display of barbaric elo- quence, coupled with endless ceremonial and profuse promises of life-long devotion to the cause of that natural foe who was relentlessly supplanting them in the homes of their fathers. Intimately mingled with these far-from-guileless children of the forest, with savage wives and half-savage chil- dren to tie them to the camp-fires of barbarism, were Frenchmen like the Wisconsin pioneers, Lang- lade and Gautier, whose interests were wrapped up in the fur-trade, a commerce necessarily antago- nistic to the advance of agricultural settlement. There were renegade whites, too, like the bloody- handed Pennsylvanian, Simon Girty, long the ter- ror of the border, who, bedaubed with ochre and bedecked in war-bonnet, hated like the savage and schemed like the white, bringing new and startling terrors into the ancient methods of Indian warfare.
English officials spurred them on — French trad- ers, voyageurs and half-breed chiefs alike — making gifts of military commissions, gay uniforms, sup- plies and ammunition, and many a covert promise
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. I 23
of some time coming to their aid with the king's army and driving out settlers from the natural home of the fur-trade. These English officers at the Northwestern posts secretly fomented disorder, kept alive the sparks of border conflagration — menaced the spread of the American colonies by the agency of the ambush and the scalping knife.
In 1794, the Jay treaty provided for the evacua- tion by England of the posts still held by her within the American boundaries. This was in November. In August, Mad Anthony Wayne had, at the head of a gallant little army of pioneers and United States troops, humbled the Maumees at the famous Battle of the Fallen Timbers, and broken the backbone of savage power in the North- west, thus practically closing the Revolutionary War. The date fixed for the evacuation was the first day of June, 1796, and Wisconsin may be said to have then become acknowledged American terri- tory for the first time.
During this period of thirteen years, when Wis- consin was nominally a part of the United States, but still under the domination of England, there was but little growth worthy of the name. Yet, as we glance backward through the record, we find that seeds were then planted which were, after long lying dormant, destined to produce good re- sults. In 1 78 1, three French-Canadian voyageiirs.
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Giard, Ange and Antaya by name, settled at Prairie du Chien and made there what may be called the first permanent establishment, for the Cardinells were rovers. Land titles date from this settlement of 1781.
It has been stoutly claimed that in 1789, a French Creole blacksmith and trader, named Jean Baptiste Mirandeau, reared a log shop and trading shanty at the mouth of Milwaukee River, hard by the poly- glot Indian village which had long been located there, and thus became the first white settler of what developed into the Wisconsin metropolis. But this historic claim is a doubtful one ; it is at least probable that Mirandeau did not build his smithy's forge on the shores of Milwaukee Bay until eight or ten years later, after Vieau's arrival. We have already seen that bluff old Captain Rob- ertson found a trader at Milwaukee, in 1779, whom he called " Morong," and it is recorded that another Frenchman was engaged in Indian commerce there as early as 1762. But these were spasmodic enter- prises. In 1795, Jacques Vieau, as agent of the Northwest Company, established fur-trading posts at Kewaunee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc and Milwau- kee, and made Milwaukee his winter home until 1818, when he introduced Solomon Juneau to the scene. Juneau had married Vieau's sprightly daughter, Josette, and succeeded to his father-
ENGLISH DOMIXAT/ON CONTINUED. 125
in-law's trade. The younger man is usually ac- corded the credit of being the pioneer of Mil- waukee, because he was the owner of the land upon which the village plat was afterwards laid out, and was found in possession of the site by the earliest American settlers from the Eastern States. But old Jacques Vieau led the way, and his ser- vices as a pioneer of civilization deserve more rec- ognition at the hands of the people of Milwaukee than they have received. Juneau has a park and an avenue named after him ; and in the one and near the head of the other, there has been erected a noble bronze statue of the wily old Frenchman who first sold village lots to Milwaukeeans, over half a century ago. Vieau, on the other hand, has been ignored by the generations which succeeded him, and few there are who ever heard his name.
For a century and a half the portage plain be- tween the Fox and the Wisconsin Rivers had been freely traversed by a motley procession of Indians, Jesuits, explorers, traders, voyageurs and soldiers. A well-beaten path had been formed here, each party either doing its own work of transportation across the narrow neck of land, a mile and a ha-lf in width, or employing the Indians of the neighborhood. In the spring of 1793, a trader and trapper named Laurent Barth, obtained from his dusky friends permission to set up in business at the portage as
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a forwarder. Barth engaged the services of a horse in the work and constructed a rude sort of wheeled barge upon which were slung the canoes and ba- teaux of his patrons. What with the profits of a small trade with the Indians and his occasional fees as a common carrier, Barth succeeded for a few years in making both ends meet in his household accounts, which was about all the average French trader of the olden time ever hoped to do. But in 1798, another Creole, Jean Ecuyer, appeared at the portage and, having married the sister 'of the resi- dent Winnebago chief, was granted the privilege of starting an opposition line. Ecuyer had several horses and introduced improved methods, so that poor Barth was gradually driven to the wall. The ambitious Ecuyer opened a trading shanty ; about the same time Jacques Vieau came out with some o-oods from Milwaukee, and staid for a season or two ; then appeared Augustin Grignon and Jacques Porlier, of Green Bay, in 1801, and one Campbell in 1803. Barth withdrew at last, leaving Campbell and Ecuyer to fight it out between them. Laurent Filly was the transportation agent in 18 10, and durinor the War of 1812-IS Francis Le Rov carried on the business. We learn from an old invoice that Le Roy's charges were ten dollars for carrying an empty boat from one river to the other, and fifty cents per hundred pounds of merchandise. It is no
IN THE 1;RITI>1I CAMi'.
(StY fai^c- 142.)
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. I 29
wonder that Q^oods were almost worth their weight in gold by the time they reached the far-away camps of the Indian hunters. Joseph Rolette and lastly Pierre Paquette were, in later times, the carriers over the portage. But in 1829 a United States fort was reared here, at the meetino; of the di\'erG:ent waters, and a hybrid settlement sprung up about the walls, which grew, into the prosperous Portage city of our own day.
La Pointe, on Chequamegon Bay, in Lake Su- perior— first on the mainland, and afterwards on Madelaine Island — had been a trading post, off and on, ever since the days of our old friends Radisson and Groseilliers ; but upon the outbreak of the French War it had been deserted, and it was not until 1765 that the trade was re-established there with the Chippewas, this time under an English- man named Henry. The station grew to become the entrepot for the entire Chippewa country.
In 1784, there were three traders at La Pointe. By 1800, Michel Cadottc, a famous leader in North- western foreign commerce, set up his stockade on the island, and, marrying the daughter of an influential Chippewa chief, obtained a strong hold upon the affections and patronage of the tribe. Under the American Fur Company the Warrens were Cadotte's successors. They staid until the days of the fur trade were practically ended and La
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Pointe, under the new dispensation, ceased to be a commercial center.
When the United States assumed the proprietor- ship of the Northwest it agreed to respect the rights of the Indians to whatever territory they then held as hunting grounds. The Indians, upon the other hand, were obliged to agree that they would sell their lands only to the general Government. Thus all of what is now Wisconsin was recognized as Indian country ; the small French-Canadian settle- ments at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien remain- ing by native sufferance.
Before the close of the eighteenth century, the Sac and Fox tribes had, in numerous assaults, been driven by the French from their old hunting grounds in the Fox and Wolf valleys. Forced into the country along the Mississippi River be- tween the mouths of the Wisconsin and Rock, they had in that section important villages and exercised control over the lead mines. But before the resistless march of white settlement Indian occupation was doomed. Colonization in the lead district was increasing yearly, and it seemed nec- essary to open a new farming district to the Illinois pioneers.
In 1804 the Government made a treaty with the Sacs and Foxes by which these tribes ceded to the United States a tract that may be roughly de-
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 131
scribed as the irregular triangle lying between the Illinois and Wisconsin rivers.* It embraced what is now Northwestern Illinois and Southwestern Wisconsin, and included the large lead district. This was one of the earliest purchases of Indian territory in the Northwest, but the details of the agreement were uncertain in phraseology, and a generation later led to misunderstanding which re- sulted, as we shall see, in the Black Hawk War and the forcible expulsion of the red men from the dis- puted tract.
It was not until the close of the War of 18 12-15, that Wisconsin came really under the domination of Americans. After the treaty of 1794, British traders, with French and half-breed clerks and voy- ageurs, were still permitted free intercourse with Wisconsin savasfes and had substantial control of
O
them. When the Pontiac uprising had been quelled and it was safe for British civilians to enter the Northwest, a small party of Scotch traders re-opened the fur trade, with headquarters at Mackinaw, and employed French voyageurs. In 1783, the North- west Company was formed, although not fully organized until four years later. This corporation proposed to become a rival of the powerful Hudson Bay Company and had its headquarters in Mon-
* At the same time a considerable territory alons; the west bank of the Mississippi was ceded, together witli a tract two miles square, just north of the mouth of the Wisconsin — the site of Prairie du Chien — upon which the Government was authorized to construct a fort.
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treal, with distributing points at Detroit, Mackinaw, Sault Ste. Marie and Grand Portao^e.* Its clerks and voyageurs were wide travelers and carried the Company's trade throughout the far West, from Great Slave Lake on the north to the valleys of the Platte and the Arkansas on the south, and to the parks and basins of the Rocky Mountains. Goods were sent up the lakes from Montreal, either by relays of sailing vessels, with portages of mer- chandise and men at the Falls of Niagara and the Sault Ste. Marie, or by picturesque fleets of ba- teaux and canoes up the great Ottawa River and down French Creek into Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, from there scattering to the Company's various entrepots to the south, west and north.
These Creole boatmen were a reckless set. They took life easily, but bore ill even the mildest restraints of the trading settlements; their home was on the rivers and in the Indian camps, where they joyously partook of the most humble fare and on occasion were not averse to suffering extraor- dinary hardships in the service of their exacting bourgeois.^ Their pay was light, but their thoughts
* The portage between Lake Superior and the waters emptying into the Lake of the Woods and Lake Winnepeg. The trading post was at the head of a bay on the northwest coast of Lake Superior, some five miles above (southwest of) the mouth of Pigeon River. From here, there was a carrying place nine miles in length, northward, to a widening of the Pigeon. The settlement was protected by a fort which was the great halting place of voy- ageurs and traders to and from Lake Superior and the Winnepeg, Athabasca and Great SlavJ Lake regions. Grand Portage was an important depot for the fur trade as early as 1737.
t Master
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 1 33
were lighter, and the sepulchral arches of the forest rang with the gay laughter of these heedless ad- venturers ; while the pent-up valleys of our bluff- girted streams echoed the refrains of their rudely- melodious boating songs, which served the double purpose of whiling the idle hours away and meas- uring progress along the glistening waterways.
In 1809, John Jacob Astor, then a rising power in the forest trade of the continent, secured a charter for the American Fur Company. His aim was to establish a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River, near the extreme northwest corner of the United States, and to link this station with Mackinaw by means of forts planted along the Mis- souri River, which had been explored by Lewis and Clark a few years previous. Astor sent out two expeditions for the Pacific coast — one going by sea via Cape Horn, and the other overland via the Fox-Wisconsin route and the Missouri. The land party, in charge of Wilson P. Hunt and Ramsay Crooks, two of Astor's lieutenants in the fur trade, started from Mackinaw in their canoes, the twelfth of August, 1809, and reached Green Bay a few days later, where the daring explorers were regarded with much interest by the few habitaiis and Indians who were then settled there. Prairie du Chien was passed a fortnight later, the expedition arriving at St. Louis the third of September, en route for the
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ocean of the west The thrilling tale of their fur ther progress across the continent, is among the most familiar in American history, for Washington Irvino' has embalmed it in his fascinatino- '' Astoria."
Another notable party passed over the Fox-Wis- consin waterway, the same season — Thomas Nutt- all, the botanist, and John Bradbury, , the Scotch naturalist, both of them eminent among the scien- tific men of their day. They were on their way to the Missouri-River country to collect specimens for study, and took extended notes on Wisconsin flora and fauna,
Astor bought a half-interest in the Mackinaw Company, a rival of the Northwest Company, in 1811, and united his American Fur Company with the former, the new concern being entitled the Southwest Company. But the war with Great Brit- ain soon opened, the Northwest Company seized Astoria, the station founded by Astor at the mouth of the Columbia with such heroic zeal, and the Southwest Company was ruined.
Tecumseh's uprising, in 181 1, involved many isolated bands of Wisconsin Indians, chiefly Chip- pewas, Winnebagoes, Pottawatomics, Sacs and Foxes, and not a few war chiefs of local renown participated in the battle of Tippecanoe, on the seventh of November. The English pursued their customary method of openly egging on the North-
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 1 35
western savages in any contemplated assault on the American settlements, and the French fur-traders were unanimous in their support of the English policy. That policy was the preservation of the forests to the profitable fur trade and the conse- quent repression of the growth of agricultural set- tlement on the part of Americans. During the war of 181 2-1 5, which followed, nearly every Wis- consin trader held a commission in the British army, and the country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River was again an important re- cruiting ground for savage allies of England.
The American policy assumed toward Great Britain, had for some years previous been one of weakness and vacillation, and retaliation for wrongs was confined to commercial restrictions which in- evitably failed of their intended effect. This Quaker-like conduct on our part served but to em- bolden the English, and aggressions and injuries were on the increase. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Northwest, where Americans were everywhere met with British insolence and Albion held our frontier in an iron grip. But at last, yielding to popular impatience, a more resolute tone was adopted at Washington, and by the act of June 18, 18 1 2, the United States declared war against Great Britain.
The principal event of the War, in Wisconsin,
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was the capture by the British of the American fort at Prairie du Chien. General William Clark, of Lewis and Clark exploring fame, and a brother of George Rogers Clark, the Revolutionary hero, was at this time governor of Missouri Territory and as such commandant of the American forces in the Upper Mississippi country. Impressed with the importance of controlling the western outlet of the Fox-Wisconsin waterway, he dispatched Lieutenant Joseph Perkins with about one hundred and fifty volunteers and soldiers on board of a bullet-proof keel-boat, to Prairie du Chien. This was late in the fall of 181 3. By the time winter set in, Per- kins had erected a creditable stockade on the sum- mit of one of the large mounds which freely dot the prairie — mysterious relics of those ancient inhabitants of Wisconsin, whose earthworks occupy the sites of scores of our prosperous modern towns. Perkins divided his forces between the stockade, which he styled Fort Shelby, and the improvised gunboat which had transported them hither. The latter, seventy feet in length and bearing the name of Governor Clark Gunboat, No. i, was anchored in the middle of the Mississippi River, immediately in front of the fort, and mounted fourteen pieces of cannon, while the garrison ashore was protected by six pieces. During the protracted winter, the little band of troops had frequently to entertain
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 1 37
squads of Indian spies, chiefly Winnebagoes, sent out by the English fur-trader, Robert Dickson, who was passing the season at Lake Winnebago, where he had collected a large number of red men in preparation for an active spring campaign against the Americans.
Dickson was one of the leading fur-traders in the employ of the Northw^est Company. He had had headquarters at Prairie du Chien for several years past and engaged in operations extending to the sources of the Mississippi and far up the Minnesota. During the war, Dickson held local rank as a lieu- tenant-colonel in the British service and rendered as effective service as was possible, in keeping Wisconsin Indians in line with the interests of his government. It was while upon this service that he and his Indian allies were caught at Garlic Island, in Lake Winnebago (December, 18 13), by an early freezing of those waters and obliged to camp there for the winter. From this camp, spies and runners were frequently dispatched to Milwaukee, Peoria and Prairie du Chien, and news of American move- ments, more or less distorted by savage vision, was sent on by Dickson to his correspondents in Green Bay and Mackinaw. In these letters, scores of which are before me as I write, the trader gave a spicy account of his troubles with the Indians, who, after their usual fashion, played fast and loose and
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o
had to be bribed afresh every few days, with no certainty but what they were equally pledged to the agents of the enemy. Provisions were soon ex- hausted and the Green Bay traders, while nearly all of them salaried servants of the king, were exacting in their terms for recompense. No sooner had fresh goods arrived up the ice-bound Fox, than starving Indians came swarming to Garlic Island from forty miles around, like flocks of vultures, and ate poor Dickson out of house and home. Again and again had the Green Bay forwarders to be drawn upon, each time with increased difficulty and enhanced prices, the enraged Dickson mean- while pelting his tormentors with opprobrious epi- thets and threatening to call upon them the king's wrathful hand. It was the middle of April before the partisan could reach the Fox-Wisconsin portage and enter upon the slow and painful task of collect- ins^ Indians at that old-time rendezvous, for the proposed military expedition against Fort Shelby. . Meanwhile, Captain James Pullman, of the Brit- ish army, and his local lieutenants, John Lawe and Louis Grignon, were busy in organizing a militia company among the Green Bay habitans. At Prairie du Chien, the American Indian agent, Nicholas Boilvin, and a French trader in the Ameri- can interest, named Jacrot, addressed what Dick- son calls " two flaming Epistles to the people of
ENGLISH DOMINAl iOX CONTINUED. I 39
the prairie — exhorting them to claim the protec- tion of the great republic before it is too late & a orreat deal of other stuff." Brisbois and Rolette, however, the leading traders at the prairie, were stanch in their adhesion to the British, and the latter spent the winter at Mackinaw drilling his engages and preparing to assist in wresting his home settlement from the intrusive Americans.
War parties relying for their strength upon the alliance of Indians, always move slowly. It was the twenty-eighth of June before Colonel Robert McDouall, then commandant at Mackinaw, could get the expedition started from the island. Major William McKay, temporarily given the rank of lieu- tenant-colonel, headed the party, which consisted of about one hundred and thirty-six Sioux and Winnebagoes ; some seventy-five French-Canadian engages, under their bourgeois, Joseph Rolette and Thomas G. Anderson, who were given the local rank of captain ; and about twenty regulars of the Michigan Fencibles under Pullman. The warriors reached Green Bay, in their birch-bark canoes, six days later, and there were promptly joined by Louis Grignon, a valiant Creole trader wearing the gay scarlet coat and golden epaulettes of a captain of volunteers,* and having in his company thirty of the habitans of Green Bay, mostly his own engages
* This coat can still be seen in the museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
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— classed in the reports as "almost all old men unfit for service."
After a good deal of feasting, speech-making and present-giving, the Indians of the Green Bay dis- trict were worked up into a suflBcient degree of en- thusiasm, and with another hundred dusky recruits the expedition was enabled to resume its progress. Never did the mirrored surface of the Fox reflect a more singular spectacle. The enemy was far away, and none of the customary safeguards of scouting parties were essential ; yet there was a certain regularity in the formation of the flotilla, for the savage mind delights in ceremonial, and McKay was instructed to fully imbue his forest allies with a sense of the magnitude and importance of the undertaking. A few canoe-loads of French woods- men, dressed for the most part in whitened buck- skin and gay with red mob-caps and fringed sashes, led the van, polished rifles gleaming above their baggage packs. Then followed a bateau with ofBcers and the royal colors, in the bow of which was planted a three-pound cannon, in charge of a bombardier of the Royal Artillery,* an outfit de- signed to impress the Indians with a sense of awe. Next came straggling along the canoes of the
* In his official report of the outfit, Colonel McDouall says: " I agreed to let them [the Indian chiefs] have the three-pounder I brought from York, chiefly from the novelty of the thing among the Indians, & the effect it will have in augmenting their numbers, I attached to it a Bombardier of the Royal Artillery."
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natives, each band with its war chiefs, followed by the weather-beaten engages and miscellaneous habitaits from Mackinaw and Green Ba)*, the pro- cession closing with the Michigan Fencibles guard- the commissary's bateaux. The fair valley — now skirted with bluffs, now spreading far and wide,
the flood oft overhung v/ith gloomy pines and again hedged by great, undulating walls of reeds — rans with the wild notes of Canadian boatinor songs, keeping time to the strokes of gleaming paddles. The soldiers, to the rear, often broke forth with martial airs, and for the first time these
142 ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED.
Wisconsin hills echoed the swelling notes of " The British Grenadier," "God save the King!" and " Britannia's the Queen of the Ocean." The rude war-songs of the painted savages frequently woke the forest calm. At night, around the camp fires, under the trees, upon the river bank, there was gay revelry indeed, with the shouts, the songs, the gay laughter, and the scraping of the little French fiddles in the white quarter; while around their own council fires the red men rent the air with discordant yelps as they leaped and plunged and fiercely gestured in the demoniac war dance, keeping time to the monotonous boom of the Indian drum. With the smart caps and sashes and fringed coats of the woodsmen, the crude blue and yellow and red of the Mackinaw-suited habitans, the red and blue and shining brass of the Fencibles, and the many-hued blankets of the befeathered and ochre-daubed aborigines, this human mosaic slowly proceeded through the glistening flood, hoping to capture and hold Wisconsin for His Britannic Majesty.
At the portage, Dickson met the expedition with enoucrh Sioux, Winnebacroes, Menomonees and Chippewas to make up the allied forces to six hun- dred and fifty — of whom all but one hundred and twenty were Indians, who, as McKay reports, " proved to be perfectly useless." Perhaps the
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 1 43
only advantage of having them on the roll, was the fact that had their nominal assistance not been engaged they might have sadly harassed the whites while threading the Fox-Wisconsin water-way.
It was noon of July 17 when McKay's motley crew came Hidino' throuoh the delta of the W'is- consin and landed on a sandy bank abutting the waters of the Mississippi, The commander found that the land-force of the Americans, numbering sixty or seventy effective men and being protected by six pieces of cannon, was for the most part en- sconced behind the little stockade, in addition to which were two block-houses regarded as perfectly safe against Indians, In the river lay the Governor Clark, with her fourteen cannon and a force some- what larirer than the c^arrison. The outlook was not at first promising for the British commander, but he made bold within half an hour of his arrival to summon Perkins to " surrender uncondi- tionally, otherwise to defend yourself to the last man." Without delay, Perkins curtly replied :
" Sir, — I received your polite note and prefer the latter, and am determined to defend to the last man."
It was not the intention of McKay to begin his attack until the next morning at daylight, but the Indians were clamorous to see the three-pounder at work, and in order to amuse them the arm was
144 ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED.
brought to bear upon the gunboat. In the course of three hours two thirds of the eighty-six shot fired, penetrated the Governor Clark, which replied with vigor, the garrison in the rear meanwhile pouring upon the British hot volleys of musketry. As for the Indians, they mainly employed them- selves in plundering the houses of the inhabitants and keeping up a distant and ineffectual fire upon the fort. Finally, the gunboat, finding her position too warm, slipped her cable and, running in behind an island, made her escape down stream. McKay sent a party of Sacs, in canoes, to hang upon the wake of the retreating vessel, annoy the crew in every possible way, and prevent them from debark- ing to get firewood. A party of Frenchmen were dispatched the following morning who followed the Clark as far as the rapids at Rock Island ; but another fortified keel-boat from down stream put in an appearance here, and the Creoles were frightened off. A day or two later there were six American gunboats of the Clark pattern, at the rapids; one of them was boarded by the Sac party, and many Americans tomahawked, the boat being finally destroyed by fire ; thereupon the others, fearing the presence of a large force of the enemy, dropped down the river and left the British free to complete their work at Prairie du Chien.
Meanwhile, McKay turned his attention to the
ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED. 1 45
fort, A good deal of ammunition was spent, and the English supply soon became short. At six in the evenins: of the nineteenth there were left but six rounds for the three-pounder; and from the foremost of two breastworks reared by his men, McKay was preparing to throw into the fort all six, red-hot, with the hope of setting it on fire. At this moment a white flag was put out, and soon an American officer came down to the English camp bearing Perkins's offer to surrender, provided the Indians were pledged not to ill-treat the officers and men. McKay was a humane man, and prom- ised to keep the Indians quiet, as well as to allow the earrison to march out at ei<>ht o'clock the fol- lowino: morninsf, with the honors of war. Durins: the night he placed a strong guard in the fort and took possession of the artillery. The stipulations made by McKay were faithfully carried out, in spite of the irritation of the savages, who were eager for scalps ; he confesses that his powers of resist- ance were sorely tried, and nothing but supplica- tions, threats and vigilance prevented a massacre. The Indians were obliged to be content with sack- ing the town and destroying the growing crops.
In this ens^ao-ement, the Americans, reports McKay, had five killed and ten wounded on board the gunboat, and three wounded in the fort. The allies do not appear to have suffered any casualties.
146 EXGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED.
A larce stock of ammunition, provisions and arma- ments fell into the hands of the captors, by reason of the surrender. The prisoners they were not en- abled to keep. Soon after the capture Perkins and his men were Qriven back their arms and sent down the river to St. Louis.
It had been the purpose of McKay, after reduc- ing Fort Shelby, to drop down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Illinois, and, ascending that stream, to lay siege to the American fort at Peoria. But the reports brought to him by his Indian spies, of the size of the American force along the Mis- sissippi below Rock Island, induced him to forego so hazardous a project. On the other hand, the Americans appear to have received an exaggerated report of the strength of the English-invading party at the mouth ot the Wisconsin, and failed to make an attempt to displace it. That McKay did not consider his position tenable, is evident from his report to McDouall, made the twenty-seventh of July, in which he says of the outlook : " My de- cided opinion is that from this to the fall an attack may undoubtedly be looked for from below, and if four or five of these floating block-houses come up armed, as the Governor Clark was, our present force is certainlv not equal to prevent their repul- sing us unless more particularly favored by Provi- dence than before."
ENGLISH DOMINATIOX CONTINUED. 147
When the English flag was run to the head of the staf? in Fort Shelby, the name of the establish- ment was changed to Fort McKay. As for McKay himself, he remained until the tenth of August, when he left, with some of the Indians, regulars and fur-trade volunteers, for Mackinaw, and after- wards took part in military operations along the lower lakes. The trader Anderson was left in charge of the fort, but he was afterwards relieved by Capt. A. Bulger, a regular officer. The winter was spent in councils with and presentations to the neighboring savages, who adopted this diplomatic method of preying upon the British stores.
The welcome news of the treaty of peace between the United States and England, signed at Ghent the twenty-fourth of December, 18 14, reached Wash- ington in February, 181 5. But it was the twenty- second of May before Captain Bulger received ofHcial intelligence of the event. He promptly wrote to Governor Clark at St. Louis, on the twenty-third, signifying his acceptance of the situa- tion. Clark had desired him to await the arri\al of a detachment from St. Louis, and to turn ovei- the property to the new occupants of the fort, but Bulger informed his correspondent that the presence of "detachments of British and United States troops, at the same time, at Fort McKay, would be the means of embroiling either one party
148 ENGLISH DOMINATION CONTINUED.
or the other, in a fresh rupture with the Indians." The fact was, that Bulger knew enough of the character of his Indian allies, to fear that if they saw the American troops coolly turn the British out of the stockade, without any struggle on the part of the latter, his party would be con- temptuously dubbed by the redskins a parcel of "old women," whom it would be fair play to hence- forth plunder and maltreat. Bulger therefore quietly hauled down his flag on the twenty-fourth of May and beat a hasty though dignified retreat to Mackinaw. There, he turned over to the United States commandant whatever of captured arms and stores remained, and speedily betook himself to Canada.
And thus closed the long period of British domi- nation over Wisconsin, which was now for the first time American soil in fact.
CHAPTER VI.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
T was with marked re- luctance that Eng- land parted with the Northwest. In 1783, we find her grudg- ingly agreeing to the Great Lakes as an international boun- dary, and then openly holding the country for thirteen years longer, upon a flimsy pretext. We see that she still kept her grip upon the region, through the agency of the fur traders, and was practically its master at the opening of the second war with the United States. During that war, she made desperate attempts to plant her flag at the old vantage points, and actually held the important Fox-Wisconsin gateway to the Mississippi until the close of the struirsfle. At the convention of Ghent, her commissioners labored hard to have the
greater part of the Northwest, including the whole
149
150 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
of Wisconsin, declared Indian territory under her protection ; but the attempt failed.
The United States had, since 1803, a justice of the peace at Green Bay, in the person of Charles Reaume. He was an easy-tempered and jovial old Frenchman, who had been originally appointed to the position by Governor Harrison of Indiana Territory, and who held over when Wisconsin became attached to the new Territory of Illinois, in 1809. But Reaume's rude court recognized no known statutes of the United States, being con- ducted upon such principles of common justice as commended themselves to the astute mind of Reaume himself, who was much of a philosopher in his way, and understood well the importance of having an eye to the main chance. And so Reaume continued through all these years of strug- gle and change, drafting antenuptial agreements, marrying and divorcing, registering births and deaths, certifying indifferently to either American or British commissions, drawing up contracts for traders' clerks and engages, issuing baptismal cer- tificates, and what not, either in wretched French or in abominable EnoHsh as the case mioht be — general scribe and notary for the whole country round: a picturesque and important functionary.
Many queer stories are told of Judge Reaume. He was a baldheaded, pompous old Frenchman, and
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 151
wore on all public occasions a scarlet frock-coat, faced with white silk and gay with spangled but- tons, which can be seen to this day in the State Historical Society's museum at Madison. Instead of issuing a summons, he would often instruct the constable to exhibit his Honor's well-known large jack-knife to the desired witness or culprit, and this was regarded by all as sufficient evidence of judicial authority. A bottle of whiskey was the strongest argument, it was said, that could be offered to the court. On more than one occasion he ordered the losing party to work for a certain number of days upon the Reaume farm, and often the unoffending constable was sentenced to pay the costs of the suit.
At first, the French and half-breeds at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, at Milwaukee and Port- age and La Pointe, did not relish Yankee interfer- ence in their beloved Wisconsin. They had gotten along very nicely with the English, who fostered the fur trade and employed the P^rench with liber- ality. Then too, among the habitaus. the reputation of these Americans was not the best. They were known to be a busy, bustling, driving people, quite out of tune with the devil-may-care methods of the Creoles, and were, moreover, an agricultural race that was fast narrowing the limits of the hunting (grounds. The Wisconsin Frenchmen felt that
152 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
their interests in this respect were identical with those of the savages, hence we find in the corre- spondence of the times* a very bitter tone adopted towards the new-comers, who were regarded as intruders and covetous disturbers of existinor com- mercial and social relations.
As it was found that the English fur traders were still slyly stirring up strife on the part of the Indians and French, Congress enacted in 1816 that thereafter no foreign traders should operate in United States territory. It was hoped by this act to put a stop to British interference in the North- west, but the law was openly evaded. The fur trade could not be conducted without French- Canadian interpreters and voyageurs, and the statute was so construed as to admit these. The Creoles ostensibly set up for themselves in the forest trade, with large stocks of goods, but behind each French or half-breed trader, and many an alleged American proprietor as well, was an Eng- lish supply firm who merely used him as an agent.
This same year Astor established the American Fur Company, with headquarters at Mackinaw Island, and was given a substantial monopoly of the Indian commerce ; but it was long before he could overcome this species of British competition.
* Hundreds of letters written by Wisconsin fur-trade agents and clerks at this time, are in the possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. I 53
The General Government also tried its hand in the business of supplying the Northwestern Indians with the products of civilization, hoping that through trading posts established at the sev- eral frontier forts, goods could be furnished at low cost, the confidence of the natives secured, and the Englishmen beaten out of the field.
In June, 1816, four companies of riflemen from St. Louis, under Major Morgan, occupied Prairie du Chien and erected on the site of Fort McKay a hollow square of block-houses, which they dubbed Fort Crawford, in honor of William M. Crawford, then secretary of the treasury. One bright, still day, the following month, mych to the disgust of the habitans of Green Bay, three schooners loaded with troops slowly sailed into Fox River and debarked their uniformed passengers upon the strand.
For the first time in the history of Wisconsin, the American flag fluttered over the Green Hay settlement, and when the drums beat the reveille, and the bugle sounded taps that night, the Creoles sought their beds in sorrow, for the dreaded Yankee tyrants, who had been painted to them by the British in colors black indeed, had un- doubtedly come to stay. The new arrivals were of the Third regiment of infantry, under Colonel John Miller. In two months' time they had reared for themselves upon the low western bank of the river
154 IVJSCOASJN BECOMES AMERICAMZED.
stockaded barracks, and styled them Fort Howard as a tiibute to General Benjamin Howard, builder of Fort Clark, at Peoria, during the war just ended.
We have seen that in Forts Howard and Craw- ford, there were established Government trading posts; but these failed of their purpose, for ofificial factors were unable to give credit, and without credit the Indian hunters could not exist. The savages were improvident, and spent what they saved as quickly as they received their pay; hence when the hunting season opened they were invari- ably without provisions, clothing or ammunition for the winter, and no trader could hope to gain their patronage who would not trust them with a liberal hand ; * the prices charged for goods were but a secondary consideration with them. The Govern- ment w^as of course outbid on such terms as these, by the private traders, whose agents were scattered throughout the Indian villages, and on easy terms with their inhabitants. Then again, the Indian felt something akin to contempt for a political master who would descend to keeping a trading shop, and haggling over the prices of peltries and cottons. The fort traders were in time driven
* Ordinarily, the Indian hnnters were trusted by the traders with forty or fifty dollars in goods, cost price, at the opening of the winter. Exceptionally expert hunters were given wider latitude, some of them getting as high as $300 worth. The traders expected one hundred per cent, profit, and thought they were doing well if they collected one half of their credits.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 1 55
from the market, and this plan of courting native favor was abandoned as impracticable.
It will be interesting to pause for a while and note the extent and character of the Indian trade in Wisconsin at the time. We have seen that up to the close of the War of 181 2-15, the French trader, whether under the political domination of France or of England, was in full possession of this impor- tant field of commerce. But with Astor, there were gradually introduced improved methods, and in a few years the American Fur Company had obtained a strong hold upon the country, although the great corporation could never rid itself of the necessity of employing the Creole and mixed-blood voyageiirs, engages and interpreters, and was obliged to shape its policy so as to accommodate these easy-going subordinates.
The goods used in the trade were chiefiy coarse cloths — scarlet, blue, white, green and yellow strouds — blankets, cheap jewelry, wampum beads, vermilion paint, myriad-hued shawls, handker- chiefs, ribbons and garterings, sleigh-bells, jew's- harps, hand looking-glasses, combs, scalping-knives, scissors, kettles, hoes, gunpowder, shot, tobacco and whisky; traffic in the last-named article was forbidden, but it was impossible to prevent the in- troduction of a commodity which yielded immense profits to the trader, and was eagerly demanded by
156 IVJSCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
the Indians. These goods, upon arrival at Macki- naw, were sent out by canoes and bateaux to the different posts, where they were either dealt out to the savages direct or dispatched to the winter camps along the far-reaching waterways.
Returning home in the spring, the bucks would set their squaws and children at making maple- sugar or planting corn, water-melons, potatoes and squash, while they themselves either dawdled their time away or hunted for summer furs. In the autumn, the wild rice was garnered along the sloughs and the river mouths, and the straggling field crops were gathered in — some of the product being hidden in skillfully-covered pits, as a reserve, and some dried for transportation in the winter's campaign. The villagers were now ready to depart for their hunt- ing grounds, often hundreds of miles away. It was then that the trader came and credits were wrangled over and extended, each side endeavoring to drive a sharp bargain, but with the chances generally in favor of the commercial adventurer.
It must be admitted that the individual trader never became wealthy. His immediate gains often seemed large, but the credit system grew in extent until at last the risk was enormous — for the Indian soon ceased to be good pay, the romancers to the contrary notwithstanding — and the monopolizing American Fur Company managed to absorb by
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 1 57
far the greater part of the profits won by its subordinates.
The fur trade in Wisconsin, under Astor, was in its heyday about the year 1820. At Green Bay there were then sixty houses and some five hun- dred people, in addition to tlie garrison. A crude sort of agriculture was practiced, but the people were mainly employes of the dozen resident traders. Of these latter, an English Jew, named John Lawe, was the heaviest operator, and represented Astor's company. Lawe's customers were the Menomonees, and his posts were at the Indian villages along the Menomonee, Peshtigo, Oconto and other rivers flowing into Green Bay, while he also had stations on the Upper Wolf. There were about four hundred Menomonee hunters, and they covered the region extending northward to the Chippewa country, west to Black River, and south- ward along the shore of Lake Michigan to Milwaukee River.
Milwaukee was an entrepot for the Pottawa- tomie trade. It was still a polyglot village and on the northern boundary of the Pottawatomie claim. These people numbered some two hundred hunters, in Wisconsin.
At the Grand Kakalin, the site of the present city of Kaukauna, Augustin Grignon had a sub stantial log-trading shanty, the shell of which can
158 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
still be seen by the traveler along the portage path around the great falls of the Lower Fox. His trade was among the Menomonees, but other mem- bers of the Grignon family were up the Wisconsin River with the Winnebagoes. The Porlier and Grignon families were united at Butte des Morts, a Menomonee station, and at the Fox- Wisconsin portage, in the heart of the Winnebago country. The Winnebagoes hunted around Lake Winnebago, up the Fox River to its source, on the Wisconsin to the neighborhood of Stevens Point, on the head- waters of the Rock River — including Lake Kosh- konono^ and the Madison Lake reo^ion — and on to the northwest as far as Black River, where they often overlapped the Menomonee grounds. There were also a few Winnebagoes along the shore of the Mississippi River, above the mouth of the Wisconsin.
Prairie du Chien was a shabby French settle- ment of perhaps eighty buildings, including the fort, a population of five hundred and a garrison of one hundred. The people, having largely come from the Illinois and St. Louis settlements below, were less mixed with Lidian blood than their com- patriots at Green Bay. Joseph Rolette was the chief trader, and oi^ciated as agent for the Amer- ican Fur Company, his operations extending from Dubuque, Iowa, up the Mississippi River to the
JVJSCONS/N BECOMES AMERICANIZED. I 59
Falls of St. Anthony, and up the St. Peter's to its source ; he was also engaged on the Lower Wis- consin and Upper Rock. His principal patrons were the Sioux, who were located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, and claimed territory in Wisconsin as far as the falls of the Black, Chip=- pewa, Red Cedar and St. Croix Rivers.
The Chippewas, at this period, occupied the northern third of Wisconsin, their hunters num- bering six hundred. The territory which they ranged over was reached from Lake Superior by four rivers — the Ontanagon, Montreal, Bad and Bois Brule ; and from the headwaters of these there were frequent and easy portages to the streams flowing southward into Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. Aside from the distributing station at La Pointe, described in the preceding chapter, the American Fur Company's chief post in the Chippewa country was on the shores of Lac du Flambeau, with auxiliary posts at Lac Chetac, Rice Lake, Tomahawk Lake, Lac Court Oreilles, Namekagon Lake and other favorite points of forest rendezvous.
The Lidian trade continued to be the chief com- mercial interest in Wisconsin until about 1S34, when new interests had arisen, with the develop- ment of the lead mines in the southwest, and the advent of agricultural settlers upon the close of
l6o WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
the Black Hawk War. It is important to note, how- ever, that " the fur trade became the pathfinder for acrricultural and manufacturino; civiHzation." * The traders were wont to select commanding sites, often Indian villages, for their stations; and upon sites thus chosen, either b}' the aborigine or trader, are to-day situated most of the cities and leading towns of the State — such, for example, as Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, Madison, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Two Rivers, Kewaunee, Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, Depere, Kaukauna, Neenah, Hudson, Por- tage, Menomonee, Oconto, Peshtigo, Black River Falls, Rice Lake, Baraboo, Shullsburg. As many of the trading posts were on portages, where Indians were obliged to carry their craft around falls or rapids, the future water-powers of the State soon became familiar to the early whites ; while across such portage plains as those at Portage and Sturgeon Bay, important ship canals were after- wards excavated. The network of Indian trails, which were also used by the traders, developed into public roads when American settlers, first with saddle horses and then with wagon teams, came to occupy the country. Thus was Wisconsin
* "The Fur Trade in Wisconsin," by Prof. F. J. Turner, being tlie annual address de- livered before the Wisconsin Historical Society, January 3, 1889. It is a clear, exhaustive analysis of the character and influence of the trade, and of the utmost importance to writers on this ohase of the history of Wisconsin.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. l6l
thoroughly explored, its cities and highways located, and its waterways mapped out, by the early French, long before the inrush of agricultural colonists.
It was quite early in the present century when the rich lead mines of Dubuque, Galena and Southwestern Wisconsin attracted the attention of the nation and a movement began which hastened the Anglo-Saxon settlement of that region and the downfall of the fur trader. The existence of the metal had been known to the Indians lonsf before the first French explorers appeared on the scene, but it was not until the whites introduced fire-arms and the slaughter of animals for the fur trade began, that the savages understood its value. Instructed by the early French, they learned to rudely mine and smelt the ore, and, w^ith the increased demand, the working of the open shafts became a regular and profitable industry with the Sacs and Foxes, who were jealous of the intrusion of whites in their mining district, except for the purposes of trade. Upon the west side of the Mississippi, and in the lower Galena region, privileged French and Spanish miners, especially friendly to the Indians, were established long before the opening of the Revolutionary W'ar, and St. Louis became a con- siderable market for the commodity.
In 1804, as we have seen, the lead region was
1 62 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
acquired by purchase, by the United States, and the Sac and Fox owners for the most part moved out. They were succeeded in Southwestern Wis- consin by the gypsy Winnebagoes, who squatted
on the land and for a long time kept whites out of the country, the half-breeds disposing of the pro- duct of the mines in St. Louis, whither it was sent in canoes. But gradually miners from Missouri and Kentucky — some of the latter bringing negro slaves with them — moved into the country and kept the Indians and their intriguing Canadian relatives in check. It was in 1822 that the general government took charge of the lead mines and began granting leases to the operators, which sys- tem was maintained until 1847, when the lands were brou2:ht into the market and sold.
In July, 1826, there were but one hundred whites at work in the Galena and Wisconsin diggings ; the following March there were only two hundred, but by the close of the succeeding twelve months the number had leaped to four hundred and six. The heaviest immigration set in, in 1829. The new town of Galena was the entrepot of the region, and it soon had a floating population of many thousands. The rough scenes familiar to the Rocky Mountain mining camps of a later period were, at this early time, to be daily witnessed in the shanty metropolis
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 1 63
of the lead region. Speculation ran high ; gam- blino- was one of the most prevalent vices; the old Indian trails from Central Illinois were transformed into highways for Concord coaches and lumber- wagon expresses ; men poured into the district on foot and on horseback, by river-boat or by team, from all sections of the East and West; in a few months prospectors were picking holes all over the roujrh hills of Southwestern Wisconsin, and soon loo- shanties and stockades were familiar ob- jects in the landscape. Men worth their thousands bivouacked in the foot-road alongside of tramps and vagabonds of every grade ; and a traveler of that day tells us that little knots of desperate, ragged fellows, armed to the teeth and playing poker on the stumps by the wayside, were to be met with every mile or so upon the journey.
The Indians could not withstand this army of occupation. The newcomers had come to stay at any hazard, and were prepared to fight like tigers for their claims. Mushroom towns sprang up all over the district; deep-worn native paths be- came ore roads between the burrows and the river landings; sink-holes abandoned by the Sacs and Foxes when no longer to be operated with their crude tools, were re-opened and found to be excep- tionally rich, while new diggings and smelting fur- naces, fitted out with modern appliances, fairly
1 64 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
dotted the map of the country. A new era had opened in Wisconsin. The days of the fur trade were numbered. The miner held the region.
A treaty between the United States and the In- dians of IlHnois, Wisconsin and Minnesota had been concluded at Prairie du Chien in August 1825, at which the general government was repre sented by William Clark and Lewis Cass, the former then serving as superintendent of Indian affairs at St. Louis, and the latter as governor of Michigan Territory, of which Wisconsin was at the time a part. Articles which were signed at this council prescribed tribal boundaries and provided for a general peace among the bands, many of which had long been pitted against each other ; nevertheless the Indians went home dissatisfied, and the peaceful ends sought to be accomplished were not only not secured, but to inter-tribal hatred was added an intensified dislike of the Americans. The latter were adjudged parsimonious, because they failed to load the chiefs with presents, after the fashion of the British on such occasions ; the land-grabbing tendencies of the Great Father at Washington were too plainly indicated at this, as at all of the treaty councils ; and the natives did not enjoy the unsympathetic formality of the com- missioners, who refused to allow the new treaty to be ratified by a savage carousal.
INDIANS Al I'ACKING A STOCKAnii.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 167
After a winter signalized by several scalping raids between the Chippewas of Wisconsin and the Sioux west of the Mississippi, the Winnebagoes and Sioux began in the spring of 1826 to act in a sullen manner toward the whites in their territory. This unruly conduct was the immediate result of rumors which had been freely circulated in the Northwest woods by malicious Frenchmen, to the effect that aiiother war was imminent between the United States and England. Early in the sea- son, two Winnebagoes had been imprisoned at Fort Crawford for dishonest practices, a proceeding which increased the irritation. The summer was filled with alarms and in the fall there were rumors that the fort was to be attacked. It was in the midst of these troubles that all of a sudden there came an order from the war department at Wash- ington, ordering^ Fort Crawford to be abandoned and the troops withdrawn to Fort Snelling, far up the Mississippi River, near where St. Paul is now situated. The command was obeyed with alacrity, for it came as the result of the importunities of the officer in charge, Colonel Snelling, who had had personal difficulties with the people of Prairie du Chien.
It may be well imagined that the Winnebagoes considered this untimely abandonment of the fort as the result of alarm upon tlic part of the
1 68 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
whites, and an acknowledgment that the position was untenable in the event of an Indian uprising.
The succeeding winter there were numerous for- est councils among the Winnebagoes in Western Wisconsin, at which the war spirit was strung to a high pitch among the younger men, who were fully resolved to take sides with the friendly British, should the promised contest break out.
In March, 1827, some young Winnebagoes were hunting upon the Yellow River, in Iowa, twelve miles north of Prairie du Chien. Thev there came across the log cabin of a half-breed named Methode, a peaceable fellow from Prairie du Chien, who was making maple sugar, assisted by his wife and their five children. The entire family were killed, scalped and burned to cinders, by the marauding savages.
The popular excitement at Prairie du Chien over this massacre of the Methodes, had hardly died away when a delegation of Sioux from across the Mississippi arrived in the village of Red Bird, a petty Winnebago chief whose town was on Black River, near the modern village of Trempealeau, These visitors brought word that the two Winnebago pris- oners who had been removed from Fort Crawford to Fort Snelling, when the troops were withdrawn, had been executed bv the c(^mmandant. Red Bird believed the falsehood, and was quite ready to adopt
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. I 69
the suggestion of the Sioux, — that vengeance be at once taken. The old Winnebago blood-code was, two lives for one, so the chief at once set out to take at least four white scalps in repri- sal, much to the delight of the trans- Mississippi delegates, who, having private enmities against the Americans, were using the deluded Red Bird as a cat's-paw.
There were, however, abundant other grievances on the part of the Winnebagoes. The United States accent at Prairie du Chien was not treatino^ them in that hospitable spirit which they thought proper upon the part of the representative of a great nation, and stealthy British agents were still poisoning their minds with promises of better times to come; the whites were rapidly over-running their lead mines and driving them, often with some show of brutality, out of the region ; a hundred petty incidents tended to arouse native animosity, and the time was ripe for an uprising.
Affairs were in this condition, when two keel- boats passed up the Mississippi from St. Louis, laden with provisions for Fort Snelling. Some of Red Bird's people boarded the craft and sold veni- son to the boatmen ; it was noticed by the Indians that the crews were practically unarmed, neverthe- less they did not venture to molest them. Twelve miles above, on the west side, the noted Sioux
I 70 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
chief, Wabashavv,* had a large village, occupying the site of the present city of Winona, Minnesota. Here the boats were again boarded. The Sioux visitors were surly, but upon being sharply ordered ashore, left without ascertaining the defenseless condition of the boats. All along the west bank, to the fort, the Sioux showed marked ill-will, but the provisions finally arrived in safety at their destination.
Failing to get scalps here. Red Bird, with his friend Wekau (the Sun) and two others, paddled down to Prairie du Chien, bent on finding victims there. It was the twenty-sixth of June, and many of the men of the settlement were away. It would have been easy for the savages to have openly ac- complished their ends, but the Indian nature de- lights in secret methods ; so, after bullying a few of the women, they set out for the farm of Registre Gagnier, two miles south of the village, at the foot of the prairie. This Gagnier was the son of a negro woman and a French voyageur ; he had a white wife, two children, and a serving man namicd Lipcap. The poor farmer was an honest, hard- working fellow, especially noted for his humane treatment of Indians, but this reputation stood him in little stead on such an occasion as this, when the
* Son and successor of the Wabashaw who served in the British-Indian expedition against St. Louis, in 1780.
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED, 171
merciless code of vengeance demanded blood, no matter who the victim.
Red Bird had been his friend for years, so that when the four agents of death appeared at the door of the mulatto's cabin they were invited in, the kettle was slung over the open fire-place and pipes were produced. For hours did the visitors stay and enjoy the good man's hospitality, stealthily waiting their chance. At last Red Bird and Wekau sud- denly leveled their guns, and Gagnier and Lipcap fell dead at their feet. Madame Gaonier seized
O
her infant of eighteen months and flew to a window ; but Wekau was too quick for her; the child was torn from her grasp, stabbed, scalped and dashed to the floor as dead. The woman herself snatched a gun, and when Wekau turned to attack her, pre- sented it to his breast. W' hile he was recovering his self-possession she made off through the brush, in company with her little ten-year-old boy, and reached the village at the same time as the murder- ers.' The alarm was given, but the Indians sud- denly disappeared. Later in the day the villagers visited the scene of the tragedy, buried Gagnier and Lipcap, and brought the mangled infant back to the settlement. Strange to sav, the child sur- vived its brutal treatnicnt and "rew to womanhood. Red Bird and his companions had secured but three of the four scalps desired, though according to
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Indian ethics their campaign had been well opened. It was in high glee that they skulked along the bush-grown shores of the Mississippi, and when out of sight of the village again took to their canoe, which they had hidden in a rocky cove. Thirty-seven warriors of Red Bird's village had meanwhile encamped at the mouth of the Bad Ax River, below the Black, and some forty miles north of Prairie du Chien. Here, upon the appearance of the murderers, a drunken debauch ensued in celebration of the event. To take a scalp, no matter with what exercise of treachery, is in itself deemed a deed of valor among American aborigines, and the acquisition of three made this thrice a victory.
About four o'clock in the afternoon of the third day, while the Winnebago revelers were engaged in the scalp dance, the foremost of the two keel- boats before mentioned hove in sight on its return from Fort Snelling. Both boats had passed Wa- bashaw's village at Winona, unharmed, although the Sioux woke the echoes with war-whoops and ran along shore at the foot of the bluffs, fiercely gesticu- lating. When, therefore, the Winnebagoes at the Bad Ax showed fight, the crew of the leading craft were not alarmed, and in a spirit of bravado ran the boat towards shore. There were sixteen men on deck, handling the sweeps, and all were well
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 1 73
armed, for their experience in going up stream had taught them the value of being prepared for mis- chief upon the return.
When within thirty yards of the shore, the boat- men were greeted by the ear-piercing war-yelps of the Winnebagoes, and a shower of rifle balls swept the deck. The whites rushed below and shot through the portholes; a few venturesome Indians boarded the boat and ran her upon a sandbank, and for three hours a spasmodic fire was kept up on both sides. Dusk now setting in, five brave fellows in the crew jumped overboard in the midst of a hot bombardment from shore, and succeeded in pushing the boat off the bar. By dint of in- genious manipulation of the sweeps, from below, the well-riddled hulk was directed to the center of the river, and the swift current soon bore her from the sight of the disappointed savages, who had an- ticipated carrying the craft by assault, under cover of the night. The casualties among the besieged were slight, when the fact is considered that nearly seven hundred bullets had pierced the boat through and through; the loss was but two killed outright, and two mortally and two slightly wounded. Of the Indians, seven were killed and fourteen wounded. At midnight, the rear keel-boat passed the native camp, and was fired upon, but her crew returned the volley and were soon out of range.
174 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
Upon the arrival of the boats at Prairie du Chien, the news of the fierce engagement at the Bad Ax spread through the settlements. One hundred militiamen came up from Galena, and others poured in from the neighboring lead mines. ,The Winnebagoes were everywhere acting suspi- ciously, and the rumor spread that a general upris- ing was planned. Governor Cass proceeded from Detroit by the way of Green Bay, to the scene of the trouble and organized the defenses. The settlers strengthened the old fort at Prairie du Chien. A small battalion of troops finally came down from Fort Snelling, General Henry Atkinson hurried to the spot with a full regiment from Jefferson Bar- racks, near St. Louis, and early in August Major William Whistler, of Fort Howard, proceeded up the Fox with a portion of his command.
Whistler tarried for a time at Butte des Morts, where a council was held with the Winnebagoes, Chippewas and Menomonees, regarding the lands to be accorded the New York Indians, of whom mention will be made later. At this council, which was concluded on the eleventh of August, the Winnebagoes were notified that the security of their people lay in the surrender of Red Bird and Wekau — it beinGf tacitly understood that nothinor further, in that event, would be done by the general government about the attack on the keel -boats.
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Whistler arrived at the Fox-Wisconsin portage on the first of September, Atkinson and the regulars meanwhile slowly moving up the Wisconsin, with the intent of ultimately joining him.
But the Winnebagoes were still threatening. Consternation among the Wisconsin settlers was widespread, for an Indian war of serious pro- portions appeared to them imminent, and the lead mines soon lost half of their white population. Whistler fortified his camp and sent out runners among the disaffected warriors, advising them to deliver up the murderers or the tribe would be at once swept from the face of the earth.
Upon the day after Whistler's arrival, an Indian emissary notified him that Red Bird and Wekau had decided to surrender themselves, in order to save the tribe, and would be at headquarters at three o'clock in the afternoon of the following day. Prompt to the hour the culprits appeared on the portage plain, attired in full savage paraphernalia, accompanied by a large party of unarmed friends, and singing their death songs. Wekau was a miser- able specimen of his tribe, but Red Bird was young, tall, well-proportioned, lofty in bearing and pictur- esquely clothed. He was received with military honors and throughout the impressive ceremony of surrender bore himself with a native majesty which won for him the admiration of the entire camp.
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It must be remembered that the young chief had not, in his bloody foray, violated the ethical code by which his people were governed. In the eyes of himself and his fellows, it was an heroic act. His surrender was in no sense the result of a prick- ing conscience, for from his standpoint he had acted as the avenger of his tribe. He gave him- self up and compelled the cowardly Wekau to also surrender, because this seemed the only method of saving the tribe from annihilation. It was a volun- tary performance on his part, and as such possessed the quality of heroism, for we should judge his motives solely from the point of view of his race, however false that position. He bore himself as a man of exquisite courage and dignity, for he felt that he freely offered himself as a tribal sacrifice. Red Bird had but one request, and that was, not to be placed in irons; it was granted. Upon being taken to Prairie du Chien for imprisonment, he afterwards had frequent opportunities to escape ; but having Sfiven his word to remain and be tried for his life, he never took advantage of them. A few months later he died in prison of an epidemic then rao-inor in the settlement.
Madame Gagnier was granted a pension by the government. As for the murderers of Methode they were tried, convicted and sentenced to death, but President Adams pardoned them on condition
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. I 77
that the Winnebago tribe forever renounce its claims to the lead mines. This concession upon the part of the Indians was followed, in 1S28, by the erection of Fort Winnebago, on the Fox- Wis- consin portage, and from that time forward the United States held a firm hand over the whole of Wisconsin.
Allusion has been made to the removal to Wis- consin of certain bands of New York Indians. The difficulties which these Eastern tribes experi- enced in their attempt to find homes beyond Lake Michigan, cannot be stated in these pages in detail, althouoh the recitation would make an interestino; story of political intrigue, personal ambition and corporate greed. A concern called the Holland Land Company had long held the preemption right, officially confirmed by the commonwealth, of purchasing from the Indians of Western New York the lands which they occupied, whenever the natives cared to dispose of them. In 18 10, the Ogden Land Company succeeded to this privilege. But acquirement of the Indian title was slow, under ordinary conditions, and the company began se- cretly to foster a spirit of discontent among the red men. Emigration schemes were advanced by cer- tain of the leaders, particularly the chiefs of the Stockbridge and Brothertown tribes, which had 5ome generations before emigrated to New York
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from New England, and the head men of the Oneidas and Munsees, who were to the manor born. The war department then having the Indians in charge, soon became interested in the movement, and sent out an agent in the summer of 1820, to visit the Northwestern tribes and ascertain if homes could be found among these for the New Yorkers. This agent, Dr. Jedediah Morse, of Connecticut, visited Green Bay and suggested the valley of the Lower Fox as an eligible place. While in Green Bay, he preached the first Protestant sermon ever heard there.
There was among the Oneidas, at this tim.e, an erratic quarter-breed, named Eleazer Williams, who had served as an American spy among the Canadian Indians during the War of 181 2-15, but who was now an Episcopalian missionary to the St. Regis band. He was a born intriguer, and fell into this emig^ration scheme with enthusiasm. His orisina] aim was said to be the establishment of an Indian government in the Green Bay country, of which he should be dictator. Thereafter, we find him the most prominent character in the migra- tion of the New York Indians.
The owners of the soil selected by Morse and now eagerly sought by Williams and his party, were the Menomonees and the Winnebas^oes. A council was held at Green Bay in 182 1, at which Williams,
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. I 79
by dint of great pertinacity, overcame the natural reluctance of the Wisconsin Indians and secured the grant for his people of a strip five miles in width, along the Lower Fox, for the most part east of the river. But this was not enough for the intriguer's purpose, so in 1822 another council was held.
The Winnebagoes were obstinate and withdrew, but the Menomonees were finally wheedled into o-rantinsf a most extraordinary concession : making the New Yorkers joint owners with themselves, of all Menomonee territory. But by the following year the Menomonees had repented of the bargain, and there followed ten years of confusion and wordy turmoil, during which Congress was fre- quently engaged in settling the difficulties. At last, on the twenty-seventh of October, 1832, the affair was adjusted with at least a show of mutual satisfaction, and a considerable number of the New York Indians moved into Wisconsin — the Stock- bridges and Brothertowns settling to the east of Lake Winnebago, while the Oneidas and Munsees stationed themselves upon Duck Creek, near the mouth of the Lower Fox.
As for Williams, baffled in his political purpose, and having won the contemptuous regard of both whites and Indians, he suddenly posed, in 1S53, as Louis the Seventeenth, hereditary sovereign of France. It had always been supposed that soon
I So WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
after Louis the Sixteenth and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were beheaded, their imbecile son of eight years had died in the Temple Tower. But the claim was now made that the child had been ab- ducted and spirited off to America, and that Eleazer Williams, despite the well-known facts of his lineage, was the veritable dauphin. The claim was not only seriously discussed in the American press, but aroused attention even in France. One or two royalists came over to see the swarthy In- dian missionary at the Little Kakalin, whose face bore some resemblance to the Bourbon type of countenance, but left disappointed. Louis Phil- ippe sent him a present of some finely-bound books, believing him to be the innocent victim of a delu- sion. Williams died in 1858, keeping up his absurd pretensions to the last.
The Black Hawk War, in 1832, was an epoch- making event. The opening of the lead mines was one great incentive to the rapid development of Territorial Wisconsin ; the Black Hawk insurrec- tion was the other. This uprising of the natives, so potent in its consequences, was the outgrowth of a protracted series of events, which can be but inadequately set forth in this limited space. It is perhaps sufficient for our purpose to say that when in 1804, certain of the Sac and Fox chiefs purport- ing to be representatives of their united tribes.
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sold their title in the lead mines to the general government, certain other head-men not present at the council, claimed that the sale was not author- ized. Among the opponents of the treaty was Black Hawk, a Sac leader, then twenty-seven years of age, who lived with his followers at the junction of the Rock River with the Mississippi, the site of the present city of Rock Island, Illinois. Black Hawk was a fine specimen of savage humanity. He was not a chief, he was but the leader by suffer- ance of a band of Sacs who were opposed to the constituted authorities. These malcontents were so friendly to the English marplots who had long tempted our Northwestern savages, that the party was always popularly known as" The British band," to distinguish it from the majority, which was gen- erally on friendly terms w^th the Americans.
There was in the treaty of 1804 an unfortunate clause, to the effect that, " As long as the lands which are now ceded to the United States remain their [the general government's] property, the Indians belong- ing to the said tribes shall enjoy the privilege of liv- ing or hunting upon them," In other words, until the lands were preempted by actual settlers the Indians might remain upon them. All of the Sacs and Foxes except the British band at Rock Island removed at an early day to the west side of the Mississippi, but Black Hawk continued to hold his
1 82 U/SCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
village on the east side. He was born there. The old-time Sac burying-ground was in the neighbor- hood; the soil was rich and the Hawk appears to have become attached, with all the sentimental ardor of an unusually patriotic nature, to this beau- tiful resting-place of his ancestors. He was, too, restless and ambitious, and not disposed to bend to the will of the tribal chiefs — Keokuk, Wapello, Morsfan and the rest — and his followers were ever arrayed against them in council. He was a warm admirer of his British "father," and yearly his blanketed band would proceed by the old, deeply- worn Sac trail across Northern Illinois and Southern Michigan to the English Indian agency at Maiden, Canada, to return laden with gifts and flattery. He passionately hated the Americans because they an- noyed him, because marauders of our nationality had stolen his property, because he had once been beaten by one of them, because they were in- truders on the domains of his people, because his Eno-lish father hated them, because his rivals were their friends.
In 1823, although the line of settlement was still fifty or sixty miles to the east, the whites evinced a covetous desire for his fertile fields along the Mis- sissippi and began to squat there. The newcomers, year by year, robbed their Indian neighbors, de- stroyed their crops and burned their permanent
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 183
bark lodges every time the villagers were absent upon the chase. The tribal chiefs advised Black Hawk to leave and take up his lot with them across the river. But the obstinate patriot indignantly declined and proposed to stay at all hazards. Black Hawk, like Tecumseh, had a prophet friend and adviser — a shrewd, crafty fellow, half Winnebago and half Sac, chief of a village some thirty-five miles up the Rock, where Prophetstown, Illinois, now is. This rascally wizard cultivated the vanity of the Hawk and made him believe that the latter's power could not be overcome by the Americans, and that in due time the Pottawatomies of North- eastern Illinois and Southeastern Wisconsin, and the Winnebagoes of the Rock River valley and the lead mines, would come to his assistance.
When the British band returned from their hunt in the spring of 1830, they found their town shat- tered, the cemetery plowed over and the whites more abundant than ever. Several squatters, who had illegally been upon the land for seven years and caused the Indians much trouble, had finally preempted the village site, the burial place and Black Hawk's favorite planting ground. This was a trick to accord with the letter, but to violate the spirit of the treaty of 1804, for a belt of practically unoccupied territory, forty miles wide, still lay to the eastward. The Indians, howling^ with raoc, at
184 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
once took the trail to Maiden, where they were liberally treated and encouraged to rise in arms against the acquisitive Americans.
In the spring of 183 1, when the natives had returned to their old home after a gloomy and profitless winter's hunt, they were warned away by the whites. Black Hawk firmly declined to go and threatened the settlers with force if they did not themselves remove from his villaoe. This was construed into a "bloody menace," and the Illinois militia were at once called out by a flaming execu- tive proclamation, to "repel the invasion of the British band." Sixteen hundred volunteers, with ten companies of United States troops, made a demonstration before Black Hawk's camp, the twenty-fifth of June, and during that night the unhappy savages paddled across the river, where they signed an agreement never to return to the east side without the express permission of the United States government.
Unfortunately for them, they failed to keep this covenant. The intrigues of the British, aided by the mischievous prophet and by unauthorized over- tures from some of the Winnebago and Pottawat- omie hot-heads, resulted in Black Hawk casting prudence to the winds. His people had lost their chance of putting in a crop, and the succeeding winter's hunt proved a failure. Starvation stared
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them in the face, and a desperate sally was decided upon, in the vain hope that the United States would not dare to persist in driving them away from their beloved village.
On the sixth of April, Black Hawk, with five hundred warriors, mostly Sacs, with all their women, children and domestic belongings, re- crossed the Mississippi and passed up the Rock to the prophet's town. Their intention was to there raise a crop of corn and, if practicable, to take the war-path in the fall. The news of the "invasion" spread like wildfire throughout the Illinois and Wisconsin settlements. The governor of Illinois issued another fiery proclamation, sum- moning the people to arms, and the United States was called on to send an army to help quell the uprising. Some of the settlers fled from the country, others hastily threw up rude log forts, and everywhere was intense excitement and prepa- ration for bloody strife.
In an incredibly short time three hundred regu- lar troops under General Atkinson, and sixteen hundred horse and two hundred foot volunteers, were on the march.* Black Hawk, after sendins: a defiant message to Atkinson, retreated up Rock River, making a stand at Stillman's Creek. Here
• Abraham Lincoln was captain of an independent company of Illinois rangers, in this levy ; Zachary Taylor was a colonel of regulars, and Jefferson Davis one of his lieutenants.
1 86 WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED.
he would have surrendered, but on the fourteenth of May the drunken pickets of the advance party of whites killed his messengers of peace. Smart- ing for revenge, he turned and swiftly routed Stillman's two hundred and seventy-five horsemen, with a mere handful of thirty-five braves to assist him. The cowardly rangers who fled at the first volley of the savages, without returning it, were haunted by the genius of fear, and, dashing madly through swamps and creeks, did not stop until they reached Dixon, twenty-five miles away; while many kept on at a keen gallop till they reached their own firesides, fifty or more miles farther, carrying the absurd report that Black Hawk and two thousand blood-thirsty warriors were sweeping Northern Illinois with the besom of destruction.
The war having now begun in earnest, Black Hawk, greatly encouraged and rich in supplies captured in Stillman's camp, felt imipelled to carry it forward with vigor. Removing his women and children to the swampy fastnesses of Lake Kosh- konong, near the headwaters of the Rock River, in Wisconsin, he thence descended with his braves into Northern Illinois. The people flew like chick- ens to cover, on the warning of the Hawk's foray. There was consternation throughout the entire West. Exaggerated reports of his forces and the nature of his expedition were spread throughout
WISCONSIN BECOMES AMERICANIZED. 1 87
the land. His name became coupled with stories of savage cunning and cruelty, and served as a house- hold bugaboo, the country over. The effect on the Illinois militia was singular enough, consider- ino: the haste thev had made to take the field : they instantly disbanded.
A fresh levy was soon raised, but during the hiatus there were irregular hostilities all along the Illinois-Wisconsin border, in which Black Hawk and a few Winnebago and Pottawatomie allies,* succeeded in making life miserable enough for the settlers and miners. The most notable skirmishes were at Pecatonica, Blue Mounds and Sinsiniwa Mound, in Wisconsin ; and Apple River, Plum River, Burr Oak Grove, Kellogg's Grove and Davis's Farm (near Ottawa), in Illinois. At Davis's Farm, a party of Pottawatomies and Sacs, under the notorious renegade, Mike Girty, captured two white girls, Sylvia and Rachel Hall, and it cost the Government two thousand dollars to redeem them from the Wisconsin Winnebagocs, in whose keep- ing they had been placed. In these border strifes, fully two hundred whites and nearly as many Indians lost their lives, and there were numerous instances of romantic heroism on the part of the settlers, men and women alike.
* But few Pottawatomies engaged in the war, and they were young hot-heads anxious for any excuse to take a scalp and tlius enter the rank of warriors.
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In about three weeks after Stillman's defeat the reorganized militia took the field, reinforced by the regulars under Atkinson. Black Hawk was forced to fiy to Lake Koshkonong, and when the pursuit became too warm he hastily withdrew westward to the Wisconsin River, Closely following him were a brigade of Illinois troopers under General James D. Henry and a battalion of Wisconsin lead-mine rangers under Major Henry Dodge, afterwards gov- ernor of the Territory.
The pursuers came up with the natives at Prairie du Sac. Here the south bank of the Wisconsin con- sists of steep, grassy bluffs, of three hundred feet altitude, hence the encounter which ensued is known in history as the Battle of Wisconsin Heights. With consummate skill. Black Hawk made a stand on the summit of the heights, and with a small party of warriors held the whites in check until the non-combatants had crossed the broad river bottoms below and gained shelter upon the willow-grown shore opposite. The loss on either side was slight, the action being notable only for the Sac leader's superior management.
During the night the passage of the river was fully accomplished by the fugitives. A large party was sent down stream upon a raft and in canoes besrsed from the Winnebaoroes; but those who took this method of escape were brutally fired upon
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near the mouth of the river by a detachment from the garrison at Prairie du Chien, and fifteen killed in cold blood. The rest of the pursued, headed by Black Hawk — who had again made an attempt to surrender his forces to the white army, but failed for the want of a competent interpreter — pushed across country, guided by Winnebagoes, to the mouth of the Bad Ax, where, it will be remembered, Red Bird had attacked the keel-boats five years before.
They were followed, three days behind, by the united army of regulars, who steadily gained on them. The country between the Wisconsin and the Mississippi is rough and forbidding in char- acter ; swamps and turbulent rivers are freely interspersed between the steep, thickly-wooded hills. The uneven pathway was strewn with the corpses of Sacs who had died of wounds and star- vation, and there were frequent evidences that the fleeing wretches were sustaining life on the bark of trees and the sparse flesh of their fagged-out ponies.
On Wednesday, the first of August, Black Hawk and his now sadly depleted and almost famished band reached the Mississippi, near where the pict- uresque Bad Ax contributes its mite to the rolling flood. There were only two or three canoes to be had, and the crossing progressed slowly and with
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frequent loss of life. That afternoon a government supply steamer, the Warrior, from Prairie du Chien, appeared on the scene. The Indians a third time tried to surrender, but their white flag was fired at, and round after round of canister swept the camp. The next day the troops arrived on the heights above the river bench, the Warrior again opened its attack, and thus, caught between two galling fires, the poor savages soon succumbed. But fifty remained alive on the spot to be taken prisoners. Some three hundred weaklings had reached the opposite shore through the hail of iron and lead. Of these three hundred helpless, half-starved, unarmed non-combatants, over one half were slaughtered by Wabashaw's Sioux who had been sent out to waylay them. So that out of the band of one thousand Indians who had crossed the Mississippi in April, not more than one hundred and fifty, all told, lived to tell the tragic story of the Black Hawk War — a tale frausfht with dishonor to the American name.
The rest can soon be told. The Winnebago guerrillas, who had played fast and loose during the campaign, delivered to the whites at Prairie du Chien, the unfortunate Black Hawk, who had fled from the Bad Ax to seek an asylum with his false friends. The proud old man, shorn of all his strength, was presented to the President at Wash-
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ington, forced to sign articles of perpetual peace and then turned over for safe keeping to Keokuk, his hated and hating rival. Black Hawk, with all his racial limitations, had in his character a strength and manliness of fiber that was most re- markable, and displayed throughout his brief cam- paign a positive genius for military evolutions. He may be safely ranked as one of the most in- teresting specimens of the North American savage to be met with in history.
The immediate and lasting results of the Black Hawk War were not only the humbling of the Indians of Wisconsin and Illinois, but the wide advertising of the country through which the con- test had been waged. During and soon after the war, the newspapers of the Eastern States were filled with descriptions, more or less florid, of the scenic charms of the Rock River Valley, the groves and prairies on every hand, the park-like district of the Four Lakes, the Wisconsin-River highlands and the picturesque hills and almost impenetrable forests of Western Wisconsin. Books and pam- phlets were issued from the press by the score, giv- ing accounts of the newly-discovered paradise, and soon a tide of immigration set in towards Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. Then neces- sarily followed, in short season, the survey and opening to sale of public lands heretofore reserved,
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and the purchase of what hunting grounds were still in possession of Indian tribes. The develop- ment of Wisconsin thus received a sudden and enormous impetus, so that when it was divorced from Michigan, in 1836, and reared into an inde- pendent Territory, there were about twelve thou- sand whites within the borders of the nascent commonwealth, and many of the sites of future cities of the State were occupied by permanent agricultural settlers.
CHAPTER VII.
TERRITORIAL DAYS.
NE of the articles of the Ordinance for the government of the old Northwest Ter- ritory, adopted by the Congress of the Con- federation in 17S7, and confirmed by the United States Con- gress two years later, provided that the great Territory should be even- tually cut up into five States: three, south of "an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan," and the other two north of it. When Ohio, Indiana and Illinois came to be staked out, each succeeded, upon one pretext or another, in getting Congress to violate this article of division, in order to allow them to encroach upon the country north of the famous "east and west line," and thereby gain harbors upon the Great Lakes. Ohio thus obtained a
19J
194 TERRITORIAL DAYS.
wedge-shaped strip, extending westward from Mau- mee Bay along her northern border, and averaging six miles in width. When Michigan came to be formed, there was a deal of dissatisfaction at this trespass on the part of Ohio, and the Wolverines were given what is now known as the Upper Peninsula, in order to appease them — this rich tract being taken from what belonged to the future Wisconsin, it having all along been agreed that Lake Michigan should separate the two northern States when they came to be erected. Indiana was allowed a strip ten miles wide, Michigan not then considering the territory thus taken from her as worth quarreling over. Illinois was, however, the boldest land-orrabber. In 1818, Congress Qrave her an additional section sixty-one miles wide, straight along her north line from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River; upon this splendid tract of eight thousand five hundred square miles of rich agricultural and mining land, there are to-day planted the thriving cities of Chicago, Freeport, Rockford, Waukegan, Dixon, Galena, Elgin and Evanston, and between them a populous and pro- gressive rural region. Had the original agreement been carried out, this country would to-day belong to Wisconsin instead of Illinois.
The old Northwest Territory had for its western boundary the Mississippi River to its source, and
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 1 95
thence a line running directly north to the inter- national boundary. If the letter and the spirit of the Ordinance of 1787 had been carried out, Wis- consin, as the fifth State in the Territory, would have had all of the land between Lake Michis^an and the Mississippi — a grand stretch of country, in width seven hundred miles as the crow flies, be- tween the Sault Ste. Marie and the Lake of the Woods. We have seen how she was despoiled of the Upper Peninsula by Michigan, and of an enor- mous belt to the south, by Illinois ; afterwards, in 1848, when she became a State, Congress took from her, to give to Minnesota, the country be- tween the St. Croix River and the Upper Missis- sippi, of which St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth are to-day the leading cities.
When the Northwest Territory was first divided, in 1800, what is now Wisconsin was included in Indiana Territory, and thus remained until 1809, when the new Territory of Illinois took her under its wing. In 1818, when Illinois became a State, Michig:an Territory was oiven charq-e of the coun- try west of Lake Michigan and north of the Illinois line. In 1834, there was added to Michigan Ter- ritory, "for temporary purposes " of administration, the country extending west to the Missouri and the White Earth rivers, so that now Michigan extended from Detroit westward to a point eighty-
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five miles northwest of the present city of Bismarck, Dakota. In 1836, Wisconsin Territory was organ- ized, stretching from Lake Michigan, with the exception of the Michigan Upper Peninsula, to the extreme western limits we have described. In 1838, Congress created from Wisconsin's trans- Mississippi country, the Territory of Iowa; and ten years later, as before stated, gave to the new State of Minnesota that portion of Wisconsin lying west and northwest of the St. Croix, thus leaving the Badger State with the boundaries now possessed by her — boundaries quite ample, how- ever; for though, as the youngest sister in the family of Northwest commonwealths, obliged to take what was left after the others had been satis- fied, she still has a territory of fift3'-four thousand square miles, which is surpassed only by the fifty- six thousand of Illinois and the fifty-seven thou- sand of Michigan, while Ohio boasts of but forty thousand and Indiana of thirty-five thousand.
The act creating the Territory of Wisconsin had long been incubating in Congress. As early as 1824, James Duane Doty, that year appointed United States circuit judge at Green Bay, began an agitation looking to this result, his first propo- sition being, to call the country " Chippewau." Afterwards, in 1827, we find him, not at all dis- couraged over the failure of the movement, want-
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 1 97
ino- to call the region " Wiskonsin," in honor of its principal river— this being Judge Doty's phonetic rendering of the old French " Ouisconsin." In 1830 he wanted his proposed Territory called "Huron," and four years later "Wisconsin" was suo-o-ested. This last title was adopted by Con- gress, and after many trials and tribulations, among which was a quarrel over the northeast boundary, with the Michigan people, the bill passed and was approved April 20, 1836, taking effect the fourth of July following.
Henry Dodge, whom President Jackson ap- pointed as the first Territorial governor, had been one of the leading spirits in the lead-mines, and was in command of the Michigan militia west of Lake Michigan during the Red Bird uprising and the Black Hawk War. A man of fine physical ap- pearance, prompt action and pompous manner, he won the reputation of being a brave and dashing partisan leader, instilling fear into the breasts of the Winnebafjoes over whom he was fond of domi- neering, and fostering emulation among the ]:)ict- uresque band of free rangers whom he led forth to scouting service along the threatened frontier. Dodge was deficient in early education and was greatly overestimated by the majority of his con- temporaries; nevertheless he discharged his various public duties, military and civil, in a creditable
198 TERRirORIAL DAYS.
manner. Upon the appointed fourth of July, the new governor, together with his civil staff and the three judges, amid noisy public rejoicing took the oath of office at Mineral Point, in the heart of the lead region, then the principal settlement of the Territory.
The first legislative session was held at a newly- platted town called Belmont, in the present county of Lafayette. There were thirteen members in the upper house, or council, and twenty-six in the house of representatives — Henry S. Baird, a Green Bay lawyer, being elected president of the council, and Peter H. Engle, of Dubuque, speaker of the house. The legislature satin a story-and-a-half frame house, battlement-fronted ; the highway which it faced bristled with stumps, while lead-miners' shafts and prospectors' holes thickly dimpled the shanty neighborhood.
The chief business of the session was, orofan- izing the Territorial administration, dividing the Territory into counties and establishing county seats, borrowing: monev with which to run the new government, incorporating three banks — at Dubuque, Mineral Point and Milwaukee, all of which failed and involved considerable loss to some of the settlers — and fixing the seat of Ter- ritorial government.
The contest over the location of the capital proved
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to be the most exciting struggle of the session, and aroused a spirit of bitterness which was felt in legislative circles through many succeeding years. A month was spent in skirmishing, during which the claims of Milwaukee, Racine, Koshkonong, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Madison, Wisconsin apolis, Peru, Wisconsin City, Portage, Helena, Belmont, Mineral Point, Platteville, Cassville, Belle- view and Dubuque were successively urged. Many of these towns merely existed on paper and in the minds of real-estate speculators. A wild spirit of town-site rivalry had been born with the Territory, and the Eastern markets had early been flooded with prospectuses, maps and " bird's-eye views " of "cities" which were thoroughly equipped, in these florid descriptions and fanciful pictures, with court- houses, jails, hospitals, schools and other modern improvements.
One of the most notable of these " boom " towns was Kewaunee. Here, at the foot of the bluff where Kewaunee River empties into Lake Mich- igan, an unknown explorer thought he had found gold in paying quantity. There was a mad scram- ble for the scene of the discovery. Such men as Salmon P. Chase, who in after years became chief justice of the United States, and John Jacob Astor, the prince of fur traders, were eager purchasers of real estate in the town plat, at ridiculously high
200 TERRITORIAL DAYS.
figures. By the year 1836, when the excitement was at its height, Kewaunee aspired to rivah-y with Chicago. But there was not enough of the precious metal to pay for the extraction, the bubble collapsed, and to-day the denizens of the modest little town marvel at the stories the pioneers tell of those stirring times when Kewaunee was deemed the El Dorado of the Northwest.
What was called Madison was then a virgin for- est situated on a narrow isthmus between Third and Fourth Lakes. Under the tall oaks, the rolling; sward lay as smooth as a well-kept lawn, for the annual grass-fires set by the Indians kept the un- derbrush down; the center of the isthmus was a pleasant, undulating valley, and the high ridges on either side bathed their feet in the blue waters of the lakes, which were fringed with fragrant red cedar and framed in pebbly beaches. While of old a favorite resort for Indians, it had seldom been contaminated by the presence of the fur trader, and when Judge Doty selected it as the place for the capital it was a beauty-spot known to but few white men.
Doty, it will be remembered, was a Michigan judge, with the country west of Lake Michigan as his circuit. When Wisconsin set up in business for itself, he was legislated out of office. Few men knew Wisconsin from actual travel over the do-
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 20 1
main, as well as he, and it had long been his secret hope to locate a city between these sylvan lakes. In connection with Stevens T. Mason, then gov- ernor of Michigan, he purchased from the Govern- ment some twelve hundred acres, with the present capitol park as the center, engaged a surveyor to plat a city there, which he styled Madison, after the ex-President, and was on hand at Belmont, early in the session, to fight for the proposed town. It has been asserted that choice town lots were freely distributed among members and those sup- posed to have influence with them.
There was no lack of argument in favor of Madi- son; there were quite important reasons why it should be chosen, aside from Doty's urgency and the natural beauty of the Four Lake region. Set- tlement was heaviest at Green Bay, at Milwaukee and among the lead mines. The conflicting inter- ests of these three sections seemed irreconcilable. The selection of Madison would be in the nature of a compromise ; then again, it was midway be- tween the great water highways of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, and to locate the capital there would assist in developing the interior of the Territory and equalizing settlement. But whatever arguments were the most cogent, and all were used, Madison invariably succeeded in every division by a close vote, in withstanding the opposition, and
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late in November the location bill passed. It was provided that until the capitol provided for in the act was finished, the legislature should convene at Burlington, now in the State of Iowa.
The second legislative session, at Burlington, which opened November 6, 1837, was chiefly notable for the passage of acts establishing the University of the Territory of Wisconsin, and in- corporating the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal Company. To aid this university. Congress was invited to appropriate twenty thousand dollars and two townships of land. The money was not given, but the land was, and this was the fundamental endowment of the present State University at Madison. As for the Canal Company, its pros- pects were based upon the idea that the Milwaukee and Rock rivers could be united by a canal, along an old portage trail long used by Indians and fur traders, and thus an easy waterway be estab- lished between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. By Act of Congress, approved June 18, 1838, a liberal grant of land was made, to aid in the con- struction of this waterway. But the grant was not judiciously managed ; and between the Territorial ofificers, who were entrusted with the disposition of the lands and their proceeds, there grew up an an- tagonism which developed into political wrangles and personal strife. Litigation ensued, which oc-
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cupied the courts and the legislature, off and on, until 1875, when the tiresome controversy was at last closed. The canal was never finished.
Meanwhile, a clearing had been made in the woods at Madison, and the erection of the Terri- torial capitol commenced, the town thus far consist- ing for the most part of this government building of stone, and a few rude frame and log houses in the immediate neighborhood, reared for the board- ing of the builders. The infant city grew slowly, as the result of the necessities of the occasion, and it was long before the place had taken unto itself corporate pretensions. Yet Milwaukee was not much larger. When the legislature convened at Madison, the twenty-sixth of November, 1838, it was found that only fifty strangers could be lodged there, and a proposition was favored to adjourn to Milwaukee. But as the lake-shore metropolis could do no better, it was decided to stay at the capital and brave it out.
Here is a genial picture of life at the backwoods seat of government, that winter, w^ritten by a local chronicler: *
" With the session came crowds of people. The public houses were literally crammed — shake- downs were looked upon as a luxury, and lucky
* Robert L. Ream, father of Vinnie Ream-Hoxie, the sculptress. The latter was bom in the old log tavern here mentioned by Mr. Ream — the first dwelling erected at the Wisconsir capital.
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was the guest considered whose good fortune it was to rest his weary limbs on a straw or hay mattress.
" We had then no theaters or any places of amuse- ment, and the long winter evenings were spent in playing various games of cards, checkers and backgammon. Dancing was also much in vogue. Colonel James Maxwell, member of council from Rock and Walworth, was very gay, and discoursed sweet music on the flute, and Ben. C. Eastman, one of the clerks, was an expert violinist. They two furnished the music for many a French four, cotillon, Virginia reel and jig, that took place on the puncheon floors of the old log cabins form- ing the Madison House. . . . Want of ceremony, fine dress, classic music and other evidences of present society life, never deterred us from enjoy- ing ourselves those Ions; winter evenino;s."
This was long before railroads had reached Wis- consin. Travel through the new Territory was by boat, horseback or " French train." * There were no roads, except such as had been formed from the old deep-worn Indian trails which interlaced the face of the country, and traces of which can still be seen in many portions of the State. For the erec- tion of the capitol, it had been necessary to trans-
* A " French train " was a deep box, generally six feet long by thirty-five inches broad, which slipped easily on the surface of the snow, when drawn by two horses tandem.
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port saw-mill machinery and other heavy materials from the Milwaukee clocks overland to Madison, and the first wagons were for this purpose wheeled across the prairies and oak openings of Southeast- ern Wisconsin ; the ancient trail between the Four Lakes and Lake Michigan was followed by the pioneer teamsters, tlie rivers being swum by the horses, and the wagons and freight taken over in sections, in Indian canoes. In the rugged region of the southwest, wagons for the transportation of smelted ore to the river landings, and supplies to the "diggings," had early been introduced. Else- where in Wisconsin, there were as yet but few wheeled vehicles and no sta^i^e lines.
Life was simple in those early Territorial days. The financial crisis of 1837 had checked immigra- tion in the West for a time, but Wisconsin capital was chiefly muscle and brain, and the crash among the banks did not seriously affect many of her peo- ple. The tide of humanity soon resumed its normal flow, again setting strongly towards the land of the Badgers.* The people either came
* In early lead-mining days, the miners from Soutliern Illinois and further south re- turned home every winter and came back to the diggings in the spring, thus imitating the migrations of the fish popularly called the "sucker," in the Rock, Illinois and other south- flowing rivers of the region. For this reason, the south-winterers were jocosely called "Suckers," and Illinois became "The Sucker State." On the other hand, miners from the Eastern States were unable to return home every winter and at first lived in rude dug-outs — burrowing into the hillsides after the fashion of the badger ( TVj-zVfoi atiiericaitd). These men were the first permanent seltlers in the mines north of the Illinois line, and Wisconsin thus became dubl)ed " The Bads;er State." Contrary to general belief, the badger itself is not fre- quently found m Wisconsin.
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overland from New England or New York in their own rustic conveyances, or took boat to Detroit, Green Bay or Milwaukee, and then formed caravans proceeding into the interior.
Accustomed, for the most part, to toiling with their hands, and unused to costly living, the immi- grants took kindly to the privations of their new surroundings on the frontier. Those privations, simplifying their tastes and causing them to look seriously upon the affairs of life, sharpened their ^intellects and gave to their children a heritage of brawn and sober purpose.
Oftentimes, the Wisconsin settler was fifty or a hundred miles from a grist mill or a town, with nothing but an Indian trail or a blazed bridle-path through the forest, connecting him with his base of supplies. Perhaps his only excitement was the " raising bee," wherein neighbors for scores of miles around would gather to help the latest comer rear his log house or barn ; or, mayhap, the semi-annual trip to mill, post-office and " store." Now and then, favored ones who chanced to live upon the trail, might have a chance to house the gossipy mail-car- rier over night, this functionary being sometimes a horseback rider, but more frequently a pedestrian, taking regular trips wliich few would wish to walk in these days : between Green Bay and Portage, Green Bay and Chicago, Milwaukee and Prairie du
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Chien, and the like.* To be upon the bank of a river or a lake where one of these great trails crossed, meant an opportunity to keep a ferry and perhaps make a few shillings from the entertain- ment of chance travelers. But these were excep- tional conditions. The average pioneer was either closely hemmed about by gloomy forests, or planted in the midst of a lonely sea of prairie now and then broken by island patches of scrub-oak and tangled hazel-brush.
The stock of food brought by the pioneers was often considerable as to extent, although neces- sarily limited as to variety — flour and salt pork being the staples. But when this store was ex- hausted, it was often difficult to replenish it, and instances of suffering for want of the necessaries of life were not rare. The rivers and numerous lakes were, however, usually well stocked with excellent fish ; and bear, deer and wild fowl were abundant in the earlier years of settlement. As for spiritual food, it was freely administered by itinerant preach- ers, who braved rare hardships while making their missionary circuits, and deserve to rank among the most daring of the pioneer class. Churches
* The small weekly newspaper at Green Bay used to repeat this refrain at the head of its columns for some time after the establishment, in 1834, of the first mail route between Green Bay and Chicago :
"Three times a week, without any fail. At four o'clock we look for the mail, Brought with dispatch on an Indian trail."
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and schools were speedily organized in communi- ties sufficiently well settled, and from the first Wisconsin took a firm stand in the cause of secular and relis^ious education.
With these early agricultural colonists there came many professional men and men of affairs, for the most part young and ambitious of finding an opening in the new Territory for the making of either fame or wealth, or both. There were many such in the lead-mine district, at Prairie du Chien, in the Green Bay settlement and at the new town of Milwaukee. Governor Dodge, at Dodgeville, soon became a conspicuous character among the miners, being a man of enterprise, vigor and daring; Colonel W^illiam Stephen Hamilton, a son of the famous Alexander Hamilton, was sta- tioned at "Hamilton's Dio^o^ino^s," now Wiota — a strange, roving character, who made, however, a strong favorable impression upon his fellows in the lead region ; another noted miner, who at the same time was a man of education, was John H. Roun- tree, at Platteville, who still lives, a venerable relic of those primitive days ; among the early lawyers of the mining district, Thomas P. Burnett, Charles Dunn, Moses M. Strong and Mortimer M. Jackson were recognized as leading spirits, and afterwards acquired reputations which went out beyond the borders of the commonwealth. At Green Bay
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there was a considerable coterie of bright men, who assisted in molding the State — of whom Henry S. Baird, James Duane Doty, Morgan L. JMartin, William Dickinson and Ebenezer Childs may be cited as examples : the first three being dis- tinguished in law and politics, and the others in trade and manufactures. At Milwaukee there was Increase A. Lapham, a world-renowned naturalist and an active encourager of all good public enter- prises. Alexander Mitchell, the first and greatest Wisconsin banker, and in after days a prominent railway projector, was also a Milwaukcean ; while Byron Kilbourn and George H. Walker were fair representatives of the business men who stoutly aided in the development of what grew to be the Wisconsin metropolis. At Prairie du Chien, the Brunsons and Dousmans were types of pioneers who figured prominently in the domains of the pulpit, the bar or the counting-room.
In Territorial times the sessions of the legisla- ture at Madison were the events of the year, and attracted i)rominent men from all quarters of Wisconsin. The crude hotels were filled each winter with legislators, lobbyists and visiting poli- ticians, and old settlers delight to rehearse the tales of what was done and said at these annual o^atherinors of the clans.
The humors of the day were often uncouth.
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There was a deal of horse-play, hard-drinking and profanity, and occasionally a personal encounter during the heat of discussion ; but an under-current of good-nature was generally observable, and strong attachments between leading men were more fre- quently noticeable than persistent feuds. Dancing and miscellaneous merry-making were quite the order of the times, and although there was a dearth of womenkind in these Madison seasons, society at the capital was thought to be fashionable. Even when the legislature was not in session, Madison remained the social and political center of the Territory, and travelers between the outlying set- tlements on the shores of the Mississippi, and Lake Michigan or Green Bay, were wont to relish tarry- ing there upon their way; several have left us in journals and letters pleasing descriptions of their reception by the good-hearted inhabitants and the impressions made on them by the natural attrac- tions of this Wisconsin beauty-spot.
The old Territorial legislature had much to do, winter by winter, in the carving out of new coun- ties ; the statutory laws required molding in de- tail ; there were political apportionments to make after each new census, in a domain which was rap- idly filling up with a robust American population, and there were now and then unfortunate quarrels with the Territorial governor. As a whole, the
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quality of legislation was good, and there prevailed a healthy political tone, although there were now and then times when personal acrimony and parti- san prejudice appeared uppermost factors ; and the political pessimist might have found much to con- firm his forebodings, in the published reports of the sessions.
One unfortunate affair occurred during the ses- sion of 1841-42, which cast a deep gloom over the community and gained for Wisconsin an unenvia- ble notoriety. In September, 1841, Dodge was re- moved from the governorship by President Tyler, and in his place was appointed Judge Doty. The new governor at once antagonized the legislature in his message upon opening the session early in December, by the assertion that no law of the Ter- ritory was effective until expressly approved by Congress. Over this unwarranted construction of the organic act, there followed a wordy dispute in which the governor was undoubtedly worsted. One of the results of these strained relations was, that a motion was made in the council to table the gov- ernor's nomination of one Baker to be sheriff of Grant County. On the eleventh of February, the debate on this motion led to a personal altercation between two of the councilors — Charles C. P. Arndt, of Brown County, and James R. Vineyard of Grant County. Upon the adjournment of the coun-
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cil, these men, whom friends had separated during the sitting, again met in one of the aisles, and Arndt having struck at Vine3'ard, the latter drew a pistol and shot his adversary dead. Vineyard sur- rendered to the sheriff of Dane County, in which Madison is situated, and from his cell sent in his resignation as member of the council. But that body declined to receive the paper or even allow it to be read, and promptly expelled the member from Grant. Vineyard was subsequently tried for man- slaughter, and acquitted.
The news of this murderous quarrel within the very chamber of the Wisconsin Senate, at once spread throughout the country, and the newspapers of the day reported the affair in detail. Charles Dickens, the famous English author, was just then making his first tour of the United States, and the Wisconsin tragedy was cited in his American Notes as an instance of the tendency of public life in the wild West. The grreat Endishman, however, was too apt to view as tendencies what w^ere but iso- lated instances of pioneer barbarism in America. The Arndt-Vineyard affair remains to this day as by far the most painful incident in the legislative records of Wisconsin.
Governor Doty was a man of eminent ability, and the most pronn'nent citizen of Wisconsin, during Territorial days. But he was aggressive,
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and impulse and passion often blinded his judg- ment. It was partly owing to this unfortunate temperament, in part to certain minor complica- tions in Wisconsin politics, and in a measure to the boundary disputes with the national government then pending", that his administration of three years was the stormiest in the history of the Territory.
We have already seen how and why Wisconsin, as the fifth and last State to be formed out of the old Northwest Territory, was shorn of the Upper Peninsula by Michigan, and by a sixty-one-mile-wide strip along her southern border, by Illinois. There were, however, some incidents of these boundary quarrels with Congress and her tw^o neighbors, de- serving of especial mention here. Both Governors Dodge and Doty vigorously asserted the " ancient " Territorial riohts of Wisconsin, both as to Michigan and Illinois; they did a great deal of "demanding," and issued many mysterious threats of what Wis- consin would do in case her "birthrio;ht " was not acknowledojed. Committees of the Territorial letr- islature, to whom the boundary messages of these governors was referred, adopted the same defiant attitude.
The southern boundary remained for years a particular bone of contention between Wisconsin and Illinois. Dodcje worked himself into a verv belligerent spirit over it, in 1839 and 1840. He
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ordered certain Illinois land commissioners out of the disputed tract; had popular elections held in the fourteen northern counties of Illinois to decide upon the question of jurisdiction, in which elections Wisconsin, curiously enough, carried the day ; he instigated conventions of Northern Illinois people who wanted to join Wisconsin, and altogether made it as uncomfortable as possible for the "Sucker" authorities stationed near the Wisconsin border.
But the Territorial legislature of 1843-44 fairly distinguished itself in this protracted controversy. Under Doty's lead, it adopted on the thirteenth of December, 1843, a series of resolutions which practically amounted to a declaration of secession. These resolutions declared that the United States had " infrinoed " — mark the use of this term
O
" infrinQ[ed " — on the boundaries of the fifth State in the Northwest Territory, but that Wisconsin would pocket the insult if the general government would :
1. Construct a railroad system between Lake Michigan and the Missis- sippi.
2. Improve the Fox and Wisconsin rivers so as to make a national waterway between the Great Lakes and the great river.
3. Connect the Fox and Rock rivers by a canal.
4. Construct harbors on the west shore of Lake Michigan at Southport (Kenosha), Racine, Milwaukee, Sauk Harbor, Sheboygan and Manitowoc.
An address to Congress accompanied this report. Probably no State ever adopted a more belligerent
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attitude towards Congress than did Wisconsin in this remarkable document, which reads more Hke an emanation from an old-time South Carolina leg- islature than the sober judgment of a community which was among the foremost, less than twenty years later, in putting down by force of arms the rebellion which was but the logical sequence of the doctrines which this address advocated.
After pointing out to Congress the internal im- provements which Wisconsin would take as a balm for her injured sensibilities, the legislature declared that if Congress did not accede to these terms and would not admit Wisconsin to the Union with her ancient boundaries, she "would be a State out of the Union, and possess, exercise and enjoy all the rights, privileges and powers of the sovereign, inde- pendent State of Wisconsin, and if difficulties must ensue, we could appeal with confidence to the Great Umpire of nations to adjust them." " The un- authorized action of the ijeneral Qrovernment " was sharply alluded to; Congress was given warning in plain terms that " the integrity of Wisconsin's boundaries must be observed," and that if peace- able means failed, she would, " whatever may be sacrificed," resort to "every other means in her power." The address closed with a call on Con- gress to "do justice, while yet it is not too late, to a people who have hitherto been weak and unpro-
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tected, but who are rapidly rising to giant greatness, and who, at no distant day, will show to the world that they lack neither the disposition nor the ability to protect themselves."
There is much literature of a similarly startling character hid away in the dry and dusty journals of the Wisconsin legislature, covering this epoch. These words of the fathers of Wisconsin, only forty- six years ago, are strange reading indeed, in the light of subsequent events. Imagine Dakota or Utah talking in this fashion to the fiftieth Congress ! It is needless to add that the Congress of 1844 paid no attention whatever to the war talk from Wiscon- sin, which regained none of its territory ; nor, until long after, did she secure any of the internal im- provements which she had so imperiously demanded.
The year 1839 is notable for witnessing the com- mencement of " Mitchell's bank," from the first an important factor in the history of finance in Wis- consin. Early in the year, George Smith of Chi- cago, and Daniel Wells of Milwaukee, obtained from the leoislature a charter enablino- the Wiscon- sin Marine and Fire Insurance Company to do a general insuring and loaning business. It was a time when the name " bank " was excessively un- popular, especially in the West, the countrv being filled with institutions thus entitled, which were issuing "wild-cat" bills and doing a reckless and
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 2ig
disreputable business. The Smith and Wells charter went on to specify what the new insurance company might do, which specifications covertly included all that a legitimate bank would wish to do ; yet in deference to the popular prejudice, it was with unconscious humor expressly stipulated that " nothimj herein contained shall orive banking privileges."
A recently-imported young banker from Aber- deen, Scotland, named Alexander Mitchell, was given the secretaryship of the institution, which opened its doors in Milwaukee. At once, Mitchell, though commencing upon a small salary, became the life of the concern, which soon beQ:an to do a thriving business in assisting colonists to take up government land, and in issuing certificates of de- posit. The latter, in the general scarcity of repu- table currency, came into wide use as a circulating medium. They were invariably paid on presenta- tion, a remarkable circumstance in those days of rotten banking. At one time Mitchell had out over a million and a half dollars' worth of this paper, the integrity of which rested simply on his promise to pay.
The business was managed with consummate skill, and " Mitchell's bank," although nominally but an insurance company and without legal authority to do banking, attained a national reputation and
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proved a rare boon to the people of the entire Northwest, being the only financial concern of that region which stood the pressuie of the times and maintained its integrity without a flaw.
Mitchell, who became in a few years the propri- etor as well as the manager of the enterprise, was no less a legislative lobbyist than a financier. The legislature was frequently importuned by his jealous rivals to check him in his prosperous, although somewhat lawless, career, and his time was divided between handling the law-makers and attending to his legitimate business. In 1845, his franchise was annulled, and thereafter he was continually in hot water with the legislature. But when stopped at Milwaukee, he invariably paid his notes in Chi- cago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Detroit and elsewhere, and not for a moment was " Mitchell's bank " ever closed. These legislative struggles mate- rially helped him by advertising his bank and by cultivating for him the popular sympathy — his certificates being always regarded " as good as gold" — and after a time the Territorial govern- ment itself was obliged to borrow money from him to meet its current expenses, and paid him ten per cent, for the accommodation. Finally, in 1852, when a general free-banking act was passed, Mitchell called in his certificates, on which he paid dollar for dollar in gold, and adding the
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word "Bank" to his insurance title, started the first reoLilar bank in Milwaukee. It long remained a rock amid the turbulent sea of wild-cat banking, which lasted for several years after that, and to this day " Mitchell's bank " is one of the stoutest finan- cial institutions in the United States.
The reformation of society was not usually the "fad "of early Western pioneers. A people whose hearts throbbed with fresh hope, who were nerved by ambition and aglow with expectations, furnished but few pessimists. There were such, however, and the fact illustrates the universality of the emi- grating mania which seized the people of the East- ern States during the '40's and the early '50's. Fourier himself was unable to even test his pro- posed system of communism ; but Fourierism floated to America and found an advocate in Horace Greeley, who preached the new " ism " in the columns of the New York Tribune.
It was from reading in the Tribune Mr. Greeley's earnest exposition of " the science of the new social relations " and " the principle of equitable distribu- tions," that a number of well-meaning people at Ken- osha(then Southport) determined to put Fourierism into practice right here in Wisconsin. They came to the conclusion that the world, as Mr. Mantalini used to say, was "going to the demnition bow-wows," and that it was time to reorganize society in such
222 TERRITORIAL DAYS.
a manner as to "guard against our present social evils," that manner being Fourier's.
Accordingly a stock association was formed, with shares at twenty-five dollars each, and bear- ing the warlike title of " The Wisconsin Phalanx." In the bright spring days of 1844, a caravan of one hundred and fifty enthusiastic reformers, in ox-carts and horse wagons, with droves of cattle and abun- dant implements of husbandry and the household, wended its way over swelling prairies and wooded hills, into the peaceful valley of the Ceresco, near where the city of Ripon now stands. The Phalanx, at first established in temporary quarters, took pos- session a year later of a large building " four hun- dred feet in length, consisting of two rows of tenements, with a hall between, under one roof.' While all ate in common, each family lived in its own compartment. Labor was voluntary, in com- mon fields and shops, under Phalanx officials, and each person received credit according to his value as a worker. When, at the end of the year, the net profits were divided, the dividends varied ac- cordingr to this record of toil. Their business and social meetings were in the evenings; Tuesday evening was given up to the literary and debating club, Wednesday to the singing school and Thurs- day to dancing.
Had each member been equally capable with his
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 223
nei'ohbor, had the families been of the same size, had there been no jealousies, no bickerings, had they been without ambition : had they, in short, been contented, the Phalanx might have remained a success. They were clothed, fed and housed at less expense than their neighbors without the pale ; they had many social enjoyments not known else- where in the valley, and according to all the social philosophers should have been a happy people. But the strong and the willing came to see that they were yoked to men who were weak and sloth- ful ; natural abilities were not given full play ; there was no reward for individual excellence. It was a time, too, when shrewd men of the world, all around them, were making fortunes in land speculations and other enterprises. This was not possible in the Phalanx. Its members considered themselves hampered by their bond ; and ceasing to have a Quixotic care for the reformation of society were only too anxious to get back into the whirl of that human struggle for existence, which they had once decried. For seven years the Phalanx stood its ground and then melted away. The farm, which had greatly increased in value, was divided among the members, at a fair profit to each. A desire to share in the increase, and to engage in individual speculation, were the main causes of the failure of this interesting experiment in communism.
2 24 • TERRITORIAL DAYS.
Of a quite different type was anotlier commu- nistic effort, in these old Territorial days. Down in Nauvoo, Illinois, on the banks of the Mississippi, there had grown up a large and prosperous settle- ment of polygamous fanatics under the guidance of that profligate knave, Joseph Smith, calling themselves Latter Day Saints. At Burlington, a pretty little village in Racine County, Wisconsin, there was an erratic but somewhat cultured lawyer, named James Jesse Strang. He had entered life in Cayuga County, New York, in 1813, as a farmer's boy. Endowed with an active but eccentric intel- lect, and a retentive memory, he cultivated a keen desire for notoriety. In early manhood he taught school, delivered temperance lectures, was a political worker, edited a country newspaper, and finally, in 1843, drifted out to Wisconsin as a lawyer, leaving behind him in his native region a reputation for a wonderful "gift of gab" and overweening self- esteem.
The Mormon church was meeting with surpris- ins: success and offered a field for distinction to men of the Strang type, which he was quick to take ad- vantage of. In January, 1844, he visited Smith at Nauvoo ; in February he was baptized, and in March became an elder, at once being accepted as a valu- able asfent in the work of the church. Wisconsin was assigned to his charge. In June following,
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 225
Joseph and Hiram Smith were slain by a mob, and Strang, although a convert of but five months' standing, became a candidate for the succession to Joseph. He displayed documents purporting to be written by Joseph before the " martyrdom," author- izing Strang to " plant a stake of Zion," or in other words a branch of the church, on White River, near the latter's home in Burlington, the specified dis- trict covering territory both in Racine and Wal- worth counties.
Strang was denounced by " the twelve apostles " of the church at Nauvoo as an impostor, and his documents were declared vulgar forgeries. Being driven from the Illinois paradise, he returned to Wisconsin, and establishing himself in "the chosen land" on White River, called the place Voree ; from here he issued a pronunciamento declaring that he had been appointed by Joseph Smith as the lat- ter's successor in the presidency. He also claimed to have visions, wherein the angel of the Lord ad- vised him that Nauvoo had been " cut off " and that Voree was now the City of Promise. Adherents began to arrive in April, 1845. In January follow- ing, he started a little four-page monthly paper called the Voree Herald, in which he published his visions, called on the Saints to rally to his stand- ard, and abused the " Brighamites " at Nauvoo in language more vigorous than refined.
2 26 TERRITORIAL DAYS.
He was an active charlatan, with plausible man- ners, and soon gathered a number of ardent follow- ers at Voree, besides conducting missions among "primitive Mormons" in Ohio, New York and other Eastern and Central States. The Herald for September, 1846, claimed that the Sunday gather- ings at Voree numbered " from one to two thousand people," and that the " stake of Zion " was growing apace; "its population," said the Herald, "dwell in plain houses, in board shanties, in tents, and sometimes many of them in the open air." The colony was organized on the plan of community in ownership, but in matters of government, both spiritual and temporal. President Strang was a dic- tator. He claimed to be divinely inspired, even in matters of the pettiest detail.
Imitating Joseph Smith in most of his methods, Strang, like Joseph, pretended to discover the word of God in deep-hidden records. Joseph unearthed the Book of Mormon in the hills of Ontario; so did Strang dig up certain curious brazen plates at Voree, which the angel of the Lord enabled him to translate for the Herald into a meaningless hotchpotch, phrased in the familiar style of Holy Writ. Afterwards Strang made a considerable collection of such plates, discovered by himself, and in general displayed much ingenuity in duping his company of vulgar fanatics.
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 227
Voree became so prosperous that Strang estab- lished a branch " stake " on Beaver Island, in the lonely archipelago near the mouth of Lake Michi- gan. This was in May, 1S47. He found great difficulty with the resident fishermen, who did not favor the Mormon invasion ; but the stake grew in the face of obstacles reared by both man and nature, and in two or three years' time there were two thou- sand devotees gathered on Beaver Island, with neat houses, a saw-mill, roads, docks and a large taber- nacle. When Strang moved to the island, Voree ceased to be headquarters for the primitive iNIor- mons. The new island city was dubbed St. James, and in 1850 the colony was reorganized as a "king- dom," having a " royal press," foreign embassadors and all the paraphernalia of an infant empire. Strang was " king, apostle, prophet, seer, revelator and translator." The community system was aban- doned, tithes were collected, polygamy was for the first time established — King James being allowed five wives — tea, coffee and tobacco were prohibited, and schools and debating clubs opened ; while from the royal press was issued a paper, at first weekly, but afterwards daily, called the Northern Islander, which was the official organ of the court and its attendant "angels and apostles."
A certain sort of civilization prevailed. There were creature comforts in reasonable abundance,
2 28 TERRITORIAL DAYS.
and a degree of thrift. The women wore the Bloomer costume, and were generally coarse and sensual ; the men were rough and illiterate. As for Strang himself, he was an emotional orator who understood well the art of swavins: untrained minds ; he was " a man of vigorous frame, light complexion, and high forehead, intellectual, fluent in speech, of suave manners, and very companion- able." Nevertheless, the Gentile fishermen came to hate King Strang, with all the bitterness capable to their untamed natures, and his empire was con- tinually at warfare with the people of the neighbor- ing isles. There were too, in his own camp, busy enemies who were jealous of his often harsh and always absolute sway. In 185 1, the Beaver Island magnate, at the instigation of some of the Saints, was taken to Detroit on board a United States war steamer, to answer to charges of treason, of rob- bing the mails, of squatting on government land, and what not, but was acquitted. In 1855, how- ever, he fell a victim, like many another kingly ruler, to conspiracy among his subjects. He was assassinated on the sixteenth of June by two fellow Mormons,
Strang did not pass away at once. He was taken back on a stretcher, to his long-abandoned Voree, where until death he was carefully attended by his first and lawful wife; the poor woman had
TERRITORIAL DAYS. 229
declined to adhere to him during his fanatical and polygamous career on Beaver Island, but was pos- sessed of the idea that death could alone dissolve their marriage relations. Dying on the ninth of July, he was buried on the prairie at Voree (now Spring Prairie), and his grave is still unmarked. Voree was, soon after his death, abandoned by the Mormons. As for his island kingdom, it did not survive him. The Gentile fishers came with torch, axe and bludgeon. The royal city was razed, the Saints were banished, and there are now few visible signs that an empire once flourished in the Mich- igan archipelago.
CHAPTER VIII.
ti
BARSTOW AND THE BALANCE.
>>
N September, 1844, Doty was removed from the governor- ship to be succeeded by Nathaniel P. Tall- madge, who in turn served for but eight months, being re- placed by Dodge, who, as the nominee of President Polk, filled the executive chair for three years more, until Wisconsin entered the lists of the Union.
Dodge had no sooner regained possession of his old seat, than the agitation for statehood com- menced. Wisconsin had then a population of about one hundred and fifty thousand, and the legislature asked the people to vote upon a proposition to accept the new relation. When the ballots were counted, the first Tuesday in April, 1S46, it was
found that a large majority desired Wisconsin to
230
''BARSTOW AND THE BALANCED 23 1
become a State. A constitutional convention met at Madison, between the fifth of October and the sixteenth of December following. In this conven- tion it was attempted by some pugnacious mem- bers, reviving the squabble of earlier years, to place a proviso in the constitution to the effect that Wis- consin would enter the Union on condition that she be " restored to her ancient boundaries." This effort failed, as did also one to establish a new State to the north, to be called " Superior," and to command the entire southern shore of that Great Lake. When the constitution was voted upon by the people, in April, 1847, the document was re- jected and a new convention was ordered at a spec- ial leQ:islative session.
The second constitutional convention met at the capital, the fifteenth of December, 1847. A new census of the Territory had revealed a popula- tion of 210,546, and the importance of entering the sisterhood of States had become evident to all. The new constitution avoided the rocks on which the other had been wrecked, by leaving several mooted questions — banks and exemptions chiefly — for subsequent legislative decision. It was adopted by the people in March, 1848, and the conQ:ressional act admittincr Wisconsin to the Union was approved the twenty-ninth of May following. The first State election was held on
2 32 ''BAR STOW AND THE BALANCE."
the eighth of May, Nelson Dewey, Democrat, being elected governor by a majority of 5,089 in a total of 33,987 votes.
The machinery of the new State was soon in good working condition. From the first the Badger commonwealth took front rank in the pas- sage of liberal laws, and the generous maintenance of a high order of public institutions. Its chari- table, reformatory, penal and educational systems, some of them well inaugurated in Territorial times, were placed upon a firm footing under the State government, and have ever since progressed with regularity, being extended and improved with the growth of the commonwealth and the development of scientific methods.
The population of Wisconsin had been increas- ing with rapidity for several years past, but the formation of the State gave a new impetus to its growth — the increase during the two years follow- ing 1848 being nearly ninety-five thousand. Wis- consin's attractions were cheap and rich lands, valuable lead mines, immense pine forests and practically unlimited water-power along its many beautiful rivers.
In 1850, the national census revealed the pres- ence here of 305,391 white persons, against 30,945 in 1840 — an increment of 886.8 per cent, in one decade. No other American commonwealth, ex-
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''BAR STOW AND THE BALANCEr 235
cept Minnesota, has exceeded this increase in any decade in its history. Wisconsin has continued to have a large and healthy growth in population, but those ten years following 1840 have never been equalled, nor are they ever likely to be. The new- comers, while largely from New York, New Eng- land and Ohio, included many thousands of European immigrants — Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, Poles, Belgians, Dutch, Swiss, English and Scotch. This constant and enormous accretion of foreion blood has made Wisconsin one of the most interesting fields in the United States for the study of race amalsiamation.
The impeachment trial of Levi Hubbell, judge of the second judicial circuit, in 1853, was a notable event in the history of the State. On the twenty- sixth of January, a communication was sent in to the assembly, by William K. Wilson, a private citizen, charging Judge Hubbell with " high crimes and misdemeanors, and malfeasances in office." The judge being one of the most prominent men in Wisconsin, these charges created much excite- ment both in the legislature and among the people. The assembly at once placed the case in the hands of a special committee, which on the twenty-third of February reported charges and specifications and recommended his removal from office. Upon receiving this report, the assembly
236 '' BARS7 0W AND THE BALANCE:'
decided to proceed against Hubbell by impeach- ment. The senate, sitting as a court, ordered that a special session be held, commencing the sixth of June, for the trial of the case. The trial attracted a large crowd of spectators and elicited great popu- lar interest, with no small degree of factional bit- terness. It lasted until the eleventh of July, when the senate rendered its verdict of " not guilty of the charges of corrupt conduct in office, nor of crimes and misdemeanors." The closinof areu- ment of the counsel for the assembly, Edward G. Ryan, of Milw^aukee, afterwards chief justice of the State, was without doubt the most acute and brilliant oratorical effort ever made at the Wiscon- sin bar, and at once obtained for him a national reputation. It is still studied in some of the Western law schools as a model of its kind.
Another and even more celebrated trial was held at Madison in 1856, and in this, too, Mr. Ryan was one of the principal attorneys. William A. Bar- stow, of Waukesha County, had been secretary of state in 1850 and 1851, during Governor Dewey's second term. Barstow was a fine-appearing man, bold, energetic, aggressive in character, and from his first advent into politics commanded a large and enthusiastic following. A stout Democrat, he was regarded as a shining light in his party; but owing to dissensions, chiefly growing out of the
'' BARSTOW AND THE BALANCEr 237
fieht over the first constitution, the Wisconsin democracy had become divided in their councils, and Barstow, as secretary of state, was the leader of a faction. His enemies were unstinted in their abuse of him. It was a time when bitter person- alities pervaded the political newspapers, and in- vectives in stump harangues were regarded as equivalent to arguments. His enemies did not hesitate to call Barstow by some pretty hard names, and charges of corruption were freely laid at his door.
An expressive epithet grew out of this condition of affairs, which long lived in Wisconsin politics. One member of a firm of Madison printers and newspaper publishers, wrote cheeringly to his absent partner of their prospects for getting the State printing contract. The bids were, under the statute, to be sent in to the secretary of state, and opened and passed upon by that officer, the state treasurer and attorney general. The printer, who was a friend of the administration, assured his col- leaofue that he had made arrancjements for inside knowledge of the bidding, adding " We must get a good bid. . . . even if we have to btiy up Barstow and the balance'" — mcanino:, bv " bal- ance," the other State ofificials engaged in the letting. It is amonor the things unknowable, whether the secretary was or was not rightly
238 ''BARSTOIV AND THE BALANCE:'
judged by the ambitious printer; but the indiscreet letter was found, and promptly published in a rival journal,* so that ever after that the faction in power was derisively known as " Barstow and the Balance " — a taking catch-phrase for the opposition.
The close of his secretaryship did not retire Barstow from the public gaze. He remained a powerful leader in his party, and at his devoted breast were levelled the cross-bows of his now numerous foes. During the early months of 1853, the State legislature was being importuned for a charter, by a party of speculators calling them- selves the Rock River Valley Union Railroad Company. It was the first time that a Wisconsin legislature had been "worked " by a railroad lobby, and the methods employed this winter were such as to cause a sensation throughout the State and scandalize many good citizens. The lobbyists en- o-ao-ed a club house, which they called " Monk's Hall," and herein were given superb dinners and held midniorht ors^ies, the remembrance of which is still vivid in the minds of those who participated in them. While the " Monks of Monk's Hall " represented all shades of political belief, Barstow and some of his adherents were popularly supposed to be largely interested in the unholy enterprise.
•Wisconsin Democrat (Madison), October 5, 1850.
''BARSTOW AND THE BALANCE." 239
The " Monks" were dubbed " The Forty Thieves" by those who deemed them no better than the company Ali Baba found in the forest cave, in olden time ; and the convenient term, to this day a familiar one in Wisconsin political phraseology, soon became fastened by their enemies upon the Barstow political coterie in particular, thus losing its original significance as an epithet for the rail- road lobbyists.
The succeeding fall, Barstow was elected gover- nor for the years 1854-55, having a plurality of 8,519 over Edward D. Holton, Republican, and Henry S. Baird, Whig. An aggressive tone per- vaded his administration, and the existing political bitterness was intensified. Like all positive men, Barstow had a capacity for making enemies as well as friends, and the former complained that he allowed his official staff to mismanage the State school funds, and favor personal friends in the loaning of State money. Whatever truth there may have been in these assertions, it is certain that Barstow had lost ground during his term, and although re-nominated failed to draw out his full party strength in the November election of 1855. The new Republican party, too, was now attaining huge proportions ; and the result was, the ballotinor for orovernor was so close that from the middle of November to the middle of Decern-
240 ''BARSTOW AND THE BALANCER
ber the people were in a state of unquiet, not knowing whether Barstow had been returned or whether he had been supplanted by his Republican opponent, Coles Bashford, a Winnebago County lawyer.
The State board of canvassers consisted of the secretary of state, the state treasurer and the attorney-general, all of them warm supporters of Barstow. On the fifteenth of December, the board canvassed the returns and reported -that Barstow had received 36,355 votes, and Bashford 36,198, leaving Barstow a majority of 157. Bashford's friends at once claimed that the original returns from the various counties showed different figures, and that the State canvassers had forged a number of supplemental county returns, pretending to re- ceive them in Madison upon the fourteenth of December, the day before the ofificial canvass. There was much popular disquiet over the alleged frauds, and the Republican leaders at once prepared for a contest.
The seventh of January, 1856, was inauguration day. Barstow took the oath of office amid the pomp of civic and military display, and remained in possession of the executive chamber, Bashford, stepping into the room of the State supreme court, was quietly sworn in by Chief-Justice Whiton. The supreme court was at once called upon by
^' BAR STOW AND THE BALANCE:' 24 1
Bashford, in a quo warranto suit, to oust the incum- bent and give the office of orovernor to the relator. Thus commenced the most celebrated case ever tried by the Wisconsin supreme bench.*
This was the first time in the history of the United States that a State court had been called upon to decide as to the right of a governor to hold his seat. Barstow's counsel at once ques- tioned its jurisdiction, claiming that it would be a dangerous precedent for one of the three co-ordi- nate branches of government to decide upon the eligibility of another; that, this right admitted, the judiciary would be elevated above the people and none but the creatures of the court would be allowed to hold office. The contest waged fiercely for some weeks, the court at last holding that it had jurisdiction. The counsel for Bashford man- aged his case shrewdly; they won on nearly every motion made by them, and gradually cornered Bar- stow until on the eighth of March, the latter and his counsel withdrew from the case, protesting against the rulings of the judges, which they declared to be actuated by political considerations.
But the withdrawal of Barstow did not prevent
* The court consisted of Edward V. Whiton, chief justice, and Abram D. Smith and Orsamus Cole, associate justices. Bashford's counsel were Timothy O. How-e, Edward G. Ryan, James H. Knowlton and Alexander W. Kandall. Counsel employed for Barstow were Jonathan E. Arnold, Harlow S. Orton and Matthew H. Carpenter. All of these centlemen. judges and lawyers, were men of hijrh distinction in their profession. It is a notable fact, that but two of them are now (1S90) livins; — Cole and Orton, the former the present chief-justic« of the State supreme court, and the latter one of the associate justices.
242 '' BARSTOW AND THE BALANCE:'
the court proceeding with its inquiry. It went be- hind the certificate of the State canvassers, and investigated into the legaHty of the election re- turns. Here, gross irregularities were found, and as a result of the investigation, 761 votes were deducted by the court from Barstow's total, and 405 added to Bashford's. The re-canvass gave Bashford 1,009 majority, and in accordance with this finding it was adjudged on the twenty- fourth of March that Bashford was the rightful governor.
Meanwhile, a new complication had arisen. Fore- seeing the result, Barstow, in spite of his threat not to "give up his ofHce alive," had, on the twen- ty-first of March, sent in his resignation to the legis- lature, and Arthur McxA.rthur, who had been elected as lieutenant-governor, became governor by virtue of the constitution. McArthur defiantly announced his determination to hold the fort at all h-azards for the balance of the gubernatorial term. His theory was, that having unquestionably been chosen lieu- tenant-governor, and having assumed the executive chair upon the resignation of Governor Barstow, his own right to the successorship was incontest- able. But the court promptly ruled that McArthur could gain no rights except through Barstow ; and Barstow's title being worthless, McArthur could not succeed to it. This view of the case had
''BAR STOW AND THE BALANCEr
243
apparently not occurred to the Barstow people, and its annunciation greatly angered them.
Throughout this long contest, it may be well imagined that popular excitement in and around Madison ran increasinfjly hitih. Parties of men representing both relator and respondent made no
i'- -ri3e».'i
THE STATE CAPITAL AT MADISON.
secret of the fact that they were armed and were drilling, in anticipation of a desperate encounter. It would have taken but small provocation to ignite this tinder box, but the management on both sides was judicious, and although the partisan bands had frequent wordy quarrels and there were numerous
244 '' BARSTOW AND THE BALANCED
and vigorous threats of violence, there was no ap- proach to blows. The stubborn attitude of Mc- Arthur was calculated to overstrain the relations between the opposing factors among the people, and towards the last it seemed as though it would be impossible to avoid trouble, when the crisis came.
The court rendered its decision on Monday, the twenty-fourth of March. It was announced that Bashford would take possession of the governor's office upon Tuesday. Early in the appointed day, people began to gather in the vicinity of the capi- tol, coming in from the neighboring country in a circuit of ten miles, as they would flock to a trav- eling circus. By nine o'clock in the morning, the State house was crowded with citizens, principally the adherents of Bashford, and there was much ill-suppressed passion. At eleven o'clock, Bash- ford with a number of his friends proceeded to the Supreme court room, in the capitol. Upon emerg- ing, accompanied by the Dane County sheriff with the court's judgment in hand, the governor made his way through the crowded corridors to the ex- ecutive chamber, encouraged by friendly cheers.
At the chamber, Bashford and his escort rapped and were bidden to enter. Inside, were Mc Arthur, his private secretary and several friends. The gov- ernor, who was a portly, pleasant-looking gentle-
'' BAKSTOVV AND THE BALANCED 245
man of the old school, leisurely took off his top- coat, hung it and his hat in the wardrobe, and blandly informed McArthur that he had come to take the helm of State. The incumbent indig- nantly inquired whether force was to be used in supporting the mandate of the court; whereupon the new-comer coolly replied that he " presumed no force would be essential, but in case any was needed there would be no hesitation whatever, with the sheriff's help, in applying it." McArthur, at once calming down, declared that he "considered this threat as constructive force," and would at once leave. As he hurried out of the door with his secretary and adherents, they passed between rows of Bashford's friends who were guarding the portal and the corridor without. There was a shout of triumph, and in a few minutes Governor Bash- ford was receiving the congratulations of the crowd.
The newly-installed executive met with no fur- ther resistance from " Barstow and the Balance," but in the legislature there was at first some oppo- sition. The senate received Bashford's opening message with enthusiasm and at once passed a congratulatory vote. The assembly at first re- fused, thirty-eight to thirty-four, to hold communi- cation with the governor ; but, finally, thirty of the Democratic members withdrew, after filing a
246 '' BARSTOW AND THE BALANCE."
protest, and the assembly then agreed, thirty-seven to nine, to recognize the new official. The system of government by the people, had safely passed through a trying ordeal ; popular passions soon subsided and the fear of civil war in Wisconsin was at an end.
CHAPTER IX.
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
HE FuQ:itive Slave Act of 1850 had met with the same harsh oppo- sition in Wisconsin, that had greeted it in the other free States. Not being upon the direct road to Canada, there were few instances of bondsmen attempting to escape across its territory, and thus giving practical illustration of the iniquity of the slave system. Yet from the first there was a goodly band of abolitionists within the borders of Badgerdom, men and women of spirit and brain. who made their influence felt in many communi- ties. The previous year, in 1849, Isaac P. Walker, one of the representatives of the State in the United States senate, had introduced and voted for an amendment to the Congressional general
appropriation bill, providing for a government in
247
248 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
California and New Mexico, which did not con- tain a provision prohibiting slavery in that section. This action was directly contrary to the legisla- ture's wishes, expressed in instructions to the State delegation in Congress, adopted but a few weeks before. The legislature thereupon passed resolu- tions to the effect that Walker had " violated his pledges given before his election, outraged the feelings of the people and openly violated " his in- structions, and he was " hereby instructed to im- mediately resign his seat." The senator, however, did not resign.*
It was not until 1854, that occasion was found to test the Fugitive Slave Act in Wisconsin. Joshua Glover, a runaway slave, was employed in a mill some four miles north of Racine, on the road to Milwaukee. On the night of the tenth of March, he was playing cards with three other men of his race, in a neighboring cabin. Between seven and eight o'clock, the game was interrupted by the sudden appearance on the scene of five white men, one of them a Missourian named Benammi S. Garland, and the others a United States deputy marshal from Milwaukee, with five assistants, two of the latter being citizens of Racine. Garland
* In 1866, the legislature demanded the resignation of United States Senator James R. Doolittle, because he sustained President Johnson's veto of the civil rights and freedmen's bureau bills, and urged that the Southern States should at once be re-admitted to representa- tion in Congress. Doolittle paid no attention to the demand, and finished his term.
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 249
claimed to be the owner of Glover, and his official companions were there for the purpose of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act by capturing the runaway. There was a desperate tussle, in which Glover was badly cut up, the inevitable result being that the poor negro was placed in irons, thrown into an open wagon, and carried off across country to Mil- waukee. The night was bitterly cold, and to add to his miseries the fugitive was frequently kicked and beaten on the way, by the brutish Missourian, who lost no opportunity of threatening him with more serious punishment upon his return to the old plantation.
The slave-takers had at first headed for Racine with their prey, but upon reflection that there was a considerable abolition party there, turned around and drove northward towards Milwaukee, takine a roundabout tour in order to avoid the main hioh- way. It was early morning before they reached their destination, and the maltreated black man, now weak from loss of blood and stiffened in cold, was thrown into the county jail. A half-dozen hours later, a surgeon had the humanity to par- tially dress his wounds.
The Wisconsin Free Democrat, a small news- paper in Milwaukee, was edited by Sherman M. Booth, a proniinent local character in the ranks of the "Free-Soil" Democracy. An intense aboli-
250 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
tionist, he was among the first to learn of the Glover affair, and by eleven o'clock that morning was busily engaged in getting together a public indignation meeting. Riding up and down the streets upon a horse, he shouted : " Freemen, to the rescue ! " and distributed hand-bills turned out at his printing-office, giving the news and calling upon tne people to assemble at the county court- house.
Meanwhile there was great excitement in Racine, where the Free-Soilers had been informed of the arrest by one of the negroes present at the affair. It was supposed at first that the captors and their victim were hiding at Racine, and search-parlies were sent out by authority of a public indignation meeting, to beat the town. When the news came from Milwaukee that Glover was in that city, the sheriff of Racine County summoned a posse. A lake steamer with about one hundred Racine peo- ple on board was soon en rotiie to the scene of action, arriving in Milwaukee at five o'clock in the afternoon.
Booth's meeting had been a great success. Gen. James H. Paine, Dr. E. B. Wolcott, Franklin J. Blair, Booth and other liberty men made impas- sioned speeches, and resolutions were adopted in- sisting on Glover's right to a writ of habeas corpus and a trial by jury. A vigilance committee was ap-
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 25 1
•
pointed to see that the negro was not spirited away. The writ, however, which was issued by a local judge, would be obeyed neither by the United States district judge, A. G. Miller, who had issued the warrant for Glover's arrest, nor by the Milwau- kee sheriff. Upon receiving this news, the crowd at the court house, now reinforced by the Racine delegation, became furious in spirit. Marching to the jail, inspired by the clang of the court house bell, the people demanded the prisoner. Upon be- ing refused by the United States deputy marshal in charge, thev at once attacked the weak structure with axes, beams and crow-bars, rescued Glover just at sunset and sent him off in haste to the neigh- borins: villa^je of Waukesha, where his wounds were properly attended to. The poor fellow was soon back in Racine and shortly after was enabled to escape to the free soil of Canada.
Booth was promptly arrested for aiding in the escape of a fugitive slave, but the State supreme court discharged him on a writ of habeas corpus. He was thereupon indicted in the United States district court in July, but the supreme court of the State again interfered in his favor. The first time, the decision of Chief Justice Whiton was, that the Fugitive Slave Act was " unconstitutional and void " inasmuch as it conferred judicial powers on court commissioners, and deprived the alleged
252 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
fugitive of the right of trial by jury; the second decision was, that the warrant of arrest was irregular.
The language adopted by the chief justice in his first decision, was severe. Mr. Justice Smith, in his concurring opinion, held, in much stronger terms, that the act of Congress was unconstitu- tional for the reason that "Congress has no consti- tutional power to legislate upon that subject." In speaking of the attempted enforcement of the act by United States marshals, independent of the State courts, he said — and it is instructive to read his words in connection with Wisconsin's previous attitude on the question of State sovereignty during the boundary dispute :
" Every day's experience ought to satisfy all tha* the States never will quietly submit to be disrobed of their sovereignty ; submit to the humiliation of having the execution of this compact forced upon them, or rather taken out of their hands by national functionaries ; and that, too, on the avowed ground that they are so utterly wanting in integrity and good faith that it can be executed in no other way. On the contrary, if the federal government would abstain from interference, the States would ade- quately fulfill all their duties in the premises, and peace and order would be restored.
" But they will never consent that a slave-owner,
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 253
his agent or an officer of the United States, armed with process to arrest a fugitive from service, is clothed with entire immunity from State author- ity ; to commit whatever crime or outrage against the laws of the State, that their own high preroga- tive writ of habeas corpus shall be annulled, their authority defied, their officers resisted, the process of their own courts contemned, their territory in- vaded by federal force, the houses of their citizens searched, the sanctuary of their homes invaded, their streets and public places made the scene of tumultuous and armed violence, and State sover- eignty succumb, paralyzed and aghast, before the process of an officer unknown to the constitution, and irresponsible to its sanctions. At least, such shall not become the des^radation of Wisconsin, without meeting as stern remonstrance and resist- ance as I may be able to interpose, so long as her people impose upon me the duty of guarding their rights and liberties, and of maintaining the dignity and sovereignty of their State."
The United States supreme court, however, re- versed the action of the State court, and Booth was re-arrested in i860, being soon pardoned by the President. As for Garland, he was arrested in Racine for assault and battery, but was released on a writ of habeas coi'p7is issued by Judge Miller at Milwaukee, and hurried home, from whence he
2 54 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
entered unsuccessful suits against several citizens of Racine for aiding in Glover's escape. The Racine men who helped him in the assault on the slave, were made to suffer in many ways by their indignant fellow-townsmen, and that city became a fiercer hot-bed of abolition than ever. Several times after the Glover episode, its people were engaged in assisting slaves to escape on the " under- ground railroad," but fortunately had no further occasion to take the law into their own hands in the defense of human liberty.
In 1857, as a result of the Glover affair, the legislature passed an act " to prevent kidnapping," by making it the duty of district attorneys in each county " to use all lawful means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged . . . every per- son arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave," and throwing around the poor bondsman every possible safeguard. This was Wisconsin's protest against the iniquity of the Fugitive Slave Act.
The Fox and Wisconsin River improvement enterprise was an important element in legislation for many years. We have seen how useful and necessary to the early French explorers was this natural highway connecting the waters of the Great Lakes with those of the Mississippi. These two streams — the waters of the one being eventually mingled with the Atlantic, in the Gulf of St. Law-
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 255
rence, and the waters of the other pouring into the far-distant Gulf of Mexico — approach each other in the heart of Wisconsin, a boggy plain but a mile and a half in width separating them at the present city of Portage. The early means for transporta- tion across this little neck of land were ample enough in the primitive da}s of the missionary, the fur-trader and the frontier soldier. But with the larger transactions incident to the increase of popu- lation, the necessity for portage became a serious drawback to commercial enterprise along these waterways.
The first American settlers at Green Bay saw this, and as early as October, 1829, a meeting was held there, and resolutions were adopted asking Congress to dig a canal across the plain, so that heavily-laden boats could readily pass from one river to the other at all seasons. It has already been pointed out that in exceptionally wet periods, the plain was wont to be flooded, so that water from the Wisconsin flowed over into the Fox, and canoes could make the through trip without unlad- ing. Indeed, this very feat had been accomplished in 1828, by the Fifth Regiment of United States infantry, which proceeded from St. Louis to Green Bay without once necessarily getting out of their Durham boats — a fact which had suQ:Qrested the public meeting alluded to.
256 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON,
But Congress did nothing at the time. In 1839, however, the enterprise began to move. That sea- son a government engineer investigated the project of improving both the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers so as to admit of regular traffic for large boats, and of uniting them by canal. Seven years later. Con- gress made a grant of land to Wisconsin to aid in forwarding the canal and the Fox River improve- ment alone — this grant covering every odd-num- bered section within three miles of the canal, the river and the intervening lakes, en rotite from Port- age to Green Bay, a distance by water of one hun- dred and seventy-five miles. On the eighth of August, 1848, the new State appointed a board of public works for carrying the scheme into effect. But the board soon ran the undertakins^ into debt and was obliged to report to the legislature, in January, 185 1, that the work would have to stop on account of the slow sales of land. One of the chief sources of trouble was, that members of the board allowed themselves to be influenced by legislators, each of whom wanted a portion of the money spent in his district without regard to the common need ; this course had well-nigh bankrupted the enterprise.
At this critical juncture, an enterprising and public-spirited citizen of Green Bay, Morgan L. Martin, offered to do the work from Green Bay to Lake Winnebago, except what was already done
A^m^^.
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 259
or contracted for — the canal at Portage having already been dug.
Upon the acceptance by the legislature, of this proposition, Martin commenced his task with a large force of men, being given State scrip as the undertaking progressed, to be redeemed from the sale of lands and from the tolls on the work. This was in 185 1, the last year of Governor Dewey's term. But in January following, Leonard J. Farwell be- came the chief executive, and he hastened to inform the legislature that the Martin contract was uncon- stitutional, at the same time declining to pay over an instalment of scrip already earned. The legis- lature ordered otherwise, and the governor was finally compelled to yield.
In the early months of 1853, in order to relieve the State from any implied obligation in the affair, the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company was organized by Martin, and to it was transferred the entire work. The Improvement Company went on with its operations until 1856, when the first boat, the Aquila, passed through the works, eii route from Pittsburg to Green Bay, and soon thereafter several steamboats made regular trips along the lower reaches of the river. In 1854-55, Congress increased the land grant to the company, so that the entire gift was now estimated at nearly seven hundred thousand acres. At the same time
26o SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
the legislature, after several years of wrangling, authorized an increase of stock to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But it now became neces- sary to seek outside capital in order to float so large an enterprise. Several New Yorkers, among whom were Horatio Seymour, Erasti3s Corning and Hiram Barney, bought into the company and were soon its leading spirits. In 1866 the institution was foreclosed, the New York capitalists became the owners, and the corporate title was changed to the Green Bay and Mississippi Canal Company. They engaged the services of government engineers, and in October, 1872, sold the plant to the United States. Three-cornered lawsuits between the gov- ernment, the New York men and Martin were upon the calendars of the Wisconsin courts for many years after this transfer, and were never satisfacto- rily adjusted.
The Fox-Wisconsin improvement has cost the State and the nation millions of dollars, but has never been a complete success. The Lower Fox has, by means of an elaborate system of locks, been made navigable for boats of a few feet draught, between Green Bay and Omro ; but the traffic is slight, the chief advantage accruing to the thrifty manufacturing towns of Neenah, Menasha, Apple- ton, Kaukauna and Depere, where splendid water- powers have been incidently developed by the gov-
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 26 1
ernment works. From Omro to Portage there is a slight, spasmodic freight traffic for small fiat- bottomed steamers of not over three feet draught. The canal at Portage, fast falling into decay, is sometimes not opened throughout an entire season. The Wisconsin River is clogged with shifting sand- bars and wholly unreliable for vessels of three-feet draught, except in high water. It is seldom used, now that logging on the Upper Wisconsin has been greatly reduced in extent ; and a government engi- neer has made the assertion that the only way to " improve " it for a national waterway, is to " either lath-and-plaster the bottom or construct a canal alongside, all the way from Portage to Prairie du Chien."
In early days, there was no doubt whatever in the minds of the Wisconsin public, that this projected improvement, apparently so feasible, could be easily constructed and the historic streams be made to bear monster war and freight vessels through the heart of the State, between the Great Lakes and the great river artery of the continent; but it is now the general opinion that the difficulties in the way are too great to be overcome, chiefly owing to the peculiar character of the Wisconsin River, and " improvement talk," so common a dozen or more years ago, is now no longer heard in our legisla- tures and political conventions.
262 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
There were several railway companies chartered in Wisconsin in Territorial days,* but the Milwau- kee & Waukesha was the only one of these that materialized; for, although there was always en- ergy enough in this backwoods commonwealth, there was for many years a scarcity of money. The men who built Wisconsin came West to earn their fortunes and had not yet won them. The charter for the Milwaukee & Waukesha had been granted by the legislature early in 1847. Subscription books were opened in February of the following year. A year later the name was changed to the Milwaukee & Mississippi, and in 1851 the rails were actually laid and a train run from Milwaukee to W^aukesha, a distance of twenty miles. This was the pioneer Wisconsin railway, and there was great popular rejoicing over an accomplishment which was to prove to the world that the Badger State proposed to be a progressive community. Three years after, the iron way had reached the capital, and in 1856 the Mississippi River. Thus the proposed span was complete, the State being now crossed from Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien by what came in after years to be the great Chi- cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul.
Meanwhile other lines were pushing out. The
* A public meeting was held in Milwaukee as early as 1836, to ask the legislature to grant a charter for a railway from Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien.
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 263
then infant Chicago & Northwestern had pene- trated the State, reaching Janesville from the southeast in 1855, and Fond du Lac in 1858. Many were the short local spurs, built between this period and the outbreak of the Rebellion, which were finally absorbed, extended and ramified by the larger companies. After the close of the war, there was a revival of railway enterprises, which has, with its ups and downs, lasted into our own day, until now there are few States in the Union better provided with roads of steel than Wisconsin, in proportion to population. At the close of the year 1889, the railway commissioner reported 5,390 miles of track within the State, of which the Chicago, Milwaukee &: St. Paul operated 1,310, the Chicago & Northwestern 946, and the Wisconsin Central 641.
To aid in the construction of railways in Wis- consin, Congress made two liberal grants of land, in June, 1856. One was for the building of a line from either Madison or Columbus, via Portage City and St. Croix River, to Bayfield on the shores of Lake Superior; and the other for a line stretching northward from Fond du Lac to somewhere on the Michigan State line. " Every alternate section of land designated by odd numbers for six sections in width, on each side of said roads respectively," was to be given to the companies constructing
264 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
them. In the fall of that year the legislature accepted these grants from the general govern- ment, and immediately there began a wild struggle among the railroad men to capture the prizes. The law-makers, with a show of impartiality, decided not to give the lands thus acquired from Congress to any of the corporations already organized, but to charter two new companies, one for each of the contemplated lines. The grant for the road to Lake Superior was finally voted to a corpora- tion styled the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company, called into being by special legislative act. The grant for the road to run out of Fond du Lac, was given to another specially-created corporation entitled the Wisconsin & Superior Railroad Company. In popular estimation, these companies were new in name only, for what came to be known as the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul was alleged to be at the back of the one, and what srew into the Chicao^o & Northwestern was said to be the flesh and blood of the other. It was not long after the passage of the act, before the grantees were " absorbed " by the old corporations ; but it was many years before the contemplated lines were completed, and grave legal complications afterwards arose as to the rightful ownership of the grants.
This disposal of the land grants by the legisla-
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 265
ture of 1856, gave rise to popular charges of cor- ruption, especially in relation to the La Crosse & Milwaukee deal. At the session of 1S58, the matter was investigated by a special joint com- mittee, which made a report to the effect that " The managers of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Rail- road Company have been guilty of numerous and unparalleled acts of mismanagement, gross viola- tions of duty, fraud and plunder." The investiga- tors also reported that the legislature of 1856 had been bribed by wholesale ; that thirteen of the seventeen senators who voted for the cfrant to this company had received from ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars in either stock or bonds, at par, while fifty-eight of the sixty-two affirma- tive assemblymen had received from five thousand to ten thousand dollars each in the same paper. As to the governor then in ofifice, Coles Bashford — whose bitter struggle with Barstow has already been alluded to — the committee did not hesitate to affirm that he, too, had been "propitiated" by fifty thousand dollars' worth of bonds, in considera- tion of his official approval of the act ; that three other State officers had received, as hush money, ten thousand dollars each, and the governor's private secretary five thousand dollars.
The report of the committee created intense In- dignation throughout Wisconsin, while the amount
266 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
of advertising which the State obtained in con- sequence, in the Eastern press, was not of a character calculated to help it in popular estima- tion. It is proper to chronicle that several of the alleged beneficiaries of this railroad bribery after- wards strenuously denied that they had received compensation for their official acts. Governor Bashford soon removed from Wisconsin into the Far West, common report having it that he had been shrewd enough to cash the greater portion of his bonds at once ; whereas those who kept their ill-gotten paper failed to realize upon it, for the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company never materialized, and its promises to pay were soon as valueless as soap-bubbles.
Still another political scandal smirched the rec- ord of the first decade of Wisconsin's Statehood. For several years, while " Barstow and the Balance " were in charge of public affairs, the air was laden with rumors of mismanaoement of the State trust funds. At last, in September, 1856, the legislature appointed a special committee " to investigate the offices of the state treasurer, secretary of state, and school and university land commissioners from the commencement of the State government." This committee rendered an elaborate report, covering the period previous to the preceding January, to the ef- fect that almost hopeless confusion was found in the
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 267
books of the treasurer and the land commissioners ; that State officers had been allowed to freely take money out of the treasury in anticipation of their salaries, leaving only memorandum slips in the cash drawer, stating the amount withdrawn; that Treas- urer Janssen was a defaulter to the general fund, on the face of the records, to the extent of $31,318.54; that the school and State university trust funds had been recklessly loaned out on insufficient security to friends of the State officials — in short, that tens of thousands of dollars in these funds had in many ways been " lost and squandered " by the officials in charge. The persons thus implicated were chiefly the State officers under Barstow, and all except tlie treasurer at once sent in a reply to the legisla- ture, claiming that the investigation had been con- ducted with prejudice, and the condition of their accounts grossly exaggerated. As for the treas- urer, it was shown that his assistant was really to blame for all irregularities, but the deficiency re- mains to this day unsettled on the books of his department. Nothing further was done about the unfortunate affair, each party to the controversy over the trust funds claiminor to have made an unanswerable statement. Certain it is, however, that these funds had by some means been sadly depleted, and for many years the educational system of the State greatly suffered in consequence.
268 SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON.
Political passion ran surprisingly high in those first eight or ten years of the State's history. It entered into the every-day affairs of life. The man who was opposed to one's party, w^as an enemy to what was held next dearest to the family hearthstone. In fact, it was often doubted whether a citizen so recreant to his political trust could be strictly hon- est, whether he was worthy of either patronage in trade or social recognition. The newspapers of the day were conducted by partisans of prominence ; each editorial office was the council chamber of a knot of political " workers," in which schemes were concocted for the subversion of the opposition cohorts, and the leader-writer communed with his backers regarding the policy of the journal in the pending " crisis of the country's history." In a time when the fellow^s on the other side of the party fence were dubbed and believed to be rascals, on general principles, it is perhaps not surprising that, when opportunity occurred, some of them in office deemed it desirable to " have the game as well as the name," and took occasion to feather their nests. The commonwealth was in a forma- tive condition, the fever of speculation was rife, the state of political morals throughout the nation was just then none of the best, a baneful spirit of unrest was in the air. The atmosphere needed clearing. It was time for political lines to be re-ad-
SPOTS ON THE ESCUTCHEON. 269
justed and a healthier tone introduced. The in- solence of the slave power finally made a clear- cut national issue. With the introduction of a distinctly moral element into political discussion, the quality of public service was noticeably im- proved in this as in many other commonwealths of the North. And this higher tone has since pre- vailed. It is not at all likely that the scandals of the early fifties will ever be repeated in Wisconsin, whose public affairs are to-day conducted on a broad plane, with remarkable enlightenment and purity.
CHAPTER X.
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
Gov Randall-
^ ■ \v
OVERNOR Alexan- der W. Randall * was entering upon his second term when he addressed the leg- islature at the open- ing of its thirteenth session, in January, i860, and proudly pointed to the fact that the finances of Wisconsin were never in such excellent condition ; that, unlike most new States, it had paid for all of its public improvements, yet had not contracted a permanent State debt; that there was no floating debt whatever, and in- stead a handsome balance in the treasury. The outlook for Wisconsin was assuredly brilliant just then, so far as statistics showed. Her population that summer was found by the federal census to be 775,88 1 , exhibiting a handsome percentage of growth
* Afterwards postmaster-general in Johnson's cabinet.
270
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 271
during the decade ; banks were thriving, commerce was in a healthy condition, the educational system had at last been placed upon a good footing, most of the State institutions were now something to be proud of, and the arts of industry were everywhere being cultivated with profit.
But the governor as well as many other thought- ful citizens of the commonwealth, knew that these fair conditions carried with them but slight hope for long continuance, for the oncoming war cloud was even then visible on the political horizon to those who could read the signs of the times. As the year sped on, the insurrectionary aims of the slaveholders became more and more apparent. The result of the general election in November was practically an announcement to the South upon the part of the North, that come what might the slave power was doomed. Wisconsin contributed her full share to this verdict, for out of a total vote of 152,180 the Lincoln electors were chosen by a majority of 21,089 over the Douglas men.
The entire staff of State officials were republican, and the new legislature was overwhelmingly of the same party. A strong Union spirit pervaded every department of the State government, and the gov- ernor's message to the two houses, on the tenth of January, 1861, echoed popular sentiment in a ring- ing, if somewhat stilted, denunciation of the seces-
272 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
sion idea. " Wisconsin is true," he said, " and her people steadfast. She will not destroy the Union nor consent that it shall be done. Devised by great and wise and good men in days of sore trial, it must stand. Like some bold mountain at whose base the great seas break their angry floods, around whose summit the thunders of a thousand hurri- canes have rattled, strong, unmoved, immovable, so may our Union be, while treason surges at its base and passions rage around it. Unmoved, immovable let it stand forever ! "
The legislature fully appreciated the gravity of the situation. Quite regardless of party ties, acts were passed early in the session providing for the defense of the State, and authorizing the gov- ernor, in case war should be declared, to at once cooperate with the national authorities in preserv- ing the integrity of the Union. The governor was given carte blanche in fact, in the adoption of such measures as should seem appropriate to so great an emergency, should the anticipated insurrection break out during the vacation of the legislature. The sum of two hundred thousand dollars was voted, contingent on such an event, for the fitting of volunteers. These precautionary proceedings were sustained with enthusiasm by the greater por- tion of the people and press of the State, regardless of party affiliations.
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 273
On the eighteenth of February occurred what has been called" the first victory of the Rebellion." Gen. David E. Twiggs, in command of the depart- ment of Texas, that day formally surrendered to the Confederacy, at San Antonio, all of the United States army property in his care, amounting to a million and a quarter dollars. Nineteen posts were delivered up, with a vast quantity of military stores, and over two thousand government troops were re- moved on parole. This shameful betrayal of trust caused intense indignation throughout all the loyal States, but Wisconsin pioneers had reason to be particularly outspoken. Twiggs, as major of the Fifth U. S. infantry, had for several years com- manded in Wisconsin, first at Fort Howard and then at Fort Winnebago, and was w^ell known throughout the Northwest. In 1828 he built Fort Win- nebago, one of his lieutenants being Jefferson Davis, then just graduated from West Point. During his residence in Wisconsin, Twiggs had come to be generally regarded as domineering, cruel and mercenary, leaving behind him an un- savory reputation, which his acknowledged bravery in the Mexican War in after years had done but little to efface. Neither had Davis acquired any friends at the frontier posts, while serving under Twiggs. The spectacle of these two Wisconsin military pioneers betraying the cause of the Union
2 74 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
had an especially melancholy interest for Wiscon- sin men. Had Twiggs not played traitor and thus given a local impetus to the cause of the secession- ists, it is now thought that Texas would have de- clined to withdraw from the Union ; and without Texas it is doubtful if the Confederacy could have lonor held tooether.
After making all the preparations then consid- ered necessary, the legislature adjourned upon Wed- nesda)^ April seventeenth. The last few days of the session had been exciting enough. Sunday morning, Fort Sumter fell. Monday, President Lin- coln issued his call for seventy-five thousand three- months' volunteers to aid in executinsf the national laws in the seceding States. Tuesday, Governor Randall issued a proclamation in which he urged a prompt response upon the part of Wisconsin, say- ing that one regiment was the quota of the State, and giving the first opportunity for enlistment to existino^ militia oro;anizations. On the ninth of January, the Madison Guard, a local militia com- pany, had tendered its services to the governor "in case those services might be required for the pres- ervation of the American Union." The company was highly complimented for its promptness, at the time, and when the governor had signed his procla- mation, on the sixteenth of April, he at once sent word to the captain, accepting the tender. Thus
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 275
this organization was the first to enlist in Wiscon- sin. The legislature adjourned on Wednesday noon, and a public meeting, in which democrats as freely joined as republicans, was at once held in the chamber of the lower house. Patriotic songs were sung by the members, employes, lobbyists and citizens generally, loyal words were spoken, the governor. was heartily cheered, and an enthusiastic round of " three times three " was given to the gal- lant little band which had first responded to the call for help. The Governor's Guard, another Madison company, had by this time also offered its services, and while the meeting was yet in progress the telegraph lines were crowded with similar offers of help from Milwaukee and other cities through- out the State.
News of the coming fray came in thick and fast, now. The following day, the Virginia convention resolved to cast the fortunes of the Old Dominion with the Confederacy. One by one most of the other slave States wheeled into line under the banner of secession. On the nineteenth of April occurred the Baltimore riots and the first shedding of blood. On the twenty-second, the First Wiscon- sin regiment of eight hundred men, chiefly a com- bination of the old militia companies recruited up to the standard, was thoroughly organized, and the War Department in Washington notified to that
276 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
effect. The soldiers went into camp at Milwaukee on the twenty-seventh, and upon the seventeenth of May were mustered into the United States service for three months.
So intense was the war spirit throughout the State, that Governor Randall soon had an embar- rassment of riches on his hands. Within seven days after his proclamation was issued, thirty-six companies had volunteered. The governor, anx- ious that the commonwealth should be well rep- resented in the field, asked the War Department for permission to raise more regiments, complain- ing that Illinois, with not quite double the popula- tion of Wisconsin, had been asked for six regi- ments. But the general government had not yet come to a just appreciation of the scope of its giant undertaking; Secretary of War Cameron replied that one regiment was all that was needed from Wisconsin, suggesting that any enlistments beyond this force be cancelled. The energetic governor, however, was not disposed to act on this advice, and set about grouping his surplus companies into re- serve regiments, declaring his confidence that they would be needed soon. And thus were the Second, Third and Fourth regiments organized and ready to rendezvous in camp, before the government had expressed a desire for them.
The people of the North were not skilled in the
WISCONSIN ON A WAR lOOTING. 277
arts of war, in those early days of the Rebellion. There had been a long period of peace and but few had meanwhile dreamed that the national life would again be in peril. The far-scattered militia companies were maintained for holiday display, and were but toy organizations compared with the sturdy, well-equipped National Guard of the pres- ent. The sudden outburst of 1861 found our people ill prepared for carrying on a great strug- gle like this. There was no lack of patriotism, no lack of willingness, and at first no lack of men or funds. But there was no oro-anization. Confusion was universal. Every one seemed to be mak- ing false movements and the leaders were work- ing at cross-purposes. There was an insufificiency of stores, of clothing, food and military equipage; the early regiments went to the front with oddly- shaped garments in all shades of gray, often were obliged to wait weeks and months for their arms, and frequently suffered from bad management in the commissariat. Wisconsin troops had their share of such experiences, despite the efforts of the hard-working governor, who labored heroically for the cause in which his heart was wrapped. He sent agents to Washington to gather information relative to the proper handling and outfitting of his volunteers, issued frequent proclamations to the people of the State informing them of the situation
278 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
of affairs, organized the women in their noble work of aiding the army, inspired public meetings by patriotic addresses, personally supervised the de- tails of management, and conducted an extensive correspondence with the national authorities and his fellow State executives; he attended and ad- dressed a conference of governors of Western and border States held in Cleveland on the third of May, being selected to lay before the President the con- clusions of that important conference.
It was on this same third of May that Lin- coln issued his second call for volunteers, now de- siring forty-two thousand for three years. Wis- consin's quota under this levy was two regiments. As there were enough companies on the rolls for ten, Randall again strenuously insisted on being given the privilege to send more. Secretary Came- ron was firm, however, and so only the Second and Third regiments were mustered in for three years and handed over to the Government for service. Bull Run convinced the authorities at Wash- ington that the war was a serious thing, and it was not long before calls for more troops were plentiful. The First (three-months' men), which had been sent to Harrisburg, Pa., in June, and had had a brief, sharp brush with the enemy at Falling Waters, was reorganized as a three-years' regiment in August. By the close of the year, fifteen regiments of infan-
I
IVISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 281
try had been formed within the State, at the cen- tral camps in Milwaukee, Madison, Fond du Lac and Racine, while five more were being raised; besides these, were two regiments of cavalry, a number of sharpshooters and seven batteries of artillery. Wisconsin's quota had been placed at twenty thousand, but she had thus far exceeded that number by over three thousand.
On the ninth of May, the governor issued a call for a special session of the legislature, which con- vened on the fifteenth and continued for twelve days, during which vigorous measures were adopted pertaining to the military exigencies of the hour. From this time forward, the Wisconsin legislature could always be relied upon to advance the inter- ests of the Union by prompt and liberal appropri- ations. The most rigid economy was forced in every department of the State government, but there was ever money enough to aid in the prose- cution of the war, and the State's quota of troops was always more than full.
It was not without a desperate struggle that the financial situation was maintained unimpaired. The day that Sumter had been fired upon, the Wis- consin bank circulation amounted to some four millions of dollars, over one half of which was secured by the bonds of either Southern or border States The outbreak of the war, though the
282 WISCONSIN ON A WAR lOOTING.
trouble was at first thought to be but temporary, at once sent these securities far below par, and disaster stared the bankers in the face. The bank comp- troller was powerless to stem the current, and the legislature hastened to adopt measures which were intended to postpone disaster. But in spite of official a^sistance, within two weeks twenty-two banks had refused to redeem their bills and had been discredited. On the twenty-fifth of April, the bankers held a State convention, discredited eighteen more weak concerns, and agreed to receive the issues of seventy specified banks until the first of December following, when an amended banking law was to go into effect. Business, which had been nearly paralyzed, again revived and public confidence was apparently restored. But dissen- sions soon arose among the banks, the strong declining to any longer bolster up the weak. The Milwaukee bankers therefore met on the even- ing of Friday, June 21, and as a measure of self- preservation threw out ten banks from the list of seventy. The notice of this action was not pub- lished until after banking hours of Saturday, by which time the laborers of the city had generally been paid their week's wages. The workmen found that a considerable portion of the bills they had re- ceived were the issues of the ten discredited banks. Not understanding that a regard for the public wel-
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 28
J
fare had caused the heaving overl)oaid of these financial Jonahs, the men considered themselves defrauded. On Monday morning an excited mob stormed the banks with bricks and paving stones. Mitchell's bank, the State Bank of Wisconsin and the brokers' offices received the worst injuries, the loss in furniture and windows amounting to about four thousand dollars. Business was suspended throughout the city during the entire week, and it was a month before the stream of commerce again flowed smoothly. The holders of the paper of the discredited banks were eventually reimbursed ; and by the close of the year an arrangement was made between the Milwaukee financiers and the State government, by which the worthless Southern bonds were sold and replaced by State bonds, and all bank- bills not previously retired from circulation were once more received at par.
Public interest, however, was chiefly centered in the conduct of the civil war, and there was but little time for the consideration of any other form of business than that of the gigantic struggle for the perpetuity of the Union, Wisconsin troops soon gained an enviable reputation at the front, and maintained it throughout the war. The population of the State was of a mixed character, and the regiments contained many Germans, Scandinavi- ans, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Swiss and representatives
284 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
of other European nationalities, as well as native Americans. Some of the infantry regiments were almost wholly made up of foreigners — the Ninth, Twenty-sixth and Forty-fifth were German, almost to a man ; the Fifteenth was Scandinavian, and the Seventeenth Irish. There were a good many Wis- consin Indians in the Third, Seventh and Thirty- seventh ; and on the Oneida reservation at Keshena there is an Indian Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, the only one of the sort in the United States. The French of the State were largely represented in the Twelfth regiment.
The foreign-born volunteers were, like the natives, generally intelligent, young, vigorous and of good physique. Wisconsin soldiers were fre- quently selected for positions of great danger and responsibility, for it was generally understood that they were apt to be men of exceptional endurance and nerve. The government's policy of making up the several brigades and divisions of men from widely-separated States was wise, as it tended to develop the national spirit and eradicate sectionalism. It was thus that Wisconsin's 91,327 volunteers* came to be represented in every one of the great armies. They served in brigades with men from every loyal State, and met the enemy
* The average population of the State during the war was 822,278, so that she was repre- sented in the field by one ninth of her population : if the presidential vote of 1864 is taken as a basis, over one half of her voters were in the war.
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 285
in every one of the seceded States save Florida ; some of them were in the Indian campaigns in Minnesota, Dakota and Indian Territory, and others patrolled the Rio Grande during the threatened in- vasion from Mexico. There was still another reason why Wisconsin regiments attained a special reputation for efficiency : not desirous like some States of multiplying the number of regiments, the custom was adopted of mingling the recruits with the veterans, that the former might sooner learn the art of war. Sherman, in his " Memoirs," pays this rare tribute to Wisconsin's method: "I remember that Wisconsin kept her regiments filled with recruits, whereas other States generally filled up their quotas by new regiments ; and the result was that we estimated a Wisconsin regiment equal to an ordinary brigade."
Governor Randall, although setting out with no preliminary training in the management of enter- prises of this character, had made for himself before the close of the opening year of the war, a most enviable record. Imbued with a spirit of in- tense patriotism he went into his work with intelli- gent zeal, and soon evolving some sort of order out of chaos had placed the Wisconsin troops upon as excellent a footing as any of the regiments from the older and wealthier States. He had properly organized the war machinery of the commonwealth
286 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
and given it such an impetus, that his successor, Governor Harvey, who came into office in January, 1862, had but to continue the direction upon the same general lines. Randall had not been a candi- date for reelection, otherwise the people of the State would have been glad to continue him at the head of affairs, despite the prevailing American prejudice against a third term for any chief execu- tive, State or national,
Harvey, who was an energetic man and capa- ble of grasping the situation, was not destined to long remain at the helm. Some of the Wisconsin regiments had been sadly thinned at the battle of Pittsburgh Landing, the seventh of April, and there was much suffering among the wounded. The 2:reat Sanitarv Commission was not then as perfectly organized as it became some eight or nine months later, and it devolved upon Wisconsin to look after her own suffering soldiers. The gov- ernor organized a relief expedition, which, heavily laden with supplies, set out on the tenth for Mound City, Paducah and Savannah, where the wants of the stricken were amply met. Upon the nineteenth, Harvey, who was just setting out for home, lost his life by drowning, being aboard the steamer " Dun- leith," which collided at Savannah with the " Minne- haha." Soon after his death his widow entered the ranks of the Sanitary Commission, and hundreds
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 28 7
of Wisconsin soldiers have good reason to regard her as one of the noblest women whom the war brought to hospital service at the front.
Harvey was succeeded by his Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, Salomon, who soon developed great capac- ity in the management of war matters. Regi- ments were quickly raised and equipped under his supervision, and several relief expeditions sent to succor the sick and wounded in the field. There was sore need just then for men like Salomon, imbued with patriotism and energy. The Union army had suffered seriously, the Confederacy was now seen to be a power that would require long and hard fighting to subdue, the people of the North were appreciating for the first time what a terrible struggle was on hand, national cur- rency was fast depreciating in value, dark days were upon the land, and at home the " peace-at- any-price" people were making the path of the government as difficult as possible. Wisconsin had already lost several thousand of her bravest and most vigorous citizens, every community had its great sorrow, the cost of the war was begin- ning to bear heavily upon the i)urses of the poor in the shape of low wages and high prices, and anx- iety was deeply graven on every face. But the great bulk of the people of Wisconsin, demo- crats and republicans alike, never wavered. There
288 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
were no party lines drawn, with regard to the common cause. The words of Douglas expressed the sentiment of the time: "There can be but two parties in this war — loyal men and traitors." There were, however, a few scattered groups of foreign-born, who had not yet sufficiently ab- sorbed the spirit which actuated those who had been longer upon our soil and nourished upon our institutions. When, in August, 1862, the government demanded three hundred thousand men, to be obtained by conscription, of which number Wisconsin was called on for twelve thousand, there were murmurs of dissatisfaction among the malcontents, who were chiefly Belgians. The draft began in November. At Port Wash- ington, in Ozaukee county, the militia rolls were seized and destroyed by a mob, which was led by a saloon-keeper ; the draft commissioner fled for his life, his house and the dwellings of other prominent citizens being ruthlessly sacked. At West Bend, in Washington county, similar scenes were enacted. By this time the governor was awake to the situation ; and when, a few days later, the draft opened in Milwaukee, the streets of that city were patrolled by troops selected from Wisconsin regiments then in camp, and the riotous element, which had been loud in its threats, subsided before this show of superior
WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING. 289
force. The rioters at Port Washington and W^est Bend were promptly arrested and thrust into guard- houses at the central rendezvous camps, but after a few months' imprisonment were released. There were no further demonstrations in opposition to conscription, in Wisconsin.
In August and September, 1862, a new and un- expected danger arose. In Minnesota, the Sioux under Little Crow were carrying death and destruc- tion through many a fertile valley, and endeavor- ing to organize a general Indian uprising in the Northwest. The Wisconsin Indians were restive under the persuasions of their friends across the Mississippi, and the white borderers in the north- western counties of the State were fearful that the scenes of blood in Minnesota might be re- enacted at their own homes. Governor Salomon promptly dispatched arms and ammunition to the seat of the disturbance, thus convincing the Indians that they were being watched, and would receive punishment if they deserved it. All grounds for apprehension were soon removed.
Salomon was succeeded as governor, in Jan- uary, 1864, by James T. Lewis, who did good service in carrying out and completing the plans so successfully inaugurated by his predecessors. To him fell the pleasure, the tenth of April, 1865, of formally announcing to the legislature
290 WISCONSIN ON A WAR FOOTING.
" the surrender of General Lee and his army — the last prop of the Rebellion." This was virt- ually the close of the war. The few scattered remnants of the Confederate forces soon surren- dered one by one, the last being the command of E. Kirby Smith, in Louisiana, the twenty-sixth of May. On the thirteenth of April, recruiting- was discontinued in Wisconsin. Two weeks later, all organizations whose terms of service ex- pired by the following first of October, were ordered mustered out. The provost marshal's offices were closed throughout the State, regiments were dis- banded at intervals during the summer, fall and succeedins^ winter — for several of them had been sent to the Rio Grande to keep the Mex- icans in check, and to the far Northwest to protect the Indian frontier — by the close of the year the absorbing business of war had for the most part ceased, and all haste was now made to again place Wisconsin on a peace footing.
CHAPTER XI.
DEEDS OF VALOR.
HE part which Wis- consin troops took in the various armies of the Union was continual and effec- tive. We have space for allusion to a few only of the striking features of their ser- vice.
On the second of July, 1861, the First Wiscon- sin, then of Abercrombie's brigade — employed in a futile attempt to prevent Johnston from reinforc- ing Beauregard at Bull Run — met the enemy in a skirmish at Falling Waters. George Drake, a private from Milwaukee, was killed in the brush, thus being not only the first Wisconsin man to give up his life in the cause of the Union, but the first soldier to fall in the valley of the Shenan- doah, soon to become one of the bloodiest scenes in the grreat theater of war.
291
292 DEEDS OF VALOR.
At the first Bull Run, the Second Wisconsin, which was prominent in the contest for Henry Hill, won high praise from Sherman for steadiness and nerve, qualities which afterwards made for the regi- ment an international reputation. It lost over one seventh of the command in killed and wounded, in that action, and was among the last to leave the luckless field. The total loss sustained by this regiment throughout the war, represented the extreme limit of danger to which human life was exposed during the protracted struggle ; for out of an enrollment of 1203, there were 238 killed or mortally wounded, being 19.7 per cent, of the whole. It must be remembered that this enroll- ment includes non-combatants — musicians, team- sters, cooks, servants, hospital assistants and quar- termaster's men — also the sick, detailed men and all manner of absentees ; while those of the wounded who lived, however miserable their condi- tion, are not included in the loss above enumerated. As a matter of fact, the records show that nearly nine hundred men in the Second Wisconsin were killed or wounded, leaving but few unharmed of those who carried arms. Thus this gallant com- mand stands at the head of the percentage list of regimental losses in killed and died of wounds, dur- ing; the war. The Seventh and Twentv-sixth Wis- consin are fifth in that fatal column, their losses in
DEEDS OF VALOR. 293
killed or mortally wounded being equally 17.2 per cent, of their total enrollment. The Thirty-sixth, with a loss of 15.4 per cent., has the sixteenth place upon this national roll of honor.*
The Third was at Frederick, Maryland, in Sep- tember, 1861, having been sent to capture the " bogus " legislature assembled there for the avowed purpose of passing an ordinance of secession. The Wisconsin men accomplished the purpose for which they had been detailed, and kept the Mary- land legislators in the guard-house until the latter acknowledged a change of heart.
On the bloody field of Shiloh, in April, 1862, the Fourteenth, Sixteenth and Eighteenth Wiscon- sin infantry won renown. The Sixteenth and Eighteenth were entirely raw, this being their first engagement ; yet they stood to the rack with admirable ner.ve, steadily held their ground and elicited the warmest praise from the newspaper correspondents on the field. The Fourteenth was not engaged in the first day's fight, not arriving on the ground until midnight. It was- an ugly night and the troops stood in pelting rain and mud, ankle- deep, waiting for the morning which was ushered in with a desperate struggle. All of the second day, the Fourteenth stood up like veterans, winning
* Fox's " Regimental Losses in the American Civil War," from which the above percent- age figures are taken, places the Seventh Wisconsin as third in the maxiniMni table of U'ssei in killed or died of wounds, the Sixth as tenth, and the Second as thirteenth.
294 DEEDS OF VALOR,
Grant's especial admiration. The battle had not been long in progress when a Kentucky regiment, brigaded with the Fourteenth Wisconsin, was ordered to charge a Confederate battery, but fell back in confusion, having been repulsed with great loss. " It was then," writes Lieutenant-Colonel Messmore of the Fourteenth, " that General Grant rode up to where I was standing, immediately in the rear of our regiment, and said to me, ' Can't your regiment take that battery } ' My reply was, ' We will try ! ' and I immediately passed through the center of the regiment to the front, and gave the order to charge." The two leading field officers of the regiment being disabled in the outset, this notable charge was led by Major Jehn Hancock, and was one of the most gallant in the war. Althouo-h thrice driven back, the Wisconsin men finally broke the Confederate line, the coveted bat- tery was captured, and the rout began which soon resulted in complete victory for the Union cause.
In the Peninsular campaign of 1862, Wisconsin was represented by the Fifth and by Company G, of Berdan's sharpshooters — the latter, a notable command which was continually winning laurels throughout the war. The Fifth was in Hancock's brio-ade at Williamsburs^, which made a famous bayonet charge on the enemy, routing and scatter- ino- them, thus turning the wavering fortunes of
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DEEDS OF VALOR.
295
the day in favor of the Union. In this daring onslaught, the Fifth won higli honors, and on dress parade two days later. General McClellan addressed the regiment in words of glowing praise, saying, " Through you we won the day, and Wil- liamsburg shall be inscribed on your banner.
THE WISCONSIN FOURTEENTH CHARGING THE BATTERY.
Your country owes you its grateful thanks." In telegraphing to tlic War Department, he said that the charge was " brilliant in the extreme."
In the Shenandoah valley campaign, in iS62,the Third l^orc a prominent part. At riain("s\ille, the Second, Sixth and Seventh — which now formed the greater part of the Iron Brigade of the First
296 DEEDS OF VALOR.
corps* — fought so well that Pope declared they were " among the best troops in the service." The Second, while leading the brigade, which was marching in column, was attacked by a Confederate battery posted on a wooded eminence to the left. The regiment promptly advanced upon the battery and soon encountered the enemy's infantry. While awaiting the arrival of the rest of the brigade, these brave sons of Wisconsin sustained and checked, with remarkable courage, fornearly twenty long minutes, the terrific onset of the divisions of Taliaferro and Ewell, aided by four Confederate batteries. The battle was continued by the brigade for some hours, until nine o'clock in the evening, when the attack was repulsed and the National flag floated triumphantly over the field. The New York Seventy-sixth and the Pennsylvania Fifty- sixth, of Doubleday's brigade, were sent to the assistance of the gallant Iron Brigade, shortly be- fore the firing ceased; but as they did not materi- ally aid in the result, the honors of the fight belong to the latter. In this brief but bloody engagement, one of the sharpest of the minor battles of the war, the Second Wisconsin's casualties amounted to sixty per cent, of its rank and file, and the entire Iron Brierade lost nine hundred men.
* The Iron Brigade was then composed of the Second, Sixth and Seventh Wisconsin, and Nineteenth Indiana ; in October, 1862, the Twenty-fourth Michigan was added. The heaviest aggregate loss by brigades, in the entire war, fell to this gallant command.
DEEDS OF VALOR. 297
The Iron Brigade also participated in the second battle of Bull Run. It covered the retreat of Pope's army from that battle-field, being selected for the arduous task by McDowell, Two weeks later, the war-worn veterans were heard from at South Mountain, where they took a prominent part in the engagement of September fourteenth. To them was assigned the storming of the enemy, which was posted in Turner's Gap and across the National road at that point. The assault began at half-past five in the evening, the Second Wisconsin again leading on the left of the road and the Sixth and Seventh on the right. By nine o'clock the enemy had been routed and driven from the pass, but the gallant victory was a bloody one. The flying foe was chased through Boonesboro, the Iron Brigade being in advance of the entire Army of the Potomac and receiving the enemy's retreating fire.
At Antietam, which Greeley said was "the bloodiest day America ever knew," the Third Wisconsin — hardly recovered from the shock re- ceived at Cedar Mountain, where it opened the battle — won enviable renown, standing in an ex- posed position and firing steadily, " until the fallen cartridge papers, for months afterwards, showed by a strange windrow its perfect line of battle." The Third lost nearly two thirds of the men it took
298 DEEDS OF VALOR.
into the fight. The Fifth, too, was prominent upon that sanguinary field, stubbornly supporting a bat- tery during the fiercest of the fray. The Iron Brigade did valiant service, the galling fire of the Sixth Wisconsin from behind a stout rail-fence being one of the features of the day. Battery B, of the Fourth United States artillery, was largely composed of men from the Wisconsin regiments of the Iron Brigade, and at Antietam sustained the heaviest loss met by any battery on either side in any one battle of the war.
In the battle of Corinth, several Wisconsin in- fantry regiments and four of its batteries were accorded exceptional praise. On the occasion of the second battle, the brigade commander reported of the Fourteenth, which had won such glory at Shiloh : " This regiment was the one to rely upon in every emergency; always cool, steady and vigor- ous." The Seventeenth made a wild, tearing charge, causing the brigadier to cry, " Boys of the Seventeenth, you have made the most glorious charge of the campaign ! " The Eighteenth, too, was praised for " most effectual service," while the Eiohth and Sixteenth came in for their share of honorable mention. The Sixth battery " did noble work," said General Hamilton. To the Twelfth battery. General Sullivan said, '' r^t)ys, I am proud of you. You have done nobly. The dead in front
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DEEDS OF VALOR. 299
of your battery sliow the work you have done." The Fifth and the Eighth batteries also won honor for Wisconsin upon this field.
At Chaplin Hills, near Perryville, Ky., five days later, the First Wisconsin quickly rallied from the disorder which threatened to involve BuelTs army in disaster, and cried out to General Rousseau, " Lead us to the front ! " The result is told in that general's report : " They drove back the enemv several times with great loss, and until their ammu- nition gave out bravely maintained their position." They captured a stand of Confederate colors and were the heroes of the hour. The Tenth Wiscon- sin was seven hours under fire, and lost fifty-four per cent, of the men it took into action. Said Rousseau of this command, " Repeatedly assailed by overwhelming numbers, after exhausting its am- munition it still held its ])osition. These brave men are entitled to the gratitude of the countrv." Buell's report makes honorable mention of Ser- geant William Nelson, (if Company I of the Tenth, who, with a detail of twenty-two men, for two hours held Paint Rock railroad bridge, near Huntsville. against a force of nearlv three hundred Confederate cavalry, "repulsing them in the most signal man- ner. This example," Buell continues, " is worthy of imitation bv hii^her officers and larirer emu- mands," The Fifteenth captured heavy stores of
300 DEEDS OF VALOR.
ammunition and many prisoners. The Twenty- first won the praise of McCook for a withering fire poured into an overwhehning force of the enemy, which had swooped down upon the Wisconsin men while lying in a corn-field. Here again the Fifth battery figured prominently by three times turning back a Confederate charge. McCook thanked the brave artillerymen on the field, saying, " They saved the division from a disgraceful defeat."
At Prairie Grove, Ark., the first week in Decem- ber, the Union forces were composed of Western men, among whom Wisconsin troops were conspicu- ous. The Twentieth Wisconsin, in company with the Nineteenth Iowa, made a most desperate charge on a rebel battery. They were repulsed, but Gen- eral Herron says, " Their charge was a glorious sight. Better men never went upon the field." In this action, the loss sustained by the Twentieth in killed or mortally wounded, was eighty-six, the largest death loss that ever fell to any Union regi- ment in any one battle during the war. Of the Second and Third Wisconsin cavalry, also present, Herron declared that they had proved themselves "worthy of the name of American soldiers." The Third cavalry executed some particularly skillful manoeuvers and sharply attacked the Confederate left wing.
A week later, occurred the great battle of Freder-
DEEDS OF VALOR. 301
icksburg, where the Iron Brigade held an exposed and dangerous position on the extreme left of the Union army, being constantly under severe artil- lery fire.
The terrible struggle at Stone River closed the year's campaign. Here, Wisconsin was represented by the F"irst, Tenth, Fifteenth, Twenty-first and Twenty-fourth infantry,* besides the Third, Fifth and Eio-hth batteries. In the contest of the thir- tieth of December, the Fifteenth infantry captured a gun ; while Sheridan spoke of the " splendid con- duct, bravery and efficiency of the Twenty-fouith Wisconsin." Brigade commander Scribner said, " The Tenth Wisconsin would have suffered exter- mination rather than vield its orround without orders." Rousseau reported that when his supply trains were attacked b)' the enemy's cavalry, " The burden of the fio:ht fell on the Twenty-first Wis- consin, who behaved like veterans." General Davis said that the conduct of the Fifth battery was "gal- lant and distinguished; " and the commander of the brigade to which the Eighth battery w^as attached, alluded to the " determined bravery and chivalrous heroism of officers and men."
Wisconsin troops were prominent throughout the "mud campaign," during the early months of 1863, wherein the Army of the Potomac, sadly
* The Twenty-fourth was popularly known as the " Milwaukee Regiment."
302 DEEDS OE VALOR.
harassed, wallowed about in the floating soil of Virginia. The battle of Fitz Hugh's Crossing, the twenty-ninth of April, was a lively affair for the old Iron Brigade. To it was assigned the danger- ous duty of crossing the Rappahannock in boats and carrying the enemy's first line, for the purpose of covering the pontoon-layers. The brigade made a brilliant dash across the river, charged up the op- posite heights, carried the Confederate riflepits at the point of the bayonet, and captured several hun- dred prisoners.
At Chancellorsville, a few days later, the Third Wisconsin was in the division which was thrown forward as a barrier to the advance of Stonewall Jackson, after the latter had crushed the Eleventh corps. Jackson was held back for the time, and the next day when all was lost, the stubborn lliird was the last regiment to withdraw from the pres- ence of the foe.
While this contest was being waged, the Fifth Wisconsin was winning undying laurels near by, on Marye's Hill, at Fredericksburg. In the preceding December, over six thousand Union soldiers under Burnside had been slaughtered, while charging the Confederates lying in the sunken roadway winding about the base of this famous hei2:ht. But it was now necessary that the attempt should again be made, and Col. Thomas S. Allen, of the Fifth Wis--
DEEDS OF VALOR. 303
consin, was ordered to lead the forlorn hope and arrange all details. The Fifth Wisconsin and the Sixth Maine volunteered to lead the column. The brave commander walked among his men, inspiring them to the hazardous deed. " My boys," he said, " do you see those works in front? We have got to take them ! Perhaps you think you cannot do it, but I know you can. I am confident of it. When the order to advance comes, you will trail arms and move forward on the double-quick. Do not fire a gun and do not stop until you get the order to halt. You will never get that order! "
The order to forward came. From the riflemen behind the stone-wall flanking the roadway, from the houses along the base, from the batteries on the heights above, was poured upon these devoted men from Wisconsin and Maine a terrible storm of iron and lead. Grape and canister mowed their ranks. They were in the grand highway to death ; still they pushed on and on, supported from be- hind by regiments from New York and other States, but themselves alone in the vortex of de- struction. Over stone wall, through brier and bramble, over the slippery })laces, up among the rolling bowlders, clutching to bushes, scrambling on all-fours, digging, pitching, climbing over heaps of dead and wounded, overcoming line after line of redoubts, the men who were not to halt finally
304 DEEDS OF VALOR.
reached the summit. There were wild hurrahs, the gleam of bayonets, the roar and smoke of cannon, the shrieks of the dying; and then the enemy turned and ran, and Colonel Allen's men — such of them as were left — were the victors of Marye's Heights. The Southern -sympathizing correspondent of The London Times, writing from Lee's headquarters about this terrible assault, de- clared : " Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, nor at Waterloo was more undaunted courage displayed." And Greeley wrote : " Braver men never smiled on death, than those who climbed Marye's Hill on that fatal day." The Confederate commander told the Wisconsin colonel, as he handed him his sword and his silver spurs, that he had supposed there were not troops enough in the entire army of the Potomac to carry the works, and declared that it was the most daring assault he had ever seen.
Twelve of Wisconsin's infantry regiments and one of her cavalry, besides three of her batteries, took part in the campaign which led to the fall of Vicksburg, in 1863 — the Second cavalry, the First, Sixth, and Twelfth batteries, and the Eighth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Fourteenth, Seventeenth, Eight- eenth, Twentieth, Twenty - third, Twenty - fifth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-ninth and Thirty-third infantry. In the preliminary engagements, the Twenty-third received high encomiums for the part
DEEDS OF VALOR. 305
it played in the capture of Arkansas Post and in the battle of Port Gibson ; in reports of the latter engagement, the Eleventh and Twenty-ninth were also honorably mentioned. The Eighth and Eight- eenth helped to carry the town of Jackson. At Champion Hills, the Sixth Battery and Twenty- third Infantry rendered conspicuous service ; but the Twenty-ninth infantry, which assisted the Eleventh Indiana in a singularly-daring capture of a battery and a stand of colors, won exceptional honors. The Eleventh Wisconsin distinguished itself the following day by a brilliant charge against the enemy, on the Big Black. All of the Wisconsin troops were hotly engaged during the investment of Vicksburg. The assault of May twenty-second was participated in by the Fourteenth, Eleventh and Eighth. The Four- teenth lost nearly half of its men, and was given the post of honor when Rousseau's division entered the city after the surrender. " Every man in the Fourteenth," said that general in his order, " is a hero." The Twelfth, Eighteenth, Twenty-third and Twenty-seventh did remarkably good service throughout the siege ; and it \\as an officer of the Twenty-third who received Pemberton's offer to surrender, at the base of the works.
Upon the day of the surrender of Vicksburg, occurred the battle of Helena, Ark. Here the
3o6 DEEDS OF VALOR.
Twenty-eighth Wisconsin had done most valiant deeds, and a Wisconsin man, General Salomon, had planned the admirable defenses by which victory was attained. Five days later. Port Hudson yielded up to Banks and Farragut its garrison of six thousand men. One of the memorable events of the siege was the charge into the ditch, made by the Fourth Wisconsin, of which Greeley wrote, " Never was fighting more heroic."
But in the East, even greater events had hap- pened. On the field of Gettysburg, the first three days of July, 1863, was fought the most moment- ous battle of the Rebellion. And here again Wis- consin soldiers were destined to be prominent factors in the fight. The Iron Brigade had en- dured a tedious march of one hundred and sixty miles during the last two weeks of June, and did not reach the field of action in prime condition. But there was no time then for recuperation. Lee had invaded Pennsylvania, and unless promptly checked miorht turn the tide of events in favor of the Confederacy. It was the supreme crisis of the war.
Early in the morning of the first of July, the First corps — to which the Iron Brigade was at- tached — advanced cautiously in the direction of Gettysburg, being assigned to the support of Bu- ford's cavalry. The favorite Second Wisconsin
DEEDS OF VALOR. 307
had that day the lead of the corps, and, first to meet the enemy — Heth's division of A, P. Hill's corps — began the infantry part of the battle of Gettysburg. The regiment came into line on the double-quick, behind a slight elevation, and without waiting for the rest of the brigade to form, ad- vanced with steadiness over the crest, receiving a volley which mowed down over thirty per cent, of its rank and file. * A few minutes after, its gal- lant colonel, Lucius Fairchild, lost an arm ; and it was while in the rear of this regiment that General Reynolds, commanding the left grand division, was killed. The other reo-iments of the brioade — ex- cept the Sixth Wisconsin, which had been halted by General Doubleday to serve as a reserve — soon came up, and after a wild conflict of less than thirty minutes' duration the Confederates entirely abandoned the field, leaving eight hundred prison- ers, including General Archer, in the hands of the brigade. Meanwhile the Sixth had been ordered to the assistance of Cutler's brioade, now beins: driven back into the village, and made a brilliant charge on the railway cut, capturing the Second Mississippi with its colors. The Iron Brigade, soon after it captured Archer, was forced by over- powering numbers to fall back on Cemetery Hill,
• The Second Wisconsin lost one hundred and eighty-one in killed and wounded, not in- cluding missing, at Gettysburg, which was sixty per cent, of the men It had in the fight.
3o8 DEEDS OF VALOR.
where it intrenched itself and remained exposed to the enemy's artillery throughout the remainder of the battle. The brigade took 1883 men into action, rank and file, and lost 1212 in killed, wounded and missing — 64.3 per cent. The Third Wisconsin drove Ewell from Gulp's Hill and clung to its posi- tion despite a terrible cross-fire, in which its ranks melted away like ice before a furnace. Of the officers of the Twenty-sixth, only four remained unhurt. The Wisconsin company of Berdan's sharp- shooters was in the key of battle when the enemy attempted, on their final charge, to break the Union center. The Fifth Wisconsin infantry was on the extreme left of the Union army, and was thus not given an opportunity to show its mettle.
Durino: the retreat of the Iron Briorade to Ceme- tery Hill, on the afternoon of the first day, Daniel McDermott, color sergeant of the Seventh Wis- consin, fell severely wounded. Fearing that if he died on the contested field or was captured, his flag would be seized as a prize by the enemy, he tore the stars and stripes from the staff and stuffed the precious emblem in his bosom. Later, his comrades picked him up and carried him back with them on a caisson. It was thought for a time that the colors of the Seventh had been captured, but when the unconscious hero was being treated at the hospital, they were found safe within his
DEEDS OF VALOR. 31 I
jacket. The brave McDermott lived, and the ban- ner he saved can still be seen in the Wisconsin State House.
Another dramatic occurrence at Gettysburg is thus related by General Doubleday : " An officer of the Sixth Wisconsin approached Lieutenant- Colonel Dawes, the commander of the regiment, after the sharp fight in the railway cut. The Col- onel supposed from the firm and erect attitude of the man, that he came to report for orders of some kind; but the compressed lips told a different story. With a great effort the officer said : ' Tell them at home I died like a man and a soldier ! ' He threw open his breast, displayed a ghastly wound, and dropped dead at the colonel's feet."
The incident of " John Burns of Gettysburg " was one of the most romantic connected with the great struggle. Burns was a resident of the fated village, some seventy years of age ; he had served in the War of 18 12-15, ^^e Seminole War in 1835 and the Mexican War, and, endeavoring to enlist in the Union army in 1861, had been rejected as too old. Upon the arrival of the Union forces at Gettysburg, he attached liimself to Company F of the Seventh Wisconsin, and foucjht with them on the skirmish line in the open fields. He was a singular character in appearance, clothes and action, but a remarkably skillful marksman and
312 DEEDS OF VALOR.
displayed a degree of bravery never excelled. The poor fellow was wounded in the course of the afternoon, and captured by the Confederates but finally released, they probably not fully under- standing the character of his mission at the front. Burns made for himself a national reputation. The familiar story of his record, which every school- boy recites in the dashing lines of Bret Harte, has been explicitly told in matter-of-fact prose, by Ser- geant George Eustice of Company F, as follows :
It must have been about noon when I saw a little old man coming up in the rear of Company F. In regard to the peculiarities of his dress, I remember he wore a swallow-tailed coat with smooth brass buttons. He had a rifle on his shoulder. We boys began to poke fun at him as soon as he came amongst us, as we thought no civilian in his senses would show himself in such a place. Finding that he had really come to fight I wanted to put a cartridge-box on him to make him look like a soldier, telling him he could not fight without one. Slapping his pantaloons pocket he replied: " I can get my hands in here quicker than in a box. I'm not used to them new-fangled things." In answer to the question what possessed him to come out there at such a time, he replied that the rebels had either driven away or milked his cows, and that he was going to be even with them. About this time the enemy began to advance. Bullets were flying thicker and faster, and we hugged the ground about as close as we could. Burns got behind a tree and surprised us all by not taking a double-quick to the rear. He was as calm and collected as any veteran on the ground. We soon had orders to get up and move about a hundred yards to the right, when we were engaged in one of the most stubborn contests I ever experienced. Foot by foot we were driven back to a point near the seminary, where we made a stand, but were finally driven through the town to Cemetery Ridge. I never saw John Burns after our movement to the right, when we left him behind his tree, and only know that he was true blue and grit to the back- bone, and fought until he was three times wounded.
In September, on the sanguinary field of Chicka- mauga, Wisconsin was represented by the First,
DEEDS OF VALOR. 313
Tenth, F'ifteenth, Twenty-first and Twenty-fourth* infantry, and the Third, Fifth and Eiglith batteries, all of which fought most heroically and suffered heavy losses.
Several of these commands were in the famous left wing, under Thomas, and participated in that slow, stubborn and successful resistance to Longstreet's corps, which gained for Thomas the sobriquet, " The rock of Chickamauga." Later, the same Wisconsin troops were besieged in Chat- tanooga, where they suffered great hardships from the lack of provisions, until Grant opened up new sources of supply and introduced plenty in the place of direful want. By the middle of November, Sherman arrived on the scene with the Fifteenth corps, of which the Eighteenth Wisconsin was a member — a corps ot which its commander cxult- ingly wrote, " I assert that there is ho better body of soldiers in America than it." Ten days after Sher- man put in an appearance, the battle of Mission Ridge was fought, the Confederate army under Bragg being completely defeated and sent flying back into central Georgia. In this important and joicturesque action, the First, Tenth, Fif- teenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-fourth and Twenty-sixth Wiscon.^in infantry proudly shared, encountering without a waver the grape
•General Lytle met his death in the rear of this regiment.
314 DEEDS OF VALOR.
and canister of the enemy during the fearful charge to the summit.
At Warrenton Junction, near the Rappahannock, just at the close of day on the seventh of November, General Sedgwick, in command of the Fifth and Sixth corps, received orders to "push the enemy across the river before dark, if possible." The banks of the stream were protected by two Confed- erate redoubts, connected by a curtain of rifle-pits. Russell's division was ordered to carry them by as- sault. The Fifth Wisconsin and the Sixth Maine, which had so heroically charged Marye's Hill, were in front, and despite the scorching fire of the enemy and the rough ground, moved with steadiness on the works, broke over the parapet and set the Con- federates to rout. It was a brilliant affair, led by the brave General Russell, and the two regiments were mentioned" with enthusiasm in the reports. Both General Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, and the secretary of war, warmly congratulated the victors ; and well they might, for four guns, two thousand small arms, a bridge-train, eight battle flags and sixteen hundred prisoners had been taken in the heroic assault.
At Carrion Crow bayou, Louisiana, the same month, the Twenty-third also won laurels. This regiment, with others forming a column sent as a feint against Opelousas, was surprised in the woods
DEEDS OF VALOR. 315
by a strong party of Confederates ; the entire Union force would have been destroyed but for tlie consummate bravery of the Twenty-third Wiscon- sin and Nim's battery. The regiment was quickly, reduced in this terrible conflict, from two hundred and twenty-six men to ninety-eight, its colonel being wounded and captured.
Wisconsin soldiers supped their full share of horrors in Confederate prisons, being sometimes massed by hundreds, for months together, in such dens of despair as Belle Isle, Danville, Florence, Macon, Salisbury, Libby and Andersonville. On the night of February 9, 1864, one hundred and nine Union oflficers escaped from Libby prison by means of a tunnel dug by fifteen prisoners under the leadership of Col. Thomas E. Rose, of the Sev- enty-seventh Pennsylvania. Colonel Rose and the working party first passed out at seven o'clock ; arrangements had been made by Rose with Col. H. C. Hobart of the Twenty-first Wisconsin, to carefully cover up the traces of the fugitives and to follow with a second party of fifteen, the follow- ing night. But the escape of Rose and his fellow workers became generally known throughout the crowded prison, within two hours after their depart- ure, and the scramble for the tunnel was so fierce that Colonel Hobart was obli2;ed to chans^e the plan and open the passage to all. Of those who
3l6 DEEDS OF VALOR,
emerged from the sickening hole, forty-eight were run down and recaptured by the Confederates, among them being Lieut. Charles H. Morgan, also of the Twenty-first Wisconsin.
In March, 1864, Banks set out to carry the war into the valley of the Red River, his objective point being Shreveport, at the head of steam navigation on that water. The Wisconsin troops in this ex- pedition were the Fourth Cavalry and Eighth, Fourteenth, Twenty-third, Twenty-ninth and Thirty- third infantry regiments. llie Eighth, one of the bravest commands in the Union service, was popularly known as " The Eagle Regiment," from the fact that the men of Company C carried as their emblem a live eagle on a perch ; this bird, named " Old Abe," in conipliment to the president, was an eye-witness of thirty-six battles and was fre- quently hit by the enemy's bullets ; he appeared to take srreat delioht in these scenes of carnage, and in processions had a self-acquired habit of posing on his perch or upon a cannon, holding a corner of the national colors in his bill. It is no exaoforer- ation to say that Old Abe, who attained a world- wide reputation, won as great popularity in the Union army as any of its generals; and until his death, in March, iSSi, he was in active demand at State and national soldiers' reunions. He was one of the features at the Northwest Sanitary Fair in
DEEDS OF VALOR. 317
Chicago, in 1S65; also at the Philadelphia Centen- nial Exposition, in 1876, and at the Old South Church Fair, in Boston, the winter of 1878-79. All of the Wisconsin regiments fought with untiring valor in the unfortunate Red River campaign. At Sabine Cross Roads, the Twenty-third was the last to leave the field — covering the retreat.
The brightest honors of the expedition, however, were won by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, of the Fourth. The fleet had been carried safely above the rapids at Alexandria, but upon the return it was found the water had lowered, so that it was impossible to descend. The river was rap- idly falling, the enemy were swarming upon both banks, the navy was in a most perilous situation, and complete destruction appeared to stare the ex- pedition in the face. The one man who saved the Union from so irreparable a loss, was this modest Wisconsin oflficer, who now proved himself a genius. He was servin^y on General Franklin's staff as chief engineer, and proposed to build a system of dams by which the river was to be raised to a sufficient height, then an opening suddenly made, througli which the vessels were to escape. The scheme appeared a visionary one to all of the other engi- neers, as well as to most of the leading officers ; but while they laughed at him as an innocent, he was permitted to try his proposed experiment. With
3l8 DEEDS OF VALOR.
three thousand men he toiled unwearyingly, from the thirtieth of April to the eighth of May. On the morning of the twelfth, the great gunboats plunged through the boiling chute and triumpii= antly steamed away, to the great discomfiture of the Confederates, who had thought to capture the expe- dition in the trap. Admiral Porter frankly wrote to headquarters that to " the indomitable persever- ance and skill of Lieutenant-Colonel Bailey, to whom belongs the entire credit of the enterprise," the fleet owed its safety. The hero of the hour was presented by the naval officers in the expedition with a sword costing eight hundred dollars, was thanked by the navy department and soon after brevetted brigadier-general. It was upon Wiscon- sin pinery streams, where great log rafts are some- times " lifted " by artificial rises of water, induced by dams, that Bailey had learned his wisdom ; and it was the Wisconsin "lumber boys" of the Twenty-third and Twenty-ninth regiments that he first asked for, when given permission to undertake his experiment in backwoods engineering.
The Iron Brigade, now under Cutler, was in Warren's corps (the Fifth), in Grant's campaign against Richmond. It served gallantly and lost heavily in the Wilderness — sweeping through two of the Confederate lines in the first day's fight ;*
•General Wadsworth was killed while witli tlie Seventh Wisconsin.
DEEDS OE VALOR. 319
it supported Hancock in tlie frightful hand-to-hand struggle over the " bloody angle " at Spottsylvania, resisting five of the enemy's determined assaults ; it participated in the battles of the North Anna (Jericho Ford) and Bethesda Church ; was in the as- saults on Petersburg (June 18 and July 30, 1864), and fought at Weldon Railroad and Hatcher's Run ; — at this latter engagement, the Seventh Wisconsin made a large haul of prisoners.* The Fifth, also in this campaign, captured a battery with great heroism, at a time when the frontline of the Union charging column had been temporarily checked ; drove the Confederates from the field, at the cross- ing of the North Anna, and repelled and made numerous attacks before Petersburg. The Nine- teenth won fame by a splendid charge at Fair Oaks (October 27), in which they lost over half of their men.
In the early summer of 1864, the Thirty-sixth, Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth Wisconsin were organized and sent on to the Army of the Potomac. At Hatcher's Run, the Thirt3'-sixth, which had already sustained heavy losses,! displayed great valor by cutting through a line of the enemy and
* June 10, 1864, the Second Wisconsin, of this brigade, was released from duty and started for home.
t In the small but bloody engagement near Bethesda Church (sometimes called the battle of the Tolopotomay), June first, the Thirty-sixth suffered a loss of one hundred and sixty-six killed and wounded, or sixty-nine per cent, of the men taken into action.
320 DEEDS OF VALOR.
capturing three times its own number of prisoners, with arms and colors. The Thirty-seventh, which exhibited rare grit, suffered the misfortune to be of the charging party into the Petersburg crater, July 30, 1864, losing one hundred and forty-five men out of the two hundred and fifty-one sent out. This same regiment, together with the Thirty- eighth Wisconsin, assisted, the second of April, 1865, in the gallant charge on Fort Mahone, one of the chief defenses of Petersburg. The Thirty- eighth, with the air of veterans, led the attcking column, which advanced through a terrible storm of shot and shell, scrambling over the abattis and the enemy's works, driving the garrison out on the other side, and turning their guns against them. Although several attempts were made by the Con- federates during the day, to oust the captors, they were each time repulsed, and next day Petersburg and Richmond were in the hands of Grant.
When Sherman was arranging, in the spring of 1864, for the Atlantic campaign which Grant and himself had projected, he drew heavily upon the Wis- consin troops, selecting no less than fifteen Badger regiments and three batteries for his model army, which was to cut into the heart of the Confeder- acy—the First, Third, Tenth, Twelfth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-sec- ond, Twentv-fourth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth,
DEEDS OF VALOR. 321
Thirty-first and Thirty-second infantry, the First cavah-y, and the P^'ifth, Tenth and Twelfth bat- teries. The Wisconsin men were continually under fire from Chattanooga to Atlanta, being represented every day in the strong skirmish lines which were thrown out in advance of the main army. At Dalton, seven regiments from the Badger State were employed in harassing the enemy ; at Resaca, eight ; while in the rash assault at Kenesaw Mount- ain, nine Wisconsin regiments were engaged. In meeting the Confederate onslaught from the en- trenchments on Peachtree Creek, seven regiments from Wisconsin were at the front. " No reo^iment ever did better," Fighting Joe Hooker said, than the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin on that occasion ; it " received the brunt of the battle on its brigade front and repulsed it, and followed it by a spirited charge." The Eighteenth was stationed at Alla- toona Pass, during the campaign, and, in company with the Twelfth battery, won distinction, October fifth, by assisting in the defense of the pass against repeated assaults from a greatly superior force of the enemy.
During this movement on Atlanta, the Wisconsin Twelfth and Sixteenth were a part of McPhcrson's "whip-lash corps," which distinguished itself for a series of quick flank movements that continually astonished, and resulted in ousting, the enemy.
322 DEEDS OF VALOR.
When the Confederates furiously stormed the left of the Union position before Atlanta itself, these two regiments, though attacked both in front and in rear, carried Leggitt's Hill by assault and kept it. It was not long before the Confederates in Atlanta sallied out and again assailed the brave Wisconsin men in the rear, but the latter jumped over the breastworks and fought from the other side. It was a desperate encounter, each opposing force keeping its own side of the works, until the Confederates crept away in the dark. General Howard said, in commenting on this hand-to-hand struoro-le, " I never saw better conduct in battle." While Logan declared, that " The troops could not have displayed greater courage nor greater deter- mination not to give ground. Had they shown less, they would have been driven from the posi- tion." When, early in September, the Union army marched into Atlanta, the Twenty-second and Twenty-sixth Wisconsin were among the first to enter the forsaken town — Company A of the Twenty-second claiming to have led the advance of the exultant conquerors.
When Sherman set out from Atlanta, the fif- teenth of November, upon his famous march to the sea, he was accompanied by eleven of Wisconsin's infantry regiments and three of her batteries. Men from these commands were detailed for every
DEEDS OF VALOR. 323
branch of the work of destruction which was to carry the war home to tliose people of the South who egged on and aided the Rebellion, yet were not themselves combatants. Wisconsin men were in the long skirmish lines ; formed part of the flank- ing parties ; lived the rollicking life of " bummers ; " tore up railroad tracks by the mile and twisted the heated rails into " Jeff Davis's neckties ; " applied the torch to railway depots, and the barns and mills of the wealthy planters ; guarded the fugitive blacks who, in mighty swarms, followed the advanc- ing columns, chanting strange hymns of jubilee. As the great army swept resistlessly through the heart of the South, Wisconsin troops were everywhere prominent, being relied upon by Sherman for the hardest work and wherever discretion was as need- ful as valor. They lost heavily in the subsequent siege of Savannah, and the difficult advance north- ward through the Carolinas, in the early months of 1865, but were never defeated.
It was evident, in early April, that the end of the war was near, and the men of Sherman's army were eager for the proposed junction with Grant and the Army of the Potomac; after their long and weary march they had hoped to be " in at the death," to help conquer Lee's army and the Confederate capital. But this great honor was not reserved for them. They had reached Goldsboro', N. C, April
3H DEEDS OF VALOR.
sixth, when news came that Richmond had fallen and Lee was hastening to join his lieutenant, Johnston. The course of Sherman's army was now changed. Instead of Richmond, he made Raleigh his objec- tive point, trusting to intercept Johnston either there or at Smithfield. They were at Smithfield on the eleventh, and it was now known that John- ston was retreating to Raleigh. On the road thither, the following day, a horseman dashing along the gleaming lines shouted the joyful mes- sage, " Grant has captured Lee's army ! " There was heartfelt gratitude, then, to the God of battles ; sweet visions of home rose before the tear-dampened eyes of the boys of Wisconsin, along with the boys from every other loyal State; at last "the cruel war was over," or practically so; peace would soon reign, the Union was saved. In a few days more, it was indeed over. The nation wavered betwixt her sorrow and her joy, doubtful whether tears or hosannas were most appropriate; for Lincoln had been foully assassinated, yet his work was done, for Johnston had surrendered and the Confederacy was crushed.
Upon the very day when Lee was treating with Grant, Mobile fell. In the decisive assault on Spanish Fort, at the mouth of the harbor the even- ing before, the Twentieth, Twenty-ninth, Thirty- third and Thirt\ -fifth Wisconsin were present
I
DEEDS OF VALOR. 325
While in the fierce attack on Fort Blakely, the Eleventh, Twenty-third and Twenty-ninth were en- gaged, the assaulting party of the Eleventh winning special honors.
In the operations around Nashville, Tenn., dur- ing November and December previous, Wisconsin infantry had prominently figured. The Twenty- fourth was with Schofield at Franklin, where on the twenty-ninth of November, Hood made a fierce onslaught on the Union advance. At Nashville, December sixteenth, the Eighth, Twenty-fourth and Thirty-third regiments were part of Thomas's army, which crushed Hood's left flank and hurled the Confederates back toward Franklin in wild confu- sion, and with heavy loss of artillery and prisoners. The Wisconsin regiments had suffered their full share of Thomas's loss of about three thousand.
The cavalrymen of Wisconsin were not behind her infantry, in their record as hard fighters. The First regiment of cavalry wrought valiant deeds the first year of the war, in scouting and in dispersing guerrilla bands in Missouri. In Tennessee, it soon became noted for its gallant forays. It fought and raided at Chickamauga, was with Sherman in the Atlanta campaign, afterwards fought its way with Wilson in his notable raid throuoh Alabama and Georgia ; it dismounted at W^est Point and assisted in the assault of Fort Tyler, which was captured
326 DEEDS OF VALOR.
after a desperate fight. At Macon, came the news of Lee's surrender and Davis's flight. Thereupon a detachment from the First, under Lieutenant- Colonel Henry Harnden, took the direct road to Irwinsville, in the pursuit of the fugitive president of the Confederacy. It arrived at the camp of Davis on the tenth of May, a moment too late to make the actual capture ; for a detachment from the Fourth Michigan cavalry had, unknown to Colonel Harnden, taken another road and arrested the president and his companions just as the advance of Harnden's command came in sight. The Wis- consin men were, after a thorough investigation, given a full share of the honor and reward ac- corded the captors of the Confederate chief.
The Second Wisconsin cavalry served in the Vicksburg campaign, was in Grierson's raid, and marched and skirmished all over Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. The Third was largely engaged in pursuing and fighting guerrillas in Arkansas, hav- ing many brushes with Quantrell's band ; while at Prairie Grove it made a particularly brilliant record. The Fourth served at first as infantry, but in Sep- tember, 1863, was mounted as cavalry and had a dashing career in Louisiana and Texas, capturing prisoners in numbers several times exceeding its own. It has been claimed that the Fourth — which rendezvoused at Racine, June sixth, 1861, and was
DEEDS OF VALOR. ^2-]
disbanded at Madison, about June twentieth, 1866 — served the longest term of any volunteer regi- ment in the service.
The artillerymen, too, were distributed through- out the several Union armies, and served with ofreat distinction until the close of the war. To the navy, Wisconsin contributed but one hundred and thirty-three men, and to the colored troops one hundred and sixty-five. In the scouting ser- vice, Wisconsin soldiers were employed in many portions of the South, and the story of their thrill- ing adventures and important services would make an interesting volume. In the hospitals, too, Wis- consin women nobly wrought, and the Sanitary Commission numbered them among its tireless workers.
The war expenses of the State footed up to $11,704,932.55. She furnished 91,327 men, who were divided into fifty-three regiments of infantry, four of cavalry* and one of heavy artillery, besides thirteen light batteries. Of these men, 3,802 were cither killed outright or mortally wounded, while 8,499 met death from other causes — chiefly disease, bad treatment in Confederate prisons and accidents. This made the Wisconsin death-roll 12,301, an average of 16.6 per cent, of the total enlistment. If these statistics have a dry appearance, we must
* The Koiirtli cavalry was nriginally the Fuurth infantry
328 DEEDS OF VALOR.
remember that each unit in the computation of dis- aster meant an empty chair at some Wisconsin fire- side, bleeding hearts in some Wisconsin home.
It was not long after the famous meeting at Appomattox, before Wisconsin troops came march- ing home again, by regiments and battalions, covered with glory — they had fought in nearly every important battle in the war — and bronzed by long exposure to Southern skies. There were rejoicings all along the line. In the towns where they were mustered out, there were recep- tions and banquets and speeches. School children lined the arched and festooned streets, waving banners and scattering flowers before the war- worn heroes of Badgerdom. Everywhere, the spirit of solemn festivity was abroad, and honors were heaped upon the brave. But beneath this show of gladness, away from the sound of boom- ing guns, the blare of trumpets, the swell of choral praise, the mellow notes of oratory, there was bit- terness enough. Out in the residence quarters of the cities, away off in the rural villages, among the farmhouses, where the individual warriors dwelt, the communities to which they hurried back when ranks were at last broken, sorrow reigned. Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, who had gone forth in the prime of manhood, too often returned mere wrecks of their former selves; while other husbands,
DEEDS OE VALOR. 329
fathers, sons and brothers liad been left upon Southern battle-fields or had died in the swamps or fallen victims to the wretched sanitary conditions of camps, transports and Confederate prison-pens. The Union had been saved at frightful cost. Yet, despite it all, there were none to say that the price paid for national honor and for the freedom of man had been too great. Had occasion demanded, there were none so stricken that they would not have freely renewed their terrible sacrifice. Spar- tans were never more devoted patriots than were the people of the North, even when nursing their greatest sorrow. They paused to weep over the ashes of their dead, only when the enemy had been crushed. The great struggle had developed a nation of heroes. In this development, Wisconsin nobly shared.
CHAPTER XII.
SINCE THE WAR.
HE cost of the war to Wisconsin, in blooc! and treasure, had in- deed been o:reat. Yet it is surprising how soon she recovered from the blow. The State was filled with rich mines, unused water-powers, virgin forests and fertile fields, which invited immio^rants from the East and from Europe by tens of thou- sands. Fresh blood poured into every community, capital flowed to the West, new industries sprung up, more railroads were built, and very soon the commonwealth was making giant strides. The era of progress dawned, when the clouds of civil strife had disappeared from the horizon.
The length of Wisconsin from north to south, is three hundred miles, while it is two hundred and fifty miles in breadth, and has a shore line of five
330
SINCE THE WAR. 331
hundred along the Great Lakes. It has few hills rising over four hundred feet above their bases, and they chiefly along the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers ; the highest elevations are about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the ocean, and the lowest portions of the State are six hundred. There are some two thousand minor lakes, nearly all of them in the eastern and northern portions, the result of glacial action ; numerous waterfalls also occur in those sections, many of them being used as power for the driving of machinery. The scen- ery of Wisconsin is never rugged, but abounds in pleasing effects. Gentle hill-slopes are freely inter- spersed with rolling prairies, and the numerous river valleys and lake basins add a charming variety to the landscape. The broad valleys of the Mississippi and Wisconsin are edged with bluffs often rising abruptly to a height of from two hun- dred to seven hundred feet, affordino^ views to the canoeist sometimes comparable to those met on Lake Gcoro^e. Other rivers there are, where now the dark, dense forest closelv hems in the s^listeninor flood ; and now fair prairie-stretches or upland glades, bathed in mellow sunlight, gladden the eye of the voyager. Whether the traveler takes the waterway or the roadway, journeys tlirougli the low- lands, or views the State from the hilltoj^s, beauty of landscape often greets his vision.
332 SINCE THE WAR.
In the central zone, there is a large sandy area of comparatively low fertility ; but elsewhere the soils are highly fertile and easily tilled. Originally, the greater part of the surface of the State was heavily forested, with prairies and groves in the southwest. The present forest area of the State is 48.8 per cent, of the whole. Hard timber prevails in the south ; the northern half of the State is given up to an almost unbroken forest of pine and kindred trees, with a free intermingling of hard woods. The climate is such as is usuallv found in interior territories, in the temperate zone ; but the prox- imity of the Great Lakes has the effect to elevate the temperature in winter and depress it in summer.
Wisconsin's lumbering interests are especially im- portant, being only exceeded in value by those of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Railroads are push- ing through the forests in every direction, opening up new belts of woods, competing with the uncer- tain rivers for the transportation of logs and lumber, and creating a tendency to move the saw-mills nearer to the sources of supply. Operations are now chiefly carried on upon the St. Croix, Chippewa, Red Cedar, Yellow and Black, of those rivers emp- tying into the Upper Mississippi ; the Wisconsin, running through the center of the State, and the Wolf, Menomonee, Peshtigo and Oconto, pouring into Green Bay. Large numbers of men and an
SINCE THE WAR. 333
immense capital are employed in this industry, and nearly all towns in Northern Wisconsin are at pres- ent chiefly dependent upon it for support. But the lumber business is necessarily of temporary endur- ance, and wasteful in its effect. As soon as one district has been denuded of its timber the lumber- men operating in it must pull up stakes and move to another; and the communities which have grown up in consequence of the early establishment of this industry in their neighborhood, must soon suffer decay or encourage new enterprises in their midst. Such oriorinal lumber towns as Oshkosh have been enabled to continue upon a prosperous plane after the decadence of their logging interests, by estab- lishing varied manufactures of a more permanent character.
'^ One of the Qrreat dans^ers arisino^ from the build- ing of large towns in the heart of the forest is that of fires. Sometimes these communities are closely hemmed in by dense pine woods, stretching in every direction for scores or perhaps hundreds of miles. The buildings and sidewalks are generally of wood, and the streets are for the most part either planked or carpeted with sawdust; while almost invariably the low places have been filled in with saw-mill offal. In tlie midst of the heated season, after a long drought, wlien the resinous forest and the wooden towns are highly inflammable, a spark
334 SINCE THE WAR.
from a passing locomotive, or a saw-mill smoke- stack, or perhaps a stray brand from a hunter's camp-fire, may start the fatal blaze. Then it sweeps through the country with the besom of destruction. Forests and towns go down before it like chaff, and human beings have been swallowed up by hun- dreds in the merciless, leaping flames. Such dis- asters have been the fate of several Wisconsin communities in the northern woods. The most ap- palling of these horrors occurred during the eighth and ninth of October, 187 1. A forest conflagra- tion, one of the greatest in the history of the world, swept over portions of Oconto, Brown, Door, Sha- wano, Manitowoc and Kewaunee counties, con- suming everything in its path. Over one thousand lives were lost, nearly as many persons were mis- erably crippled, and three thousand were beggared. The terrible casualty was felt most heavily at the town of Peshtigo, on the shores of lower Green Bay. Nearly two hundred thousand dollars were raised for the sufferers, and expended under State control. Of late years, increased care upon the part of lum- bermen and railway companies has much lessened the number and extent of forest fires.
Wisconsin's first American settlers were miners, who operated the lead and zinc region in the south- western portion of the State. The best leads were exhausted after a quarter of a century of working,
SINCE THE WAR. 335
and the industry then sank into comparative insig- nificance. The discovery of lead in connection with the silver mines of the Rocky Mountains as- sisted in lowering the value of the Wisconsin product.
Within the past few years, new finds have caused something of a revival in the lead and zinc interests of the State. In iron-mining, Wisconsin occupied in 1880 the sixth position among the States of the Union. The Huronian formation, in the Menomo- nee region and along the Montreal River, contains the most extensive iron deposits — the product of the entire range being eight hundred thousand tons in 1886. In the Montreal, or Gogebic range, there is a rich deposit of Bessemer ore. In 1886-87, there was a wild fever of speculation among the people of the State, in the stock of the Gogebic iron mines. Thousands of citizens, many of them occupying the highest official, professional and social positions, invested heavily in this paper. A few were shrewd enough to unload upon the rapidly-rising market and realized large profits ; but the majority were sadly bitten when the re- action came, in 1888. It was found that while there were several paying mines in the district, the bulk of the stock on the market was issued upon worthless holes in the ground. Legitimate oper- ators continue to make money in the region, and
33^ SINCE THE WAR.
now that the speculative craze is over, the business has settled into steady-going channels.
Nearly sixty thousand men are employed in the manufactories of the State, and nearly seventy-five million dollars are invested in them. According to the census of 1885, somewhat over twenty-seven million dollars' worth of lumber, shingles and laths were turned out ; twenty million dollars' worth of milling products; fourteen million dollars' worth of wooden articles ; over ten million dollars' worth of iron products and manufactures in iron ; nine million dollars in leather manufactures; five million dollars in wagons, carriages and sleighs ; and mis- cellaneous goods in proportion. In the one item of beer-making, there were brewed in Wisconsin during the twelve months ending the thirtieth of June, 1889, no less than 1,789,513 barrels, worth nearly eleven million dollars, and the business is steadily on the increase. The State stands fifth in this industry, being excelled in the order named, by New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and IlHnois, The industry is chiefly centered in Milwaukee. The sales in that city alone, during the period mentioned, being 1,364,980 barrels, which were shipped to all parts of the civilized world. New York City, St. Louis and Chicago alone exceed this record. In the census year of 1880, the slaughtered animals and meat-packing product were valued at nearly
SINCE THE WAR. 337
seven million dollars, and the manufacture of aorri- cultural implements at nearly four million dollars. Remarkable progress has been made, and new manufactures are being continually introduced.
There has been the usual number of labor troubles, in connection with Wisconsin manufac- turing. But few of these, however, have devel- oped into riots. In mid-summer, 1861, the men employed in the Eau Claire saw-mills, who had been accustomed to regard eleven hours as a day's work, suddenly struck for ten hours and would have carried out their threats of destruction to mill- properties had not the militia been called out and a bloodless peace secured. In May, 1886, the employes of the rolling mills and several other manufactories at Milwaukee and its industrial suburb, Bay View, struck to enforce the adoption of the eight-hour day. They carried matters with a high hand, and the militia, now well organized and equipped, was again summoned. This time, the mob was so unruly that it had to be fired upon with ball cartridges, seven persons being- killed and several wounded. In July, 1889, the State troops were sent to West Superior, to quell disorder on the part of striking employes of cer- tain street contractors and mill-owners. Quiet was finally restored without the necessity of repeating the lesson taught to the Milwaukee rioters.
33^ SINCE THE WAR.
Agriculture is still the main resource of the Com- monwealth. The State census of 1885 estimated that a third of a million persons were engaged in tilling the soil, while the value of farms and the years agricultural products footed up to the enor- mous sum of $568,187,288. While considerable small-grain, corn, hay and miscellaneous field-crops are yet raised, the State is chiefly remarkable for its dairy products, which are now recognized as among the finest in the markets of the world, and are shipped in great quantities to the Eastern States and to Europe. Tobacco-raising is extensively en- gaged in, particularly in Dane and Rock Counties, there being some thirty thousand acres devoted to the narcotic weed. Several flourishing towns in Southern Wisconsin, notably Edgerton and Stough- con, derive a very considerable income from their large and numerous warehouses where ihe leaves are prepared and packed for market. The State also furnishes to the markets of the country large shipments of blueberries, chiefly picked by Indians in the sandy central zone ; and cranberries, which are raised on immense and carefully-cultivated marshes, particularly along the Fox and Black Rivers.
With her five hundred miles of coast on the Great Lakes, the fisheries of Wisconsin are natu- rally important and capable of still greater devel-
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opment. The lake-shore catch in 1888, amounted, principally in white fish and lake-trout, to nearly nine million pounds, valued at two hundred and sev- enty-one thousand dollars. Over six hundred men are engaged in the business, and the value of the property employed amounts to somewhat over a third of a million dollars. The fisheries on the inland lakes and rivers, where bass, pike, pickerel, sturgeon and brook-trout abound, give recreation and amusement to the people and form one of the attractions which draw to Wisconsin each summer scores of thousands of tourists from the Eastern and Southern States. The fishins^ interests are under the control of a State commission, which conducts large establishments at Madison and Mil- waukee for the artificial propagation ot trout, wall- eyed pike, carp, land-locked salmon and white fish. The bays of the Great Lakes are annually stocked with white fish and the inland waters with the other varieties named.
Railways have, since the war, been built with marvelous rapidity throughout Wisconsin in every direction, and there are now few localities, even in the deepest forests, that are many miles from a station. On the thirty-first of December, 18S9, there were fifty-three hundred and ninety miles of railroad operated within the State, the leading lines being the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the
340 SINCE THE WAR.
Chicago & Northwestern, the Wisconsin Central, the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Superior, the Minne- apolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie, the Milwaukee & Northern, the Chicago, Burlington & Northern, and the Green Bay, Winona & St. Paul. The story of the first inception of some of these modern highways of civilization has been elsewhere told. They met their first serious check in 1874, when the legislature passed what was popularly called " the Potter law." This act undertook to regulate the railroads by establishing fixed freight and pas- senger charges, and by providing for a board of three railway commissioners to enforce the man- date of the State. The legislature adjourned on the thirteenth of March. Upon the twenty-seventh of April, the presidents of the two principal roads, the " St. Paul " and the " Northwestern," officially in- formed Governor Taylor — who had been elected on a " Reform," or " Anti-monopoly" ticket — that their respective corporations would disobey the law. Thereupon, the authorities of the Commonwealth asked the State supreme court for leave to bring suits for the forfeiture of the charters of the dis- obedient lines. This permission was promptly granted by the court, and action was commenced by the State in the nature of a quo warranto to vacate their charters and annul their existence.
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The companies contended that the arbitrary rates fixed by the law would "amount to confiscation, ds the working expenses could scarcely be paid under it," and at once adhered to their former rates. The governor issued a proclamation calling upon the rebellious corporations to peaceably submit to the statute, otherwise all the functions of his office would be exercised to the end that the law be faithfully executed. Here was open war between the State and the railroads, and public interest reached a high pitch of excitement. At this point, an injunction was applied for in the United States district court at Madison, in the name of the creditors of the Northwestern railway — who claimed that their securities were weakened or destroyed by the Pot- ter law — to restrain the State from institutinq; fixed tariffs. In June, the case came up in the United States court, and a month later, after an elaborate legal contest, the court, so far as the motion was concerned, sustained the validity of the law; but as there was still further involved a nice constitutional question relative to the regulation of commerce between States, the decision was not final, the case being left open for further argument Meanwhile, the State supreme court was asked by the attorney-general to enjoin the companies against further disobedience of the law. Another long legal fight ensued, which attracted national
342 SINCE THE WAR.
attention, with the result that on the twenty-fifth of September, Chief Justice Ryan announced the decision of the court, sustaining the Potter law and the risht of the State to control coroorations within its limits. The writs of injunction were issued, but the attorney-general was instructed not to prosecute the companies for forfeiture of their charters until the latter were given a reasonable time to arrange their rates of toll under the law. The companies thereupon submitted, beaten at every point; but the law was subsequently modified by the legisla- ture, and since that day the relations between the railways and the State have been without serious friction.
The population of Wisconsin aggregates about one million, seven hundred thousand. Originally settled by the French fur-traders and their engages, there was no sensible growth until the arrival of Americans in the lead mines, about the year 1825. These came from Southern Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky, and introduced a small element of negro slaves as servants and mining hands. The agricul- tural colonists and early professional men who rushed into Wisconsin upon the close of the Black Hawk War, in 1832, were chiefly from New England and the intervening Eastern States. A heavy immigra- tion from the more densely populated sections of the Union has ever since been maintained; but it was
SINCE THE WAR. 343
not Ions: before Wisconsin came to be req-arded with peculiar favor by emigrants from European countries, particularly Germany and Scandinavia; even before the Civil War the State had attracted general attention because of its laroe element of foreign-born citizens. Since the war, this feature has become more strongly marked than ever. In 1880, the national census disclosed the presence in the State of enough foreign-born people to number 30.81 per cent, of the entire population, and the census of 1890 somewhat increased this ratio. As a large number of the immigrants are men, it is probable that about one half of the voters of the Commonwealth are of foreign birth. The principal nationalities now colonized within the State, rank in strength as follows : Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, natives of Great Britain, Canadians, Bohe- mians, Hollanders and French.
Wisconsin probably contains a greater variety of foreign groups than any other American State. Many of these occupy entire townships, and control within them all political, educational and ecclesias- tical affairs. There are, here and there, genuine communities where property is held in common and strangers are carefully excluded, such as the St. Nazian Roman Catholic community, in Manitowoc County, where there are men of all essential trades and professions, and no communication is held with
344 SINCE THE WAR.
the outer world if it can be prevented. In con- siderable districts, particularly among the Germans and Welsh, the English language is seldom spoken, and public as well as parochial schools are con- ducted in the foreign tongue. But as a rule, the for- eign-born people of Wisconsin are quick to adopt American methods and English speech, and enter with zest into the privileges and duties of citizen- ship ; while no matter how zealously the elders may endeavor to perpetuate the foreign ideas which they have brought with them, the younger genera^ tion cannot long be held in leash, complaint being universal that the teachings of the fathers in these matters appear to have but little effect upon the youth. The process of assimilation is as a whole reasonably rapid. There are those who fear that Wisconsin is becoming denationalized because of her large and conservative foreign population, but a careful study of the situation will not, I think, warrant any observer in such a conclusion. New customs, new manners and new blood are being introduced by these colonists from across seas, but they are in most cases worthy of adoption and absorption. We are slowly building up in America a composite nationality that is neither English nor continental, but partakes of all — it is to be hoped the best of all.
It is interesting to note the localities where
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SINCE THE WAR. 345
these foreign groups have planted themselves in Wisconsin.
The Germans number seventy-five per cent, of the population of Taylor County, sixty-five per cent, of Dodge, and fifty-five per cent, of Buffalo. They are also found in especially large groups in Mil- waukee, Ozaukee, Washington, Sheboygan, Mani- towoc, Jefferson, Outagamie, Fond du Lac, Sauk, Waupaca, Dane, Marathon, Grant, Waushara, Green Lake, Lanolade and Clark counties. There are Germans in every county of the State, and numerous isolated German settlements, but in the counties named these people are particularly nu- merous. Sometimes the groups are of special in- terest because the people came for the most part from a particular district in the Fatherland. For instance, Lomira, in Dodge County, was settled al- most entirely by Prussians from Brandenburg, who belonged to the Evangelical Association. The neighboring towns of Herman and Theresa, also in Dodge County, were settled principally by natives of Pomerania. In Calumet County, there are Oldenburg, Luxemburg and New Holstein settle- ments. St. Kilian, in Washington County, is set- tled by people from Northern Bohemia, just over the German border. Tlie town of Belgium, Ozau- kee County, is populated almost exclusively by Luxemburgers, while Oldenburgers occupy the
346 SINCE THE WAR.
German settlement at Cedarburg. Three fourths of the population of Farmington, Washington County, are from Saxony. In the same county, Jackson is chiefly settled by Pomeranians, while one half of the population of Kewaskum are from the same German province. In Dane County, there are several interesting groups of German Catholics : the town of Roxbury is nine tenths German, the people coming mostly from Rhenish Prussia and Bavaria; Germans predominate in Cross Plains, the rest of the population being Irish ; the Ger- man families of Middleton came from Koln, Rhen- ish Prussia, and so did those of Berry, a town almost solidly German. Austrians are numerous in Kewaunee County.
The Polanders are wide-spread. In the cities of Milwaukee and Manitowoc, there are large masses of them. In the city and neighborhood of Beaver Dam, Dodge County, there are nine hun- dred Poles, mostly from Posen, Germany. In Ber- lin and its neighborhood are one thousand, two hundred from Danzig, and emigration from thence is still in active progress. There are two Polish churches in Berlin, and one Polish school in which that language is taught. Other solid Polish groups are found in the townships of Berlin, Seneca and Princeton. Warren township, in Waushara County, has a considerable colony of Poles, and others can
SINCE THE JVAJ?. 347
be found in Trempealeau, Door, Kewaunee, Por- tage, Marathon, Langlade and Buffalo counties.
Bohemians are settled for the most part in the counties of Kewaunee (where they form three sev- enths of the entire population), Marathon, Adams, Crawford, Grant (towns of Muscoda and Castle Rock), Columbia (Lodi), Trempealeau, Langlade and Washington (part of Wayne).
We find Belgians closely massed in the towns of Gardiner, Union and Brussels, in Door County; Red River and a large part of Lincoln, in Kewau- nee County, and in Brown County.
The Dutch have particularly strong settlements in the Northeastern portion of the State, in the city of Milwaukee and in La Crosse County. The first colony was settled in Hollandtown, Sheboygan County, where natives of Holland still own one fourth of the township. They own one half of Bar- ton, in Washington County. Alto, Fond du Lac County, is essentially a Dutch town. A consider- able stronghold is the town of Kaukauna, Outa- gamie County, and the Dutch own much of Dcpere and Belleville, Brown County, The city of Mil- waukee had, as early as 1849, a Dutch population of more than eight hundred, which has since greatly increased. There is a large settlement of Frisians in Holland township, La Crosse County, their vil- lage beins: known as New Amsterdam.
34S SINCE THE WAJ^.
The Scandinavians (Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and Icelanders) of Wisconsin, are divided into na- tional groups. The Norwegians are strongest in Dane County, where there are probably not less than fourteen thousand who were either born in Norway or whose parents were. Other counties having large numbers, are Pierce, St. Croix, Eau Claire, Waushara, Waupaca, Washburn, Winne- bago, Portage, Buffalo, Trempealeau, Barron, Door, Bayfield, Florence, Lincoln, Rock, Racine, Mil- waukee, Grant and Oneida. Swedes predominate in Trenton, Isabel and Maiden Rock, in Pierce County; and are strong in portions of Bayfield, Douglas, Price, Taylor, Door, Jackson and Por- tage counties. Danes are found in considerable groups in Adams, Milwaukee, Racine and Wau- shara counties. Icelanders practically monopolize Washington Island (Door County), in the waters of Green Bay. Finlanders are quite strongly grouped in Douglas County.
^"here are between five and six thousand Swiss massed in exceptionally prosperous colonies in New Glarus, Washington, Exeter, Mt. Pleasant, York and neighboring townships in Green County. Others may be found in the counties of Buffalo, Pierce (Union), Winnebago (Black Wolf), and Fond du Lac (Ashford).
Italian groups are noted in Vernon, Washburn
SINCE THE WAR. 349
and Florence counties. In Vernon, they hold one half of Genoa township.
Russians, both Greek-church adherents and Jews, are chiefly found in the city of Milwaukee. Of the Greek-church Russians, there are two thousand in number, living on one street in a densely-settled neighborhood, and said to be mainly engaged in peddling small wares. The Russian Jews are scat- tered throughout the city; they observe their old social customs with religious tenacity, but are allowing their children to become Americanized.
The principal French-Canadian settlements are in Bayfield, Crawford, Lincoln, St. Croix and Tay- lor Counties, not counting the French Creoles at Green Bay, Kaukauna and Prairie du Chien.
Larsre Ensclish settlements — several of them the result of the early immigration of Cornish miners into the lead regions of Southwestern Wisconsin — can be found in Iowa, Grant, Lafayette, Co- lumbia, Juneau and Dane counties.
The Scotch we find in considerable numbers in Columbia, Buffalo, Green Lake, Kenosha, Mara- thon and Trempealeau counties.
The Welsh are planted upon Wisconsin soil in large groups. In Waushara Count}', the town of Springwater, one half of the town of Rose and one half of Aurora are occupied by natives of Wales and their immediate descendants. Spring
350 SINCE THE WAR.
Green, in Sauk County, has a large colony of them. The whole of Nekimi and the greater part of Utica, in Winnebago County, are settled by this people ; so are Caledonia and other townships in Columbia County, and the town of Calamus in Dodge. Monroe County has many solid Welsh neighborhoods, and other compact groups are in the third and sixth wards of Racine.
Irish groups are found in Bear Creek, Winfield and Dellona, in Sauk County; Osceola, Eden and Byron, in Fond du Lac County; Benton, Darling- ton, Gratiot, Kendall, Seymour, Shullsburg and Willow Spring, in Lafayette County; Lebanon, in Waupaca County ; Erin, in Washington County ; El Paso, in Pierce County; and Emmet, Shields and Portland, in Dodge County. It is worthy of note that the Germans, who are gaining steadily all along the line, have frequently displaced large bodies of Irish settlers in the southeastern portions of the State.
The chief city of Wisconsin is Milwaukee, with a population of about two hundred and three thousand, which is increasing rapidly. It com- mands an extensive lake commerce, is an impor- tant railway center, and has large industries, par- ticularly breweries, iion works, shoe factories and tanneries. Its school system is based upon the best modern methods, the public buildings and
SINCE THE WAR. 35 1
many of the business structures are superb; the Layton Art Gallery contains one of the choicest collections of paintings to be found west of the Alleghanies; music and literature are carefully fostered ; its people are noted for public spirit, vigor and push in their various enterprises; there are numerous fine parks and noble drives, and the city enjoys the reputation of being one of the most healthful and beautiful residence towns in America.
Oshkosh and La Crosse, the former with twenty- two thousand people, and the latter with twenty- five, have for many years been in close rivalry. Both are as yet essentially lumber towns, but both are gradually emerging from that stage, now that lumbering is on the decline, and are becoming mis- cellaneous manufacturing centers. Both were origi- nally famous rendezvous grounds for aborigines, and later were French fur-trading points, finally developing into thrifty American settlements.
Eau Claire, with twenty-four thousand, is almost entirely dependent upon the lumbering industry for support. Racine, having a population of twenty- one thousand, has varied manufacturing interests, chiefly in iron, lumber and agricultural machinery, and is enjoying a prosperous growth, being practi- cally a factory suburb of Chicago. Fond du Lac has twelve thousand people within its limits. It is one of the oldest settlements in the State, and
352 SINCE THE WAR.
attained its best growth as a lumber-manufacturing and iron-smelting town. After a period of decad- ence, it is now upon the upward path, with mis- cellaneous manufactures as a backing, in which sash and door mills, wagon shops, iron-working and the making of agricultural machinery chiefly figure.
Madison, with thirteen thousand inhabitants, is the State capital and is a conservative town, hav- ing a steady but not rapid growth. The State university is located here, and this and various other schools, public and private, attract a con- siderable number of teachers and pupils. There are large libraries in the town, which draw special students from many quarters. The presence of the State government and the several State and United States courts, has also a bearing upon the character of the population. Madison is the political, educational and literary center of the Commonwealth, is an important railway center and contains a few industrial plants, chiefly in the line of agricultural machinery and the printing of books for publishers in several of the large West- ern cities. Situated in the heart of the famous Four Lake country, summer tourists gather here in great numbers. Many people of assured but moderate incomes permanently locate in Madison because of its educational advantages, the preva-
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lent high social and literary tone, and the beauty of the city and its surroundings.
Sheboygan, with seventeen thousand people, is noted for its manufacture of fine dairy products and various articles of wooden ware, particularly chairs.
Janesville is a fast-growing city, with cotton, woolen and other mills, and a prosperous country trade.
Appleton houses thirteen thousand people, and is a bright, flourishing manufacturing community. Along its water-powers are planted pulp, paper and grist mills, while iron foundries and miscella- neous factories are numerous. It is the seat of Lawrence University, is a beautiful residence place, and society there takes unto itself much of the spirit of the traditional college town.
Beloit is another pretty college town, and a com- munity of delightful homes. Kenosha, Sheboygan and Manitowoc are towns along Lake Michigan, which have lumbering, fishing and other interests, together with a healthy lake commerce. Neenah is known the country over, for her great flouring mills and charming summer resorts. Waukesha, with her world-famous mineral springs ; Oconomo- woe, Pewaukee and Geneva, with their beautiful lakes; and Sparta, deep set in the western hills, with her fountains of magnetic water, attract tour- ists and invalids from all portions of the land.
354 SINCE THE WAR.
Ashland, the most popular of all Lake Superior resorts, is quite as noted within the State for her lumber mills, and as being the shipping point for the Goeebic iron mines. Merrill, Wausau, Stevens Point, Chippewa Falls and Hudson are typical lumber towns, each conscious of a brilliant future and alive with the bustle of the world. The Su- periors, particularly West Superior, which is just at present Wisconsin's pet " boom town," are com- ing to the front with seven-league boots and prom- ise to soon outrival Duluth. Everywhere along the line of Badger cities, there is abundant enter- prise and commendable progress.
Few States in the Union contain as many In- dians as Wisconsin. In 18S9 there were 9,243, not countino- the civilized Brothertowns and Stock- brid2:es who own and work their own farms in Calumet County, and have been admitted to full citizenship. In the Green Bay agency, whose res- ervations are at Keshena and Duck Creek, are the Oneidas (1,713) and the Stockbridges (138), w^ho are remnants of the New York Indians who immi- grated to Wisconsin in the time of Eleazer W^il- Hams; and the Menomonees (1,469), who are de- scendants of the " Folles Avoines " who escorted Nicolet to Green Bay, who listened to the preach- ing of Allouez at Depere, helped Langlade ensnare the soldiers of Braddock, rallied under the banner
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of France on the Plains of Abraham, and followed Hamilton to attack George Rogers Clark at Vin- cennes — the tribe whose chieftains were name- Sfivers to the cities of Oshkosh and Tomah.
The La Pointe agency has reservations at Lac du Flambeau, Lac Court d'Oreilles, Bad River and Red Cliff, in which there are gathered nearly five thousand Chippewas, the mightiest hunters of early Wisconsin, and the best-formed and most intelli- gent of the lot — offspring of the men whom Rad- isson and Groseilliers, and Marquette and Allouez found at La Pointe in the seventeenth century ; and a small band of Pottawatomies, whose fathers once held sway over Southeastern Wisconsin and were the tribesmen of Shaubena.
Another band of Pottawatomies, three hundred in number, living along the upper waters of the Wisconsin River, are homesteaders, not under agency rule. The Winnebagoes, poorest, meanest and most ill-visaged of Wisconsin Indians, are also homesteaders, living chiefly upon the sandy pine barrens in Adams, Jackson and Waushara counties.
Two notable attempts have been made by the United States Government to remove the Win- nebagoes from the State. In 1848, they were taken at considerable expense to a reservation at Long Prairie, Minn., but most of them stole away to their haunts in Wisconsin before the return
356 SINCE THE WAR.
of the commissioners who had accompanied them thither. The small proportion who remained at Long Prairie were afterwards moved to Mankato, Minn.; thence to the Crow and Creek reservations, up the Missouri River, and finally were floated down the Missouri to Dakota County, Neb., their present reservation.
In the winter of 1873, there was another attempt to move the Winnebagoes from Wisconsin. Run- ners were sent out through the woods to give the Indians notice to rendezvous at Sparta, to be shipped to Nebraska. But preferring their native woods and streams, and their free-and-easy gypsy life, to the sun-scorched reservation and the trials and turmoils of life in an agency, they declined to come in. Military assistance was then sum- moned by the removal agent, and those of the Winnebagoes who did not succeed in hiding were soon gathered at Sparta, but not without many in- stances of rough treatment on the part of some of the captors, and undue exposure to the weather of children, and old people who were unable to walk through the deep snows and had to be carried on sleds. Some of the Indians employed an attorney who vainly sought to free them on writs of habeas corpus, and much popular sympathy for the red men was created.
Several hundred Indians were successfully re
SINCE THE WAR. 357
moved, but as many more evaded pursuit and re- mained. Since that, there has been no serious effort to remove them; and in 1883 the Winne- ba^oes remaining: in the State were obli2:ed to take up homesteads, and now receive a government annuity of about fifteen dollars per head. There are some fifteen hundred of them still in the State, which is about the number now on the Nebraska reservation.
The reservation Indians in Wisconsin manasfe to pick up a living from farming, milling, the sale of their standing timber to lumbermen, and the receipt of small government annuities. The wan- derino: Winnebao;oes raise enoug^h corn for their own use ; fish and hunt throughout Southern Wis- consin, in the winter and spring; receive their an- nuities in the fall ; gather blueberries upon the wild lands of Central Wisconsin and sell them to packers at Black River Falls, Tomah and other stations, where they are crated and shipped to Chicago in large quantities; and pick cranberries on hire, for the owners of great cultivated marshes in the Black River and neighboring valleys. They are all of them — Menomonees, New York Indians, Chippewas, Pottawatomies and Winnebagoes alike — a simple-minded, improvident people who live from hand to mouth, either feasting or starving, yet managing to hold their own as to population, and
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58 SINCE THE WAR.
apparently making no progress toward the stage of civilization.
Although most of them are tinged with white blood, that condition is largely a relic of the early fur-trading days, when the woods were filled with Frenchmen who were in hail-fellowship with the red barbarians. Under the American regime, in- termarriages are few, not being countenanced by either race ; so that in the formation of our com- posite nationality — for the study of which Wiscon- sin is so interesting a field — the Indian appears to play no part.
The provisions made for the education of the children of the Commonwealth are liberal, $3,803,- 487 being expended for public educational pur- poses in 1889. The national government granted the State, as a school fund, section sixteen in each township, and five hundred thousand acres of land, besides five per cent, of the proceeds of the sale of public lands within the State. This, with some other items, goes to make up the general school fund. The income from this is supplemented by a State tax of one mill on the dollar. The com- bined amount, aggregating $770,913.52 in 1889, is apportioned each year among the towns, villages and cities in proportion to the number of children, over four years and under twenty, residing in dis- tricts which maintain schools for six or more
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months, as required by law. In addition to this, the State grants fifty thousand dollars yearly, in aid of free high schools.
Each town, village and city must raise a tax for its local schools, at least equal to the amount re- ceived from the State the preceding year. In 1889, there were 567,683 persons of school age, of whom about sixty per cent, were enrolled in the public schools. But the fact should be taken into con- sideration that in Wisconsin the school age is far- reaching. Practically the majority of children go to school when between seven and fourteen years, which are the limits of compulsory attendance. Of the children between these ages, fully eighty per cent, are enrolled in the public schools, and the greater portion of the balance may be found in the parochial or private schools.
The district, ward, high and normal schools are under the charge of the State, the system of popu- lar education being crowned by the State Univer- sity at Madison. This institution was organized at the time Wisconsin entered the Union, in 1848. While deriving some aid from the general govern- ment— in consideration of its training its pupils in military tactics and conducting an agricultural experiment station — the chief income of the Uni- versity is now derived from a State tax of one eighth of a mill on the dollar.
360 SINCE THE WAR.
The college year of 1890-91, showed an attend- ance of about eight hundred pupils in all of the departments, which include a college of law, schools of pharmacy and mining, railroad and electrical engineering, and short and long courses in agricul- ture, in addition to the usual academic and scien- tific courses. The grounds of the University are upon a rolling ridge of land along the shores of Lake Mendota, and are not excelled in natural beauty by those of any college in America.
The institution passed through some critical periods, in its earlier years, before the people of the State became educated to an appreciation of its importance ; but it has now passed that stage, and to-day is recognized by every intelligent citizen as worthy of the liberal support which is now awarded it. The buildings and equipments are among the best in the Mississippi basin, and the quality of the work performed is unexcelled among the State universities of the country. The regents of the University have under their charge two important branches of work which are popular extensions of the University system; a teachers' institute lecture- ship, and farmers' institutes.
The system of farmers' institutes is unique in Wisconsin. The regents, represented by an expert superintendent, hold institutes at various places throughout the State — about fifty in number, be-
1
SINCE THE WAR. 36 1
tween the months of November and April inclu- sive — at wliich the farmers who are in attendance are instructed in the various branches of agricult- ure, by means of lectures, discussions and exhibi- tions of appliances and methods.
The sum of twelve thousand dollars per year is appropriated by the legislature for this purpose. Some of the best experts in the country are em- ployed as lecturers and leaders in discussion, and the attendance is invariably large and enthusiastic. A traveling agricultural college, brought to the homes of the people, it has not only had the effect to create great popular interest in the rural com- munities, to develop local talent, and to lead to the introduction of improved systems of farming, but there is already noticeable, as a direct outgrowth of this important educational awakening, a re- newed concern in the proper conduct of the district schools, and an enlarged conception of the useful- ness of the State University. The farmers' insti- tutes are causing the farmers to think, and think rightly. The intellectual and material benefits al- ready noticeable, direct and indirect, must, under a continuance of the present wise management, in- crease as the years go on.
The principal Protestant denominational col- leges in Wisconsin are at Beloit (Congregational, established in 1846), Appleton (Lawrence Univer-
362 SINCE THE WAR.
sity, Methodist, 1847), Ripon (Congregational, 1853), Racine (Protestant Episcopal, 1852), Milton (Seventh-Day Baptist, 1844), Fox Lake (Downer Female College, Congregational and Presbyterian, 1S53), Watertown (Northwestern University, Lu- theran, 1865) and Waukesha (Carroll College, Pres- byterian, 1846). The Milwaukee College (1848) is unsectarian, and for women only. The Catholics support Pio Nono (1871) at St. Francis; Marquette (Jesuit, 1864) at Milwaukee, and Saint Clara (1848) at Sinsinawa Mound, besides numerous academies. Among Wisconsin's notable institutions, is the State Historical Society. Born in 1849, and pass- ing through many an early crisis, it stands to-day without a rival west of the Alleghanies, as an agency for the gathering and preservation of mate- rials for Western history. It has — largely through the efforts of Lyman C. Draper, who was secre- tary for thirty-two years — accumulated a reference library of one hundred and thirty-five thousand volumes, the best and largest scholars' library in the Mississippi basin ; and in its leading specialty, Americana, is only excelled by the library of Har- vard College and the New York State library at Albany. Its library, museum, portrait gallery, and offices occupy three fioors of the large south wing of the State House, at Madison, and it is estimated that forty thousand persons visit the museum
SINCE THE WAE. 363
annually. The Society is the chartered trustee of the Commonwealth, and is in correspondence with the leading learned institutions of America and Europe. The library is a favorite haunt for the students of the State University, and is resorted to by literary workers from all parts of the West. The University itself has a general library of six- teen thousand volumes ; and the State Law Library of twenty thousand volumes, also in the Capitol, and open to the students of the University law school, is one of the largest of its class in the West.
Wisconsin's State charitable, reformatory and penal institutions, under the care of the State Board of Supervision, consist of two insane hospitals (near Madison and Oshkosh) having a joint population, the first of August, 1890, of one thousand one hun- dred and twenty-three ; the School for the Deaf, at Delavan, with one hundred and eighty-four in- mates; the School for the Blind, at Janesville, eighty-one ; the Industrial School for Boys, at Wau- kesha, four hundred and twenty-three; the State Prison, at Waupun, five hundred and twenty -four, and the State Public School, at Sparta, two hun- dred and sixty-seven. The Industrial School for Girls, at Milwaukee, wuth two hundred inmates, and the Milwaukee Hospital for the Insane, with two hundred and forty-nine, arc also assisted by the State. The State Public School is in imita-
n
64 SINCE THE WAR.
tion of the Michigran institution bearing the same name. It receives dependent children who would otherwise generally go to the poor-houses. These children are placed for rearing, as soon as possible, in private families where they are looked after by a State agent appointed for the purpose. In Wis- consin, no children are allowed to be brought up in poor-houses.
The State Board of Charities and Reform has visitorial- powers over all institutions — private or public. State, county or municipal — where the dependent or criminal classes are cared for or con- fined. The Board has especial charge of a unique system of open-door county asylums for chronic insane, inaugurated in 1881. There are now twenty of these institutions, and the number is gradually increasing; the aggregate number of in- mates on the first day of August, 1890, was one thousand seven hundred and nine. None of them has capacity for over one hundred, an essential feature of the plan being, small asylums on large farms, thus providing opportunity for liberty and occupation. Much more than three fourths of the inmates have some regular daily labor, and over two fifths are employed the entire day. By thus keeping the minds of the insane occupied with their work, the amount of mechanical restraint and seclusion combined is less than one tenth of one
SINCE THE WAR. 365
per cent.; in other words, about one inmate in a thousand is under restraint each day, in the Wis- consin county asylums. The doors of these asy- lums stand open all day long, and every inmate has liberty to go in and out at pleasure, if remain- ing in the vicinity of the buildings, while fully one half are on parole to go anywhere, without an at- tendant. The cost of maintenance under this hu- mane system is greatly reduced by the products of the farm raised by the aid of insane labor ; while, such are the beneficent mental and physical effects of liberty and occupation, that a considerable num- ber of the alleged chronic insane absolutely recover and the condition of all is greatly improved. The State Board of Charities and Reform exercises close and active supervision over these county in- stitutions ; the buildings must be constructed on plans approved by the Board, and unless an asylum has the Board's certificate that it has been properly managed during the year, it cannot draw the State aid so essential to its existence. The Board has power to transfer to the county asylums chronic insane patients from the State hospitals and other places ; and it has exercised its authority to thus transfer a large number from jails and poor-houses, and also from private families where they were im- properly treated. To-day, there are only about twenty insane persons in the poor-houses of the
366 SINCE THE WAR.
State, and none in the jails. This Wisconsin method of caring for the chronic insane, gave rise when first introduced to sharp criticism from spe- cialists in other States; but eight years of experi- ence has convinced the critics that it has accom- plished all that was claimed for it. While several county asylums have been inaugurated in other States, nowhere else is there exercised that efficient State control which is the life of the Wisconsin method. Wisconsin provides a comfortable home for every insane person within her borders, and has room to spare in her institutions ; I am im- formed by those who should know, that this can be truthfully said of no other State in the Union.
The Wisconsin Veterans' Home, at Waupaca, is another institution which has some unique features. It is managed by the Wisconsin department of the Grand Army of the Republic, but is liberally aided by the State. Conducted on the cottage plan, its present capacity is for two hundred inmates. Not only are indigent loyal veterans of the War of Secession cared for, but the wives and widows of soldiers are also received, and to each couple is assigned a neat two-room cottage. The location of the Home is healthful and beautiful.
There are also in Wisconsin the usual number of orphan asylums, hospitals, homes for the aged and other private benevolent institutions, which
SINCE THE WAR. 367
are for the most part under ecclesiastical control ; all, however, are regularly inspected and reported upon by the State Board of Charities and Reform.
CHAPTER XIII.
PROGRESS FROM 189O TO 1 898.
the federal census of 1890 Wisconsin was given a population of 1,686,880; but so great had been the growth during the few succeeding years, espe- cially in the northern counties, that the State census of 1895 increased this to 1,937,915 ; and of course the next Federal census, in 1900, will show that the State possesses considerably over two mil- lions of inhabitants, of whom somewhat over a fourth will be foreign born, chiefly Germans and Scandinavians. In 1895 it was found that the largest cities were, in the order named, Milwaukee (249,290), La Crosse (28,769), Oshkosh (26,947), Superior (26,128), Racine (24,889), and Sheboygan (21,130) ; possibly the count in 1900 may discover that there have meanwhile been some changes in
these relative positions.
368
J'J?OGJ?ESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 369
A line drawn westward from Green Bay to the mouth of the St. Croix River, and deflecting suffi- ciently southward to include Portage, Wood, and Jackson counties, will divide the State into what is popularly known as its northern and southern di- visions. In northern Wisconsin are twenty-seven counties, with a land area of about fifty-three per cent of the entire State. Originally this vast tract was almost entirely covered by an uninterrupted forest, extendinof from Michig-an throuofh Wisconsin into Minnesota. The greater part of this was a mixed forest of white pine and hard woods, with a preponderance of pine towards Lake Superior, and fading into oak-openings and prairies on the south. Logging has been carried on upon a large scale in this forest for about forty years, with the result that there has been some cutting in nearly every township, and nearly one-half of the region has now been practically deforested. Much of this deforested portion has already been occupied by settlers, and some of it (on hard-wood lands) has proved to be highly productive.
The State does much to encourage settlement in Northern Wisconsin, by means of illustrated pamphlets describing the region and its possibili- ties ; while a State immigration commissioner, and the land departments of several railway companies, are actively engaged in inducing foreigners to take
370 PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
up and clear farms in districts where not long ago wild animals held undisputed sway in the heart of the great forest. The result is, that Wisconsin has recently had her greatest relative growth in her northern counties, which are now fairly sprinkled with settlers, and abound in little hamlets of recent origin, while many of the hamlets of the previous decade have now developed into little cities large with possibilities.
The question is often put, " How long will lumber- ing continue to be, next to agriculture, Wisconsin's greatest industry?" Some good judges estimate that within fifteen years the end of pine logging will have practically been reached, and pine is still the principal cut. The saw-milling industry alone employs capital amounting to over $84,000,000, or more than an eic^hth of the entire assessed valua- tion of the State. These establishments pay $700,- 000 a year in taxes, distribute over $15,000,000 a year in wages to 55,000 men (many of them set- lers in the northern woods), and put out an annual product valued at $50,000,000 ; while secondary industries, such as planing and pulp mills, furni- ture, cooperage, wooden-ware, and carriage and car shops, have a yearly output estimated at $20,- 000,000. It will therefore be seen that the ques- tion is an important one in the economic history of the State. But while the end is in sight for
PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 37 1
the pine-loggers, It must be remembered that com- paratively little has been done in the matter of hard woods ; at the present rate of cut, it is thought that hard-wood lumbering " can be continued for more than fifty years, unless settlement and conse- quent clearing should progress at a very unusual pace."
It must not be supposed that thinking men in Wisconsin view with entire complacency this de- struction of the forests by lumbermen. Logging operations leave the ground encumbered with dead branches and other inflammable waste ; loggers, hunters, and settlers set fires, which, lit without thought of harm, are too often allowed to run, inflicting terrible devastation, destroying the light forest soil, and often rendering the burned district barren. Extensive conflagrations of this character raged through the woods of our northern counties in 1894 and 1898, inflicting vast losses in property and lives. It is estimated that four-fifths of the denuded cut-over lands are now " unproductive waste-land, and will probably remain so for a long time." * Not only this, but the forest acts as a sponge to retain rainfalls, and regulate the flow of its rivers. With the trees removed, rivers and lakes tend gradually to dry up, and temperature and rain-
* F. Roth, " Forestry Conditions of Northern Wisconsin," Bull. No. i, JViscemsin Geological and Natural History Survey, 1898.
372 PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
fall become erratic. The State Forestry Commission and the State Geological and Natural History Survey are now calling the attention of the people of Wis- consin to the dangfers which follow a deforested con- clition ; and legislation will doubtless soon be had regulating the methods of logging, appointing offi- cers to care for existing forests and prevent the spread of fires, and providing for the acquiring by the State, and the replanting, of large tracts, which are probably useless for aught else than the growth of forest trees. It is expected that, by means of this restocking and careful forestry regulations, possible under a system of State ownership of forests, Wisconsin may reap rich rewards in the future, and indefinitely prolong her lumbering in- dustry.
Within the past ten years all State institutions have grown in size and capacity, several new insti- tutions have been inaugurated, and some changes in method have been made. The State Board of Charities and Reform, whose work is described on pp. 364-366, has been abolished by the legislature ; so also the State Board of Supervision referred to on p. 360. The work of both these bodies has been invested in a new State Board of Control ; and to the several State institutions under its care have recently been added, an institution for the Feeble-Minded, at Chippewa Falls (opened in
PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 373
1897), and a State Reformatory at Green Bay (opened August i, 1898).
When The Story of Wisconsi?i was first pub- lished, there were but five State normal schools ; there are now seven, one having been opened in 1894 at Stevens Point, and another in 1896 at Superior ; the total enrollment of pupils is nearly four thousand. All of these schools are now thor- oughly equipped, and are thought to be among the best of their kind in the United States. The State University at Madison has made giant strides, and now enrolls nearly two thousand stu- dents ; many new buildings have been added, new equipments purchased, and the faculty greatly strengthened. Among the denominational colleges of the State, Beloit has taken on the largest rela- tive growth, and now welcomes to its halls stu- dents of both sexes. There are within the State over eight thousand public schoolhouses, with a seating capacity of about four hundred and eighty thousand, nearly always taxed to its utmost ; and iKtarly thirteen thousand teachers are employed.
The State Fish Commission has opened hatch- eries at Oshkosh and Bayfield, which, in addition to the central hatchery at Madison, stock both the great lakes and the inland waters of the State with innumerable fry. Wisconsin's fishing industry is of much importance. Upon the Wisconsin waters
374 PJi OGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
of Lakes Michigan and Superior, and Green Bay, there is invested in the fisheries a capital of about a milHon dollars, and employment is given to fif- teen hundred people. In the interior lakes and rivers an immense business is also done by fisher- men ; while many thousands of tourists are annually attracted to the State because of its great resources of fish and game.
The progress of Wisconsin in the field of free public libraries has been remarkable within the past few years. Recent library legislation in the State has been of a progressive character, for which the State Free Library Commission, organized in 1896, is largely responsible. Free circulating libraries, organized under State law, and supported by local taxation, are now established in forty-six cities. In twenty-two other cities and villages similar libraries are maintained, either by individuals, associations, or school-boards. There are twenty-five public sub- scription libraries ; while most of the high schools and rural school districts of the State now possess well-selected libraries, many of which are acces- sible to the general public. It is an interesting fact that about forty thousand dollars is, by law, annually reserved from the State school-fund in- come, for the purchase of books for the libraries of the rural school districts alone. The State uni- versity and normal schools, and the several private
FHOGJiESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 375
and denominational academies and colleges of Wis- consin, are for the most part equipped with excel- lent collections of books. The State Law Library, in the Capitol, is one of the best of its kind in the West ; and the Reference Library of the State Historical Society at Madison, also owned by the State, has a national reputation as a great literary workshop.
In addition to all these localized collections, Wisconsin possesses several systems of traveling libraries, instituted by public-spirited citizens of wealth ; little libraries of fifty judiciously selected volumes are sent out from convenient centers, among the hamlets and farming communities, chiefly of north and central Wisconsin, and when read are exchanged for others. The systems, al- though supported by philanthropic individuals, are under the expert management of the State Free Library Commission. The traveling libraries are received with eagerness by the people in these isolated districts, which hitherto have been almost wholly deprived of reading-matter; and " the Wis- consin plan," as it is called, has within the past year been adopted in several other States.
Several of the free city libraries now own their own homes, the most noteworthy being those at Menasha, Menomonie (Memorial), La Crosse, Beaver Dam, and Milwaukee. The beautiful Mil-
IT^ PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
waukee building, which also houses the public museum, was opened in October, 1898, and cost nearly six hundred thousand dollars ; a like sum will be expended by the State upon the substantial home of the State Historical Society, now in pro- cess of construction at Madison.
The various observances of the State's semi- centennial have been in every way creditable to the commonwealth. The Act of Congress admitting Wisconsin to the Union of States was approved by President Polk, May 29, 1848. As the fiftieth anniversary of that day, in 1898, fell on Sunday, and the following Monday was Memorial Day, it was decided to observe Saturday, the 28th. Act- ing upon the suggestion of the State Historical Society, numerous local celebrations were held at county seats and other centrally located towns ; these chiefly partook of the character of reunions of local pioneers, enlivened by papers and speeches of an historical character. At several of these meetings steps were taken for the organization of permanent local historical societies to cooperate with the State society.
Wisconsin's first State offtcers took the oath of office, and commenced their duties on the seventh of June, 1848. The fiftieth anniversary of this actual birth of the State was made the occasion for a three days' celebration at Madison, the cap-
AT THE END OF THE CENTURY.
PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 379
ital, lasting through the seventh, eighth, and ninth of June. The programme consisted chiefly of re- unions,— of the women of the State, its editors, its lawyers, its ministers of the gospel, county and city officials, pioneers who had dwelt in the Territory of Wisconsin (prior to June 7, 1848), survivors of the conventions which framed the constitution of the State, and students of Wisconsin history. These several conventions were interlarded, chiefly in the evenings, with general meetings of the people, addressed by distinguished orators ; while war-song concerts, public parades, boat-races, and fireworks were also features of the celebration. The atten- dance at Madison during the three beautiful days was very large, and representative of all sections of the State. The result was greatly to stimulate public interest in the history of Wisconsin, and in general to fire the patriotic impulse of her people. But this did not end the celebration. Mil- waukee, as the metropolis of the State, wished specifically to illustrate the splendid progress she had made during the fifty years of statehood, in which she had grown from the condition of an insignificant frontier village to that of a well-built and prosperous city of three hundred thousand inhabitants. During the week ending July second, a brilliant carnival was held there, partaking not only of the standard features of such an event, as
380 FJ^OGjRESS from 1890 TO 1898.
seen yearly in New Orleans and St. Louis, but enriched with an industrial and commercial pro- cession of an historical character. Milwaukee was during the week crowded with visitors from all over the Middle West.
While Milwaukee was thus jubilant, the third city of the State, Oshkosh, was in the throes of a gi- gantic strike which threatened to sap its energies. The chief industries of Oshkosh are wood-working, — saw-milling, sash and doors, carriages, furniture, etc. In June, 1898, differences arose between the thousands of wood-workers and their employers upon the old questions of time and wages, and a general strike was inaugurated. Rioting ensued, with some bloodshed ; State troops were summoned to quell the disturbance, and during the fourteen weeks of the strike there was much display of bad feeling. Finally, towards the close of August, a compromise brought peace, but only after great loss to the workingmen in wages lost, and to the mill-owners and merchants in trade ruined for the season.
The part taken by Wisconsin in the Spanish- American war of 1898 reflected credit upon the State. Wisconsin's militia system being among the best in the country, and its members eager to enlist, the State's quota was almost entirely made up therefrom ; and five days after the call of April
PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 38 1
21, three regiments of infantry — the first two almost thoroughly equipped, and the third in fair condition — were encamped upon the State fair grounds (Camp Harvey), near Milwaukee. May 14 the Third Regiment, 1,030 strong (Colonel M. T. Moore), was sent to Camp Thomas, at Chick- amauga, joining the First Brigade, First Division, Department of the Gulf, under General J. H. Wil- son ; two days later the Second, with 1,028 men (Colonel C. A. Born), was also forwarded to Camp Thomas, to join the Second Brigade of the same division ; on the twenty-third the First Regiment, numbering 1,025 (Colonel S. P. Shadel), was sent to Camp Cuba Libre, at Jacksonville, Fla. Later, under the president's second call for troops (May 25), about three hundred new recruits were added to each of these three regiments ; while a fourth, numbering 1,300 men (Colonel H. M. Seaman), and a battery of 109 members (Captain B. H. Dalley), were added to the State's quota, making a total of 5,390 men enlisted from Wisconsin for the war.
The Fourth Regiment and the battery were ordered to the State's permanent military camp. Camp Douglas, in Juneau County, and there re- mained until the close of the war, when they were ordered to Alabama, to prepare to join the army of occupation in the West Indies. Curiously enough, although the First was the best equipped and best
382 FEOGJiESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
drilled, it also was obliged to remain in camp (at Jacksonville) throughout the entire contest, owing to the fact that its colonel was outranked in senior- ity by the commanders of the Second and Third. General Fitzhugh Lee, to whose division the First was assigned, entered a special plea to have the regiment retained for the army of occupation ; but owing to the length of its sick-roll, it was mustered out upon request of Governor Scofield of Wis- consin.
Upon the twenty-first of July, the Second and Third sailed from Charleston, S.C., with General Miles, for Porto Rico, arrived at Guanico the twenty-fifth, and three days later prominently par- ticipated in the peaceful capture of Ponce. With the Sixteenth Pennsylvania, they were selected as the advance guard of the army, and until the close of the war were almost daily engaged in brushes with the enemy. Detachments from both regi- ments figured conspicuously in the dashing road- clearing raids northward towards San Juan, under General Roy Stone.
One of the exciting experiences of the campaign was had by Lieutenant Percy Cochrane, of Co. E of the Third, who with seventeen of his men — all from Eau Claire — was sent forward upon the twenty-seventh, the day previous to the fall of Ponce, to capture the little inland town of Yauco,
PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 3^
1
some twenty miles westward, and open up the rail- way which connected it with Ponce. It was a perilous trip, over mined railway tracks, but was successfully accomplished, the detachment holding the town and its defenses until reenforcements could arrive the following day.
Another daring expedition was made by a party of Sheboygan men of the Second, a few days after Ponce was captured. The Sheboygan company was guarding a detachment of road-repairing en- gineers on the San Juan road, far in the interior. The Spanish soldiers, having fled from several towns along the way, took a stand at Lares, eighteen miles into the heart of the mountains. Thither Lieutenant Bodemer, four privates, and a bugler, were dispatched with a flag of truce to demand their surrender. They met with a warm reception at the hands of the infuriated Spaniards, being only saved by the officers of the enemy, who finally agreed to listen to native commissioners ; when natives were sent to them with the American terms the following day, the latter were set upon, and all murdered save one, who escaped to tell the story. Bodemer's party were highly complimented by General Stone for their excellent conduct during the expedition, which extended to within ten miles of the north coast.
Upon the ninth of August the Spaniards made
384 PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
a stand at Coamo, where there was a sharp fight, in which a battaHon of the Third Wisconsin took active part ; both the Second and Third were among the troops which finally entered the town, and raised the American flag. Two days later, both regiments were engaged in the fierce skirmish at the mountain pass of Asomanta, near Aibonito ; at the latter place were a force of 2,500 Spanish. In this afl"air, which was the final engagement between Americans and Spanish in Porto Rico, — for the peace protocol was signed on the following day, and the war declared closed, — the Second Wis- consin was the last regiment in conflict ; to it fell the honor of the final sacrifice, having lost two men killed and two wounded (of Co. L) — the only field casualties sustained by Wisconsin during the war. Its losses by death resulting from camp dis- eases were about seventy-five, chiefly from the First, which suffered far more from the unsanitary conditions of the camp at Jacksonville than it would have done if actually engaged at the front.
When at last, in September, Wisconsin's brave and self-sacrificing volunteers returned from the perils of camp and field, they were royally wel- comed home by their appreciative fellow-citizens, — at first in Milwaukee by regiments, and later by companies in their respective towns.
PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898. 385
Wisconsin thus closes the golden jubilee of her statehood in something of a flare of glory. She entered the Union at a time when there was much economic unrest in Europe, with consequent politi- cal uprising and enforced emigration. Germans of the sturdiest type in vast numbers poured into the new Western State, and early gave to its pol- icy a substantial, conservativ^e tone ; Scandinavians soon flocked in, adding another valuable Teutonic element ; and then came the Swiss, the Cornish, and many more nationalities, which, uniting with the New Eno-land and New York settlers of Terri- torial and later days, built up a composite society, which for strength of fiber, soundness of tempera- ment, elevation of ideals, is unexcelled among American commonwealths. Wisconsin thus enters upon her second half century with brilliant pros- pects for the future along every line of develop- ment,— material, intellectual, and moral.
The historic Northwest will ere long be recog- nized as the chief seat of political interest in the American Union. It is here that wealth and politi- cal power are fast centering ; here that the largest measure of progress and prosperity is to be found ; here that the strength of the nation is being gen- erated ; here that the most intricate problems of modern statesmanship are to be solved. In this approaching ascendancy of the Northwest, Wis-
386 PROGRESS FROM 1890 TO 1898.
consin may be relied upon to play an important part. With a romantic and inspiring history, reaching- through two and a half centuries ; with a population embracing some of the best elements of the Caucasian race ; with abundant natural re- sources ; with wealth, enterprise, and culture ; situ- ated at the key-point between the two greatest water systems on the continent ; lined with busy railroads ; her cities bustling with varied indus- tries ; imbued with the spirit of nineteenth-century progress, — Wisconsin is destined to become one of the greatest of American States, as it is already one of the most healthful, beautiful, and fertile.
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THE STORY OF WISCONSIN
TOLD IN CHRONOLOGICAL EPITOME.
Mountains as lofty as the Himalayas of our day are thought to have occupied the plains of Central Wisconsin while but little else of the American continent had yet risen from the ancient ocean, and while most of Europe was still submerged. Interesting thus early in her career, Wisconsin has, since the coming of man, been the theater of events which have their value to the archaeologist, ethnologist and historian.
THE ERA OF BEGINNINGS.
All over Wisconsin, particularly along the shores of her lakes, great and small, upon her river benches and crowning the summits of her rugged hill- tops, are the curious earth-works which we ascribe to the "Mound-builders." As to their age, there is a wide difference of opinion among scientific observers. As to who the " Mound-builders " were, there is abundant room for individual speculation. It is, however, the opinion of the most careful experts, and the theory accepted by the United .States Ethnological Bureau, that the mounds are not the product of a race of people now extinct, as has been so long believed, but that they were built by the ancestors of existing tribes of Indians — in Wisconsin, the Dakotas, of whom the present Winnebagoes are the lineal descendants; and that while many of the mounds, particularly those in the form of animals, are doubtless of great antiquity, possibly several thousands of years of age, others are of compara- tively recent construction — probably a generation or two earlier than the arrival of the first French explorers.
Nearly two thousand implements and ornaments of hardened copper — chiefly knives, axes, spear and arrow-heads, drills, awls, beads and amulets — have been picked up in Wisconsin, chiefly in the lake-shore counties and on the banks of inland lakes in the southern section of the State, and some- times in mounds that are apparently ancient. Here again, archaeologists are not at all in unison. Some maintain that these articles were fashioned ages ago, and that the art of hardening copper has been lost to the world ; while others there are who believe them but little older than the F"rench occupation — and some have been so bold as to claim that the first French- men who visited Lake Superior taught to the Indians the art of working the metal, just as other Frenchmen are known to have initiated the natives in the art of lead-working. There is no sure foundation in the study of Wis- consin archaeology, when the doctors thus disagree. We only know that
388 ERA OF DISCOVERY.
nowhere else in the United States have so many prehistoric copper imple- ments been found — many of them identical in shape with those found in Ireland and Switzerland ; and in no other State are there so many interest- ing forms of prehistoric mounds.
THE ERA OF DISCOVERY.
Wisconsin being at the head of the Great Lakes and embracing several of the most important portages connecting the water system of the Great Lakes with that of the Mississippi River, her geographical character was made known to the French authorities at Quebec quite early in the seven- teenth century. But it was not until the year 1634 that an agent of New France was sent thither, in the person of Jean Nicolet; he being, so far as historical records show, the first white man to set foot upon the territory out of which Wisconsin was formed.
1634. The country was explored by Jean Nicolet, from Lake Michigan, for a considerable distance up the Fox River.
1658. Sieur Radisson and Sieur des Groseilliers, two French fur-traders, visited the Green Bay region and wintered among the Pottawatomies.
1659. Radisson and Groseilliers went up Fox River, in the spring, and spent four months in explorations along Wisconsin streams. It is thought that they descended the Wisconsin River and saw the Mississippi.
i66r. Radisson and Groseilliers arrived at Chequamegon Bay in the early winter and built a stockade near where Ashland now is. They spent the winter in wandering through northwest Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota.
1662. Radisson and Groseilliers built, in the spring, a new fort at Oak Point, on Chequamegon Bay. In June, a Jesuit missionary, Rene Menard, accompanied by his servant, Jean Guerin, proceeded from Keweenaw Point to the source of Black River, probably via Green Bay and the Fox, Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. Menard lost his life on the Black River.
1665. Father Claude Allouez established the mission of La Pointe, on Chequamegon Bay.
1669. Allouez established a mission on the shores of Green Bay, finally locating at De Pere in 1671.
1670. Allouez made a voyage up Fox River to the present limits of Green Lake county.
1671. The French took formal possession of the whole Northwest, which act was confirmed in 1689.
1673. Louis Joiiet, accompanied by Father James Marquette, discovered the Upper Mississippi, at Prairie du Chien. Sieur Raudin, representing La Salle, visited the western extremity of Lake Superior, to open the fur trade.
1674. Marquette coasted Lake Michigan, from Green Bay, via Milwaukee Bay to the site of the present city of Chicago.
ERA OF DISCOVERY. 389
1679. The Griffin, a schooner built by La Salle, and the first to make a voyage of the lakes above Niagara, arrived at the mouth of Green Bay. La Salle made a canoe voyage along the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan, from Green Bay to Chicago. Daniel Grayson du Lhut (Duluth) ascended St. Louis River, held a council, and concluded a peace with the natives west of Lake Superior.
1680. Du Lhut voyaged from Lake Superior to the Mississippi River, by ascending the Bois Brule'and descending the St. Croix. F'ather Louis Hennep-in ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, returning, in company with Du Lhut, over the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, to Green Bay.
i68r. Marquette's journal and map of his travels and explorations in the Northwest were published in France.
1683. Le Sueur made a voyage of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi.
1685. Nicholas Perrot, who had been at Green Bay as early as 1669, was appointed "commandant of the West." He proceeded over the Fox- Wisconsin river route to the Upper Mississippi, spending the winter at a point near the present village of Trempealeau. In 1686 and in later years he established posts on Lake Pepin and near the mouth of the Wisconsin.
1689. Baron la Hon tan claimed to have penetrated the Wisconsin wijds, this year, by the Fox- Wisconsin route, and to have made extensive dis- coveries on the Upper Mississippi.
1693-95. Military posts established by Le Sueur, on Chequamegon Bay and on an island in the Mississippi, guarding the mouth of the St. Croi.\.
1699. Father St. Cosme voyaged along the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan. He visited the site of Milwaukee, October 7.
1700. Le Sueur discovers lead mines in southwestern Wisconsin. 1706-07. Marin attacked the Fox Indians at Winnebago Rapids (Neenah). 1712. The Wisconsin Foxes, instigated by the Iroquois, besieged Detroit. 1716. De Louvigny's battle with the Fox Indians at Butte des Morts.
1718. We find mention of French being at Green Bay. Saint Pierre is sent to La Pointe to induce the Chippewas not to make war on the Fo.xes, and to makepeace between the Chippewas and the Sioux, with whom the Foxes were allied.
1719. Francis Renalt explored the Upper Mississippi with two hundred miners.
1718-21. Fort St. Francis established at Green Bay on the present site of Fort Howard. Father Charlevoix visits Green Bay.
1725. Father Chardon, missionary at Green Bay, reports that the Foxes refuse to let the French traders pass over the Fox-Wisconsin river to go to the Sioux country.
1726. The Cardinells settle temporarily at Prairie du Chien. De Lignery makes a treaty with the Sacs, Foxes and Winnebagoes, permitting the French to pass through Wisconsin to trade with the Sioux at the west side of Lake Pepin.
39° ERA OF COLONIZATION.
1727. The French establish Fort Beauharnois on Lake Pepin, with Sieur de la Perriere as commandant.
1728. A great flood in the Mississippi, and Fort Beauharnois submerged. A French expedition under De Lignery, fro.n Michillimackinac, punishes the Sacs and Foxes. Fort St. Francis destroyed, to prevent its falling into the hands of the Indians.
1730. Marin, commanding among the Menomonees. repels the Foxes and later in the year De Villiers vanquishes the tribe.
1734. A battle between the French and the Sacs and Foxes.
1735. Legardeur Saint Pierre commands at Lake Pepin.
1737. Saint Pierre evacuates his post, having heard from La Pointe of the massacre of the Verendrye party at the Lake of the Woods.
1742. The French distribute presents to the Sacs and Foxes.
1749. The younger Marin stationed at La Pointe.
1752. He commands at Lake Pepin.
1754. Marin, now in command at Green Bay, made a peace with the Lidians. De Villiers, of Fox-war fame, defeats Washington at Fort Necessity.
1756. Marin, commandant at Green Bay, and probably Hertel de Beau- bassin, commandant at La Pointe, took part with De Villiers in operations against the English in New York.
1758. Menomonees killed eleven Frenchmen at Green Bay and pillaged a storehouse.
1760. The fall of New France, leaving Wisconsin in possession of England.
1761. Captain Belfour and Lieutenant Gorrell, with English troops, took possession of Green Bay.
1763. The English, under Lieutenant Gorrell, abandoned Green Bay in consequence of the Indian war under Pontiac. Treaty of Paris, by which New France, including Wisconsin, was formally surrendered to the English.
1765. Henry, an English trader, re-opened the Indian trade on Chequa- megon Bay.
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION.
1766. By this year, the Langlades and other white traders had permanently settled at Green Bay —the first white people to call Wisconsin their home. Jonathan Carver, a famous traveler, visited Wisconsin.
1774. Civil government was established over Canada and the Northwest by the " Quebec Act."
1777-78. Indians from Wisconsin, under Langlade and Gautier, join the British against the Americans.
1779. Gautier leads a band of Wisconsin Indians against Peoria. Captain Robertson, of the British sloop " Felicity," made a voyage of reconnois- sance around Lake Michigan, inducing traders and Indians to support the English.
ERA OF COLONIZATfON. 391
1780. Wisconsin Indians attack St. Louis and Cahokia. John Long, an English trader, visits Green Bay and Prairie du Chien.
1781. Lieutenant-Governor Patrick Sinclair, of Mackinaw, purchased Green Bay, Prairie du Chien and the intervening territory from the Indians, which purchase was not confirmed by the American government. The settlement of Prairie du Chien was commenced by Bazil Giard, Augustin Ange and Pierre Antaya.
1786. Julian Dubuque explored the lead region of the Upper Mississippi.
1788. At an Indian council at Green Bay, permission to work the lead mines was given to Dubuque.
1789. Jean Baptiste Mirandeau is alleged to have settled at Milwaukee. 1793. Lawrence Barth built a cabin at the portage of the Fox and
Wisconsin rivers, and engaged in the carrying trade.
^795- Jacques Vieau established trading posts at Kewaunee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc and Milwaukee.
1796. The western posts surrendered by the English to the United States, and the ordinance of [787 extended over the whole Northwest.
1800. Indiana territory organized, including Wisconsin.
1803. Charles Reaume appointed magistrate at Green Bay, by Governor William Henry Harrison, of Indiana.
1804. Indian treaty at St. Louis ; a portion of southern Wisconsini including the lead region, purchased.
1805. Michigan territory organized.
1809. Thomas Nuttall, the botanist, and John Bradbury, the naturalist, explored Wisconsin. Wilson P. Hunt and Ramsay Crooks passed through Wisconsin with the land expedition destined to found Astoria, Oregon. Illinois territory was organized, including nearly all of Wisconsin.
1812. Indians assembled at Green Bay to join the English.
1813. Governor Clarke took possession of Prairie du Chien, and built Fort Shelby.
1814. Fort Shelby surrendered to the British, under Colonel McKay.
1815. United States trading post established at Green Bay.
1816. Indian treaty confirming that of 1S04. John Jacob Astor reestab- lishes the American P"ur Company at Mackinaw, with branches in Wisconsin. United States troops took possession of Prairie du Chien, and commenced the erection of Fort Crawford. Colonel Miller commenced the erection of Fort Howard, at Green Bay.
1818. Illinois was admitted into the Union. Wisconsin was attached to Michigan territory. Brown, Crawford and Michillimackinac counties were organized in the territory of Michigan, which embraced in their boundaries besides other territory, the whole of the present State of Wisconsin. Solo- mon Juneau arrived at Milwaukee.
1820. United States commissioners adjusted land claims at Green Bay.
1822. The New York Indians purchased lands east of Lake Winnebago. James Johnson obtained from the Indians the right to dig for lead with negro slaves from Kentucky.
392
ERA OF FORMATION.
1823. Counties of Brown, Crawford and Michillimackinac made a sep arate judicial district by Congress. First steamboat on tlie upper Missis- sippi, with Major Taliafero and Count Beltrami. Lieutenant Bayfield, of tl\e British navy, made a survey of Lake Superior. An Episcopal mission established near Green Bay.
THE ERA OF FORMATION.
1824. First term of United States circuit court held at Green Bay; James D. Doty, judge — October 4. Judge Doty commenced agitation in behalf of territorial formation.
1826. First steamboat on Lake Michigan.
1827. A rush of speculators to the lead mines, and leases by govern- ment to miners. Red Bird uprising. Treaty with the Menomonee Indians at Butte des Morts — August 11.
1823. Fort Winnebago built at " the portage." Indian treaty at Green Bay; the lead regions purchased. Lead ore discovered at Mineral Point and Dodgeville.
1829. A Methodist mission established at Green Bay.
1830. The Sioux killed seventeen Sacs and Foxes near Prairie du Chien
— May.
1832. Black Hawk War. The Sac leader invades Illinois at Yellow
Banks April 6. Defeat of whites at Stillman's creek — May 14. Battle
of Wisconsin Heights — July 21. Battle of Bad Axe and defeat of Black Hawk — August 2. Public lands in the lead region surveyed.
1833. Indian treaty at Chicago; lands south and west of Milwaukee ceded to the Government — September 26. American settlement began at Milwaukee in the fall of this year. First newspaper, " Green Bay Intelli- gencer," published — December i r.
1834. Land offices established at Mineral Point and Green Bay. Census taken, population 4,795.
1835. First steamboat landed at Milwaukee — June 17. Public lands at Milwaukee surveyed.
1836. Meeting in Milwaukee to ask legislature to grant a charter for a railway from Lake Michigan to Mississippi River. The legislative council of so much of Michigan Territory as was not to be included in the new State, ,^f Michigan, met at Green Bay — January 9. Henry Dodge ap- pointed Governor by President Andrew Jackson — April 30. Territory of Wisconsin organized — July 4. "Milwaukee Advertise" published at No. 371 Third Street — July 14. First school opened in Milwaukee, at No. 371 Third Street. United States land office opened at Milwaukee. Gold discovered at Kewaunee.
1837. Sioux treaty ; lands east of the Mississippi ceded — September 29.
1838. Congress appropriated $2,000 for surveying a railroad route from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River.
ERA OF DEVELOPMENT. 393
1839. Indian (Sioux and Chippewa) battle ; 200 killed. The capital located at Madison. Mitchell's bank opened in Milwaukee.
1840. First brew of beer at Milwaukee — July.
1842. Charles C. P. Arndt shot in council chamber by James R. Vine- yard — February t i.
1844. Originators of the Wisconsin Phalanx settle at Ceresco, now Ripon — May.
1845. James Jesse Strang establishes a Mormon colony at Voree.
1846. A vote of the people in favor of a state government — April. Act of Congress authorizing a state government — August.
1847. First railroad charter in Wisconsin granted to the Milwaukee & Waukesha Company.
1848. Wisconsin admitted as a State — May 29. First State legislature convenes — June 5. First State officers sworn in — June 7. First United States Senators, Henry Dodge and Isaac P. Walker, elected. Andrew J. Miller, first judge United States District Court, appointed — June 12.
THE ERA OF DEVELOPMENT.
1849. First earth moved for a railroad in Wisconsin, at Milwaukee. Legislature, by joint resolution, instructed United States Senator, Isaac P. Walker, to resign — March 31. First telegram received at Milwaukee — "Chicago and Milwaukee united" — January 17. Cholera epidemic. " Gold fever " took many settlers to California.
1850. Liquor riot at Milwaukee. Mob attacked and partly wrecked res- idence of John B. Smith, for introducing, while in the legislature, a bill called the "blue liquor law." Smith being absent, escaped injury — March 4.
1851. First railroad train run between Milwaukee and Waukesha — February. Catholics of Milwaukee mobbbed Mr. Leahy, a former Catho- lic, for delivering anti-Catholic lectures — April.
1853. Charges lodged against Levi Hubbell, alleging malfeasance in office as judge of second judicial district. He was acquitted — January.
1854. Meeting held at Ripon, called by A. E. Bovay, Jediah Bowen and others to organize the Republican party. Name " Republican " then sug- gested by Mr. Bovay — F'ebruary 28. Beginning of contest between federal and State authorities over fugitive slave law, by arrest of Joshua Clover, a negro, at Racine, and his forcible liberation at Mihvaukie. First Republi- can mass convention, held in Capitol Park, at Madison ; three t. <usand persons participated ; name " Republican " formally adopted — July 13.
1856. Coles Bashford took oath of office as governor, and began pro- ceedings to oust William A. Barstow, on the ground that Barstow was wrongfully "counted in" by means of fictitious and fraudulent "supple- mental " returns from unpeopled districts in the north part of the State — January 7. Barstow's counsel withdrew from the case — March 8. The supreme court found Barstow to be a usurper, counted in upon fraudulent
394 ^'l^A OF DEVELOPMENT.
returns from Spring Creek, Gilbert's Mills and other places. Barstow abandoned the office, and Lieutenant-Governor McArthur assumed the executive chair for four days. Was succeeded by Bashford. Steamer Niagara burned off Port Washington ; John B. Macy, pioneer member of Congress, one of the lost — September 24.
1857. First railway reached Mississippi River, at Prairie du Chien — April 15.
1859. Excursion train celebrating opening of what is now Chicago & Northwestern railway, between Fond du Lac and Chicago, wrecked at John- son's Creek, Jefferson County. Fourteen killed, seven wounded — Novem- ber I.
i860. Steamer Lady Elgin, with si.\ hundred excursionists, sunk in colli- sion off Racine ; two hundred and twenty-five, mostly from Third ward of Milwaukee, drowned — September 8.
1861. Report received of bombardment of Fort Sumter — April 10. Lincoln's call for 75,000 three months' volunteers — April 15. Governor Randall calls for one regiment from Wisconsin — April 16. The Madison Guard had tendered its services January 9, and was the first company accepted, April 16. By the twenty-second, the First regiment was organized and ready for orders ; it was mustered into United States service May 17, receiving marching orders June 7. Bank riot at Milwaukee. Mitchell's bank attacked ; inmates, including Mr. Mitchell, escaped, but building damaged. Militia called out — June 24. George C. Drake, Company A, First Infantry, first Wisconsin soldier killed in the Rebellion at skirmish of Falling Waters, Va. — July 2. The Second Wisconsin the last regiment to leave the field of Bull Run. The Third arrest the Maryland legislature at Frederick.
1862. Governor L. P. Harvey started South to note the wants of Wiscon- sin soldiers — April 10. Governor Harvey accidentally drowned in the Tennessee River — April 19. About 700 Confederate prisoners received at Camp Randall, Madison — April. The Fourteenth regiment captures a battery at Shiloh. The Iron Brigade wins renown at Gainesville. In the battles of the Second Bull Run, Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Corinth, Chap- lin Hills, Prairie Grove, Fredericksburg and Stone's River, Wisconsin troops won especial honors. Draft riots in Port Washington, West Bend and Milwaukee quelled by troops.
1863. Democratic State convention at Madison adopts the " Ryan Ad- dress," denouncing the war and attacking the Federal government — August 5. " War Democrats " held mass convention at Janesville, to pro- test against the " Ryan Address," and pledge the support of Wisconsin to the government in its struggle with treason — September 17. Wisconsin soldiers particularly distinguished themselves in the battles of Fitz Hugh's Crossing, Chancellorsville, Arkansas Post, Poit Gibson, Champion Hills, Big Black, Helena, Gettysburg, Port Hudson, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, the Rappahannock Redoubts and Carrion Crow, in the assault on Mary's Hill, and in the siege of Vicksburg.
ERA OF PROGRESS. 395
1864. Colonel Hobart, of Wisconsin, assists in the escape by the Libby Prison tunnel — February 9. Wisconsin regiments were prominent in the Red River expedition, in the battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, the crossing of the North Anna, Petersburg and Hatcher's Run, in the move- ment against Atlanta, in Sherman's march to the sea, and in the operations in and around Nashville.
1865. Wisconsin troops were with Sherman when Johnston's army sur- rendered, also in the final operations against Mobile and in many other of the closing engagements of the war. Wisconsin cavalry assisted in captur- ing Jefferson Davis. The State furnished 91,327 men to the war. Cyclone at Viroqua, Vernon County; seventeen persons killed, one hundred and fifty wounded and many buildings demolished — June 28.
THE ERA OF PROGRESS.
1866. Fourth Regiment Cavalry mustered out after service of five years and one day, longest term on record of a volunteer organization — May 28. James R. Doolittle requested by the Wisconsin Legislature to resign from the United States Senate for siding with the South.
1868. The Sea Bird burned on Lake Michigan; all lost but two — April.
1871. Great fires in Door, Oconto, Shawano, Outagamie, Brown and Manitowoc counties. One thousand persons perished and three thousand were beggared — October 8.
1873. Steamer Ironsides wrecked between Milwaukee and Grand Haven ; twenty-eight people lost — September 14. Hurricane on Green Lake, Green Lake County. Eleven persons drowned — July 4.
1874. Potter railroad law enacted. Alexander Mitchell and Albert Keep, presidents respectively of the St. Paul and the Northwestern roads, issued proclamations directed to the governor defying the Potter law and announc- ing that they should operate their railroads without regard for its provisions — April 29. Governor Taylor issued a proclamation demanding obedience to the Potter law — May. State supreme court sustains the law — Septem- ber.
1875. A large portion of Oshkosh burned — April 28. First cotton cloth made in Wisconsin, at Janesville.
1876. Supreme Court rejected the application of Miss Lavinia Goodell, for admission to the bar of Wisconsin — January.
1877. Legislature enacted a lawgiving women the right to practice law. Destructive cyclone at Pensaukee, Oconto County.
1878. Tramp War. Mineral Point cyclone; from eleven to sixteen per- sons killed — June.
1880. Death of Chief Justice E. G. Ryan — October 19.
1881. Death of Matthew H. Carpenter, ex-U. S. senator — February 24, Strike of all the cigar-makers of Milwaukee. " Saw-dust war " at Eau Claire. Striking men threatened to destroy mills. Militia called out — July.
396 ERA OF PROGRESS.
1883. Newhall House, Milwaukee, burned ; between seventy and eighty persons perished — January 10. Death of Timothy O. Howe, ex-U. S. senator — March 25. South wing of the capitol extension, during process of erection, fell, killing seven workmen — November 8. Cyclone at Racine ; thirteen persons killed.
1884. Science Hall of the State University burned — December i.
1886. Workmen in Milwaukee struck to enforce the adoption of the eight-hour day — May i. Strikers became riotous at Bay View and Milwau- kee, and, refusing to obey the proclamation of Governor Rusk, were fired upon by the militia. Seven killed and several wounded — May 3-5. " Lim- ited Express " on C, M. & St. P. R. R. wrecked and burned at East Rio ; fifteen persons burned or killed — October.
1887. Culmination of the Gogebic iron stocks craze.
1888. Collapse of the Gogebic iron stocks.
1889. Strike of laborers at West Superior'. Quiet restored by State militia.
1890. Eleventh Federal census gives Wisconsin a population of 1,686,880.
1892. Great fire in Milwaukee destroyed $5,000,000 worth of property — October 28.
1893. The general financial crisis resulted in wrecking several Milwaukee banks.
1894. Disastrous forest fires in the northwestern counties of Douglas, Bay- field, Ashland, Chippewa, Price, Portage, and Washburn. Sixth State normal school opened at Stevens Point.
1895. State census estimates population at 1,937,915. While northern Wisconsin has abundant rain and good crops, southern portion of State suffers from protracted drought.
1896. Heavy immigration of foreigners into northern Wisconsin, stimulated by official encouragement. Milwaukee celebrates the centennial year of her settlement. Free traveling library system initiated by Senator J. H. Stout. Seventh State normal school opened at Superior.
1897. State school for feeble-minded opened at Chippewa Falls — June i.
1898. Wisconsin raises and equips four regiments of infantry and one bat- tery for the Cuban war — 5,390 men in all. May 29 (Sunday), being fiftieth anniversary of approval of act of Congress admitting Wisconsin to the Union, is fittingly observed at several county seats on Saturday, the 28th, by local celebrations. June 7, being fiftieth anniversary of swearing in of first State officers, is observed at Madison, June 7-9, by appropriate literary and patri- otic exercises, in the presence of a large crowd of visitors. June 27-July 2, Milwaukee celebrates by a semi-centennial carnival, emphasizing the indus- trial and commercial progress of the State. June, July, and August, great strike of wood-workers in mills and factories of Oshkosh, accompanied by rioting and bloodshed; State troops called out, and affair finally settled by compromise. State reformatory- opened at Green Bay — August i . Great forest fires in Chippewa, Polk, Burnett, Washburn, and Barron counties ; loss, nearly five million dollars, and many lives — last week of September.
THE PEOPLE'S COVENANT
AS EMBODIED IX THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE
OF WISCONSIN.
In April, 1846, the people voted in favor of a State Government. On the sixteenth of December, a constitution was adopted in convention, which was rejected by a vote of the people. February 4, 184S, a second constitution was adopted in convention, which was ratified by the people on the thirteenth of March, in that vear, and on the twenty-ninth day of May Wisconsin became a State in the Union, being the seventeenth admitted, and the thirtieth in the list of States. The preamble of the Constitution is as follows :
" We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, form a more perfect government, insure domestic tranquillity, and promote the general welfare, do establish this Constitution."
The document itself is divided into fourteen articles, which are here con- densed to the briefest possible limits.
Article I. constitutes the Declaration of Rights, and is divided into twenty- two sections. After laying down the general principle that government is established to secure personal freedom, it makes special applications as fol- lows: .Slavery is prohibited, and freedom of speech, assembly and petition, as well as legal justice, guaranteed. Treason is defined; rights of search limited ; bills of attainder and corruption of blood, and ex post facto laws are forbidden; contracts shall not be impaired; private property must be re- spected by the State ; there shall be no distinction against resident aliens, and feudal tenures are forbidden. There shall be no imprisonment for debt, and " a reasonable amount of property "is to be exempt from seizure or sale. Religious freedom is guaranteed. The military shall be subordinate to the civil power and writs of error shall never be prohibited by law.
Article II. divided into two sections, defines the boundaries of the State.
Article III. consisting of six sections, relates to suffrage. Only males, twenty-one years of age, are qualified to vote. If a foreigner, the voter must have resided one year within the State and declared his intention to become a citizen. Civilized Indians or those made citizens by Congress, may vote. The classes disqualified are : (i) Idiots and insane persons ; (2) convicts, unless restored to civil rights; (3) United States soldiers or marines stationed within the State ; (4) those who have a wager pending on an election ; (5) duelists. The manner of voting is prescribed. Judges may be voters, citizens of the United States and twenty-five years of age. Both the governor and lieutenant-governor must be voters and citizens of
397
398 THE CONSTITUTION.
the United States. Members of the legislature mustbe voters and residents of their districts. All State, county, town and district officers (except school officers) must be voters. Members of Congress, United States officers, officers of foreign powers, criminals or defaulters cannot be elected to any post of trust, profit or honor within the State. Sheriffs are not eligible for re-election. The general State elections are to be held in November ; while elections for judges and town, village or city officers are to be in April.
Article II'. divided into thirty sections, treats of the Legislative depart- ment. The Legislature is divided into two houses, the Senate and the Assembly, the lower house to consist of from fifty-four to one hundred mem- bers, and the upper from one fourth to one third as many. The manner of apportionment, after each State and national census, is specified. The term of the Senators is to be two years and that of Assemblymen one year (afterwards doubled, by amendment). Elections are to be held each November for all of the Assemblymen and one half of the Senators (after- wards changed by amendment), and sessions are to be held each year, com- mencing in January (afterwards made biennial). Each House is made the judge of the election of its own members. A majority in each House, is a quorum. Each House must sit with open doors and keep a public journal, and may punish disorder, expel by a two thirds vote, choose its officers, and adjourn for three days or less. A member is prohibited from accepting any civil position in the State, created during his term of office ; he must resign on accepting any position under the United States; he shall not be inter- ested in any State printing contract and must take the oath of office. He is privileged from arrests and civil suits, during the sessions of the Legis- lature or fifteen days before or after the session ; he is not to be held liable for words spoken in debate, and is to receive a per diem and mileage. The governor is to issue writs of election, to fill vacancies. Any bill may originate in either House. There shall be but one system of town and county government and that as nearly uniform as possible. The Legis- lature cannot authorize a lottery or declare a divorce. No extra compen- sation shall be allowed any State officer during his term of office.
Article V. has ten sections. It treats of the executive department. The governor is made commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of the State. His salary is fixed at one thousand two hundred and fifty dollars (afterwards changed to five thousand dollars). He can convene the Legis- lature in special session, address messages to it on matters of State impor. tance, and veto bills ; which, however, can be passed over his veto by a two thirds vote in each house. He has charge of the adniinistration of the laws ; can remove certain county officers for cause ; call elections to fill vacancies and issue pardons and reprieves. He can be removed by impeach- ment. The lieutenant-governor is to serve in the absence, disability, death or removal of the governor ; and if both governor and lieutenant-governor be thus incapacitated, the secretary of state shall act until the disability shall cease. The lieutenant is also president of the Senate.
Article VI. treating of the administrative department, is divided into four
THE CONSTITUTION. 399
sections, and defines the number and rank of the other elective State officers and names the several boards in charge of various branches of the State business.
Article VII. in twenty-three sections, treats of the judiciary. There are established, the State supreme court, with a chief-justice and four associ- ates, having both original and appellate jurisdiction ; and fifteen circuit judges, also having original and appellate jurisdiction, and holding regular terms in the several counties in their respective circuits. These judges may be removed either by impeachment or by address. Below these are the probate, municipal and county courts, court commissioners, justices of the peace, and certain tribunals of conciliation which may be established by the Legislature. The article specifies modes of procedure.
Article VIII. having ten sections, treats of finance. Ta.xation shall be uniform and annual. No money is to be paid from the treasury e.xcept by Legislative appropriation. The peace debt, for extraordinary purposes, shall never exceed one hundred thousand dollars, and must be paid in five years. But especial exception is made, in times of war, invasion or insurrec- tion. The credit of the State is never to be loaned, no debt shall be con- tracted for internal improvements and no scrip is to be issued except for constitutional debts.
Article IX. in three sections, treats of eminent domain and property.
Article X. consisting of eight sections, treats of education. The edu- cational affairs are placed in the hands of the state superintendent and such other officers as the Legislature may direct. The sources of the school fund are declared to be : (i) The lands granted to the State by the United States, for this purpose ; (2) property forfeited or escheated; (3) military exemptions ; (4) net proceeds of penal fines ; (5) all unspecified grants to the State ; (6) five hundred thousand acres of land obtained from the United States; (7) five per cent, of the net proceeds of United States land sales. Under certain conditions, the school fund is appropriated in pro- portion to the school population, among the towns and cities of the State. District schools are to be uniform in character, free to persons of school age and unsectarian. Certain academies and normal schools are provided for. The State university is to be at or near the capital, unsectarian and supported in part by special grants from the United States. The school land commissioners consist of the secretary of state, treasurer and attorney- general, and their powers and duties are specified in the article.
Article XI. treats of corporations and is divided into five sections. The article has been amended to such a degree that but little of the original remains. It is now provided that there shall be two classes of corporations, municipal and private. The former are cities organized by special charters, which may be revised by the Legislature ; and towns and villages organized under general law. In regard to banks, the Legislature has no power to charter them ; all banking laws must be general, but can only be passed by special consent of the people. General laws may be passed for the regu- lation of other corporations.
400 THE CONSTITUTION.
Article XII. in two sections, tells how the constitution may be amended : (i) By the vote of two successive Legislatures and then the vote of the peo- ple; (2) by a convention, to be proposed by the Legislature, called by the people, and arranged for by the Legislature, and then the members of the convention to be elected by the people.
Article XIII. in ten sections, contains miscellaneous provisions, chiefly in matters of detail.
Article XIV. the schedule, in fifteen sections, provides for the details of the transition from Territory to State and winding up the affairs of the Territory.
There have been ten amendments to the constitution, since its adoption, the most important of which have been covered in the foregoing abstract.
Wisconsin has contributed to the direction and development of the United States of America, four cabinet members, namely : Alexander W. Randall, postmaster-general under President Johnson ; Timothy O. Howe, postmaster-general under President Hayes ; William F. Vilas, at first postmaster-general and later secretary of the interior, under President Cleveland, and Jeremiah M. Rusk, secretary of agriculture under President Harrison. She has furnished numerous ministers to foreign courts, and many of her sons have won high official station in other States.
A SELECTION OF BOOKS TOUCHING UPON THE STORY OF WISCONSIN.
There have been previously published hut few general histories of Wis- consin, and none of them written in a popular vein. Lapham's (1S44 and 1846) and McLeod's (1846) were issued while Wisconsin was still a terri- tory, at a time when but little research had been made in the history of the Northwest. Smith's (1854) is a fragment. Tuttle's (1875) '* ^" undigested mass of annals, filled with glaring inaccuracies. Strong's (1885) is simply a compilation of the Territorial annals. Aside from these, the Story of Wisconsin has never yet appeared, except in floating sketches introductory to certain county histories, reference to which will be made.
The prime source of materials for the study of early Wisconsin history is the " Wisconsin Historical Collections," of which eleven octavo volumes have thus far been published by the State Historical Society. Consul W. Butterfield has written several excellent condensed historical sketches of the State. One of these will be found in the opening pages of each of the series of county histories published from 1879 *" '882, inclusive, by the Western Historical Company of Chicago. The sketch in the histories of Vernon, Crawford and Green counties will be found superior to the others. Similar historical sketches by Butterfield may be found in Snyder & Van Vechten's " Historical Atlas of Wisconsin " (Milwaukee, 1878) ; in the Wisconsin num- ber of "Descriptive America" (New York, October, 1884); and he has contributed miscellaneous sketches of details in Wisconsin history, to the " Magazine of Western History," 1886-89.
The following, more or less accessible, may be consulted : " History of Wisconsin," by Donald McLeod (1846); " Wisconsin," by I. A. Lapham (1844, enlarged in 1846); "History of Wisconsin," bv William R. Smith (published by the State, 185;, Vols. I. and HI., all that were issued); "Illustrated History of the State of Wisconsin," by C. R. Tuttle (1S75) ; " History of the Territory of Wisconsin, from 1836 to 1848," by Moses M. Strong (published by the State, 1885).
Special works of interest are: " Fathers of Wisconsin," bv Horace A. Tenney and David Atwood (published by the State, 18S0), being an account of the two constitutional conventions, supplemented by biographies of their members; " History of Education in Wisconsin" (published by the State, 1876) ; " Higher Education in Wisconsin," by William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (published by the Bureau of Education, Washington, 1889). " Wau Bun, the Early Day in the Northwest," by Mrs. John II. Kinzie. was originally published with illustrations, by Derby & Jackson, New York, in 1856; it was
401
402 BOOKS RELATING TO WISCONSIN.
reprinted in smaller and cheaper form and without plates, by J. B. Lippin- cott & Co., Philadelphia, in 1873. It gives graphic pictures of life and man- ners at the Wisconsin frontier posts, before and during the Black Hawk War. " Historic Waterways," by Reuben G. Thwaites (Chicago, 1888), describes the historic rivers of Wisconsin as they appear to-day, with refer- ence to the story of their past. George Gale's " Upper Mississippi ; or, His- torical Sketches of the Mound-Builders, the Indian Tribes and the Progress of Civilization in the West " (Chicago, 1867) is now rare and excellent. But the latest conclusions regarding the mound-builders should be sought in Cyrus Thomas's " Work on Mound Explorations " (Bureau of Ethnology Re- port, 1887) ; in articles by Thomas in " Magazine of American History " for May, 1887, and September, 1888 ; in Lucien Carr's " Mounds of the Missis- sippi Valley " (Memoirs of Kentucky Geological Survey, Vol. II.) ; and in P. R. Hoy's " Who Built the Mounds .? " (Transactions of Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Vol. VI.) I. A. Lapham's " Antiquities of Wis- consin" (Smithsonian Contributions, 1855) is rare, but well worth hunting up, being written in quite the modern spirit. Most of the great mass of litera- ture about the mound-builders is unscientific and romantic, and not worthy of serious attention. The vexed question of who made the "prehistoric" copper tools is well treated by P. R. Hoy in the Wisconsin Academy vol- ume above cited. A pamphlet on " Prehistoric Wisconsin," by James D. Butler, contains lithographs of some famous copper implements in the museum of the State Historical Society. Frederick J. Turner's "The Character and Influence of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin " (|)ublished by the Wisconsin State Historical Society, 1889) cannot be too highly commended for breadth of view and accuracy of detail. Albert O. Wright's " Expo- sition of the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin" (Madison, 1888) is an admirable treatise, used as a text-book in the public schools. The story of the Black Hawk War is told by Reuben G. Thwaites in the " Magazine of Western History" (Cleveland, O.) for November and December, 1886. Charles Dudley Warner's article on Wisconsin, in "Harper's Magazine" for April, 1888, is worthy of perusal. See, also, the excellent article on Wisconsin, in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by Thomas C. Chamberlin and Frederick J. Turner. Butterfield's " Discovery of the Northwest" (Cincinnati, 1881) is an exceedingly valuable monograph on Jean Nicolet's notable expedition.
Wisconsin's part in the War of the Rebellion maybe studied in : " Annual Report of the Adjutant-General [Aug. Gaylord] for 1S65," now a very rare book; "The Military History of Wisconsin," illustrated with steel engrav- ing.s, by Edmund B. Quiner (Clarke and Co., Chicago, 1S66, pp. 1022) ; " Wisconsin in the War of the Rebellion," with steel engravings, by Wm. De Loss Love (Church & Goodman, Chicago, 1866, pp. 1144) ; also in sev- eral fugitive essays, pamphlets and booklets, although Wisconsin has not yet developed many writers of war reminiscence. Edwin E. Bryant's "Badgers in Battle" (Wisconsin Soldiers and Sailors Reunion Roster, Milwaukee, 1880) is a helpful sketch.
BOOKS RELATING TO WISCONSIN. 403
For a general study of the historic Northwest Territory, the most avail- able work is that written by B. A. Hinsdale, "The Old Northwest, with a view of the thirteen colonies as constituted by the royal charters" (New York, 1888). Theodore Roosevelt's " Winning of the West" (New York, 1SS9), neglects Wisconsin, but maybe cordially recommended for its general view of the West in the Revolution. Samuel Adams Drake's " The Mak- ing of the Great West," is built on good lines and is useful. Frederick J. Turner's " Outline Studies in the History of the Northwest " (Chicago, 1888) is a bibliography that will be found of value to special students. Various articles in Winsor's " Narrative and Critical History of America," espe- cially those by William F. Poole and Edward D. Neill, should be examined.
The notable discovery of the Mississippi by Joliet and Marquette may be best studied in detail, in " Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, with the Original Narratives of Marquette, Allouez, Membre, Henne- pin, etc.," by John G. Shea (New York, 1852-53). Shea's " History of the Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States, from 1529 to 1824 " (New York, 1855) may be profitably studied, in connection with Parkman's " Jesuits in North America." A comprehensive account of the French occupation will be found in the introductory chapters to Parkman's " Conspiracy of Pontiac;" this rapid review will be useful to those not acquainted with the earlier volumes of Parkman. A thorough reading of Parkman's nine volumes is, however, to be earnestly urged upon students who wish to have a good foundation in Wisconsin history. Neill's " History of Minnesota," and his " Minnesota Explorers and Pioneers," are invaluable in studying French exploration, particularly along the Upper Mississippi and Lake Superior. Neill's many magazine articles on the early French are worth hunting for, in " Poole's Index." The " Jesuit Relations " and " Rad- isson's Voyages " (Prince Society publications) are original documents of prime importance.
INDEX.
Agriculture, 338, 369.
Algonkiiis driven to Wisconsin, 37.
AUouez, Claude, missionary to Wisconsin, 47 ; establishes a mission at Depere, 49.
American Fur Company organized, 133 ; its headquarters at Mackinaw Island, 152 ; stronghold in Wisconsin, 155.
Andre, Louis, Jesuit missionary, 52.
Antietam, Wisconsin regiments at, 297.
Appleton, 353.
Arndt-Vineyard quarrel, the, 213.
Ashland, early explorers at, 41 ; present con- dition of, 354.
Astor, John Jacob, organizes the American Fur Company, 133 ; his expedition to Wis- consin, 133 ; establishes headquarters at Mackinaw Island, 152 ; his monopoly of the fur trade, 157.
Atkinson, General Henry, in Winnebago war, 174; in Black Hawk War, 183.
Bad Ax, Battle of, 173 ; in Black Hawk War, 190.
Bailey, Lt. Col., Joseph, 317.
Earstow, William A., Secretary of State, 236; " Barstow and the Balance," 237 ; elected governor, 239; contest with Bash- ford, 241 ; resigns his office, 242.
Barth, Laurent, trapper and trader, 125.
Bashford, Coles, claims election as governor, 240; suit against Barstow, 241; inaugu- rated as governor, 245.
Belmont, seat of first territorial legislature, 198.
Beloit, 353.
Black Hawk War, 180-191 ; results of, 191.
" Bostonniens," the, name given to Ameri- can traders, no.
Burlington, second legislative session held at, 202.
Burns, John, at Gettysburg, 311.
Cadotte, Michel, at La Pointe, 129.
Cardinell, Madame, first white woman settler, 105.
Carver, Captain Jonathan, in Wisconsin, J07 ; obtains a valuable grant, 108.
Champlain in Canada, 20 ; death of, 36.
Charlevoix, P'ather, in Wisconsin, 86.
Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin, 159.
Coureurs de bois, early in the Northwest, 20; in Wisconsin, 54; their guerrilla war- fare, 114.
Creole boatmen of the Northwest, 132.
Dablon, Father, in Wisconsin, 50.
Depere, site of early Jesuit mission, 49; so- ldi found at, 77.
Dodge, Henry, Territorial governor, 197, 213.
Doty, James Duane, names territorj' " Wis- konsin," 19/; selects Madison as capital, 200; appointed territorial governor, 213.
Drake, George, first Wisconsin man killed in the Civil War, 29:.
Du Lhut in Wisconsin, 64, 69 ; his meeting with Hennepin, 70.
Eau Claire, 351.
Education in Wisconsin, 358, 372, 373.
Farmers Institutes, 360.
Fifth Wisconsin Regiment at Williamsburg, 294 ; at Fredericksburg, 302.
First Wisconsin Regiment, recruited, 275; mustered into service, 276; engagement at Falling Waters, 278 ; reorganized as a three- years regiment, 278 ; at Chaplin Hills, 279.
Fisheries, 338, 373. 37-t-
Foreign born inhabitants, 344-350, 368-370,
385- Fond du Lac, 351. Forest fires, 334, 37'. 372- Forestry conditions, 369-372. Fort .Antoine erected, 76. Fort Crawford erected, 153 ; abandoned, 167. Fort Edward .-Augustus, see Green Bay. Fort Howard established, 154. Fort Mackinaw, massacre at, 96; reoccupied,
98. Fort St. Francis, see Green Bay. Fort Shelby, capture of, 145. Fourteenth Wisconsin Regiment at Shiloh,
294; at Corinth, 298; at Vicksburg, 305. Fox river ; discovered, 23 ; Indian tradition
of, 33.
405
4o6
INDEX.
Fox and Wisconsin River Improvement, the,
254- " French train," The, 204. " Fugitive slave " troubles in Wisconsin, 247. Fur traders on Lake Huron, 20; on Lake
Superior, 20. Gautier, Charles, partisan captain, 108 ; re- cruiting expedition of, no; his allies, in. Gorrell, Lieutenant James, m command at
Green Bay, 91 ; evacuates Green Bay, 97. Griffin, The ; vessel of La Salle, at Green
Bay, 65. Grignon, Augustin, Indian trader, 157. Green Bay; visited by Nicolet, 27 ; supposed by him to be the " China Sea," 29; visited by missionaries, 49 ; made Frdlnch military post of Fort St. Francis, 85; taken pos- session of by England, 90; named Fort Edward Augustus, 91 ; trading and agri- culture at, 98; Judge Reaume's court at, 150; American occupation of, 153. Harvey, Governor, 286. Hennepin, Louis, in Wisconsin, 68 ; his
meeting with Du Lhut, 70. Historical society. The State, 362. Hubbell, Judge Levi, impeachment of, 235. Huron, Lake, visited by fur traders, 20. Indians; early tribes, 16, 18 ; visited by Nic- olet, 24 ; early troubles with, 37 ; visited by Radisson and Groseilliers, 39 ; visited by missionaries, 40, 47 ; missions established among, 49, 50; tribal wars, 51; idols of, 51; and the missionaries, 53 ; treaty mak- ing with France, 55 ; bad faith toward the French, 81 ; troubles with, 83, 85 ; under English patronage, 92 ; Pontiac's war, 95 ; in 1780, 112; treaty with Sinclair, 117; at date of American occupation, 122 ; Ameri- can agreement with, 130; character of trade with, 155 , aggressions against miners and settlers, 163 ; New York Indians re- moved to Wisconsin, 177; concessions of, 179; during the Civil War, 289; present number and condition, 354. " Iron Brigade," The, 297, 301, 307, 308,
318. Iron mines, 335. Janesville, 353.
Joliet, Louis, in Wisconsin, 56; joins Mar- quette, 57 ; discovers the Mississippi, 59. Juneau, Solomon, the pioneer of Milwaukee,
125. Kewaunee, an early " boom " town, 199. La Baye, French military station, 87. Labor troubles, 337. La Crosse, 351.
Langlade, Charles de, partisan captain, 85; at La Baye, 87; at Green Bay, 100; in troubles of 1780, 113; his fur trading, 117.
La Pointe, tradnig post at, 129.
La Salle, Robert Cavelier de, in Wisconsin, 64; voyage in the Griffin, 65; stormy voyage of, 66.
Le Sueur, Wisconsin voyageur, 71, 78, 79.
Lead mines opened, 161.
Lewis, James T., governor, 289.
Libraries, 374-376-
Lincoln, Abraham, captain in Black Hawk War, 1S5; his call to arms, 274.
Linctot, Godefroy, partisan captain, no.
Lumbering interests of Wisconsin, 332, 369.
Madison selected as the capital, 200; capitol erected at, 203 ; life at, 204 ; presenc con- ditinn of , 352; semi-centennial, 376-379.
Madison Guard, The, tenders its services to the governor, 274.
Man, Prehistoric, in Wisconsin, 13.
Manufacturing interests, 336.
Marin, French partisan captain, 83.
Marquette, Father, in Wisconsin, 57; dis- covers the Mississippi, 59; publishes ac- count of expedition, 60; at Green Bay, 62.
McDermott, Daniel, color sergeant; his bravery, 308.
Menard, Ren^, missionary to Wisconsin In- dians, 40, 46; death of, 46.
Milwaukee, First settler in, 124 ; made a trad- ing post by Jacques Vieau, 124; Solomon Juneau at, 125; its Indian trade, 157; action of bankers, 282 ; population of, 350; its enterprise, 351; semi-centennial, 379.
Milvvajikee River, La Salle in, 67.
Mirandeau, Jean Baptiste, first settler in Milwaukee, 124.
Mitchell, Andrew, and his Bank, 219.
" Monks of Monk Hall," 238.
Mormonism in Wisconsin, 224
Mounds and mound-builders in Wisconsin,
14.
Nicolet, Jean, first white man in Wisconsin, 19; his expedition, 23; mission to the Winnebagoes, 30; his long journey, 35.
Northwest Company, The, formed, 131.
Northwest Territory, Division of, 195.
Nuttall, Thomas, heads a scientific explora- tion in Wisconsin, 134.
" Old Abe," the Wisconsin war eagle, 316.
Oshkosh, a famous camping ground for voyageurs, 32, 351 ; great strike in, 380.
Pepiti, Lake, Perrot at, 76.
Perrot, Nicholas, trader, in Wisconsin, 55; appointed " commandant of the West,"
INDEX.
407
71 ; at Green Bay, 72 ; his stockade fort, 76 ; erects Fort Antoine, 76.
Pontiac, his war, 96.
Population, 342.
Portage lines and carriers, 125-129.
Prairie du Chien, fur trading station, 105 ; captured by the British, 136; engagement at, 145 ; occupied by Americans, 153 ; as a trading station, 158; in the Winnebago war, 168.
Radisson and Groseilliers in Wisconsin, 37-
45- Racine, 351. Railroads in Wisconsin, 262 ; Land grants
to, 263, 339. Randall, Alexander W., war governor, 270: issues his proclamation, 274; calls special session of I^egislature, 281 ; his record, 2S5. Reaume, Judge Charles, at Green Bay, 150. Red Bird, thj Wiuiebago, lOS, 175, 176. Religious denominations and colleges, 361, Robjits )i, S.imuel, his voyage, 115. [373. Rogers, Major Robert, takes possession of
Wisconsin, go. St. Cosine, Father, at Green Bay, 80. Saint Lusson, The Sieur, in Wisconsin, 55 ;
makes a treaty with the Indians, 55. Sac and Fox cession to United States, 131. Salomon, Governor, 2S7. Sheboygan, 353. Sinclair, Captain Patrick, makes treaty with
the Indians, 117. Spain, Wisconsin in the War with. 3S0-384. Slate Board nf charities and retorm, 364, 372, State University, The, 359, 373. [373.
Stillman's Creek, Battle of, 185. Strang, James Jesse, " King Strang," 224 ;
his death, 229. Superior, Lake, visited by fur-traders, 20. Tallmadge, Nathaniel P., territorial governor,
230. Tecumseh's war, 134. Twentieth Wisconsin Regiment at Prairie
Grove, 300. Twiggs, General David E.; his record in
Wisconsin, 273. Veterans, Home at Waupaca, the, 366. Vieau, Jacques, establishes trading post at
Milwaukee, 124. Whistler, Major William, in the Winnebago
War, 174. Williams, Eleazer, spy, missionary and Indian agent, 178; claims to be Louis the Seven- teenth of France, 179; his death, 180. Winnebago Indians, visited by Nicolet, 30; war with, 167.
Winnebago, Lake, visited by traders, 20; Indian villages on, 3:; Nicolet's voyage on, 32. Wisconsin Heights, Battle of, 188. " Wisconsin Phalanx," The, a Fourierite
organization, 222. Wisconsin, geologic development of, 11, 12; antiquities of, 13-1S; Inst white visitor to, 19; early explorers ni, 30-35. 38-45; Jesuit missiouaries and French explorers in, 40- 88 ; six portage routes in, 82 ; fall of French power in, 88; British possession of, 89, 96; eariy agriculture in, 98; British and American ri\alries in, 107-118; claimed by United States, 121 ; becomes American territory, 123 ; Sac and Fox cession of lands, 131 ; era of real American domina- tion begins, 131; in the War of 1812, 135- 147; French and American jealousies in, 152 ; Indian trade in, 155, 159, 160; mining operations, 161 ; growing colonization of the State, 163; Indian troubles, 167; the Winnebago War, 170; close of Winnebago War, 177; Indian removals and reserva- tions, 177; Black Hawk War, 180-191; increased interest in after the Black Hawk War, 191 ; in division of Northwest Ter- ritory, 195; Wisconsin Territory organized, 196; Judge Doty names it, 197; first terri- torial governor aiipointed, 197 ; first legis- lative session, 198; struggle over location of capital, 198; Madison selected, 200; life in the territory, 205-213; boundary discussions, 215 ; emigrations to, 221, 344- 350,368-370,385; Fourierismin,222; Mor- monism in, 224; constitutional conven- tions, 231 ; Wisconsin admitted as a State, 23 1 : political troubles, 240-246 ; Fugitive Slave Act in, 247; Internal improvements in, 254; railway companies in, 262; Land grants, 263; political partisanship, 26S; in the Civil War, 270-329; part played by the Wisconsin regiments in the Civil War, 291-329 ; cost of the war to the State, 330 ; growth in resources and industry, 331, 369- 374- 379. 3S0, 385, 386; Indians in the State, 354 ; educational interests, 358, 372, 373; the State University, 359, 373; reli- gious societies and schools, 361, 373 ; the State Historical Society, 362 ; charitable and reformatory institutions, 363,372,373 ; forestry conditions, 369-372; growth of li- brary interests, 374-376 ; semi-centennial celebration, 376-380; Wisconsin's part in the War with Spain, 380-384 ; Wisconsin's destiny, 367, 385, 386.
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