USA > Iowa > Webster County > Fort Dodge > History of Fort Dodge and Webster County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 4
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
Wisconsin, there is a mound showing the figure of a man driving his dog team hitched to a sleigh. The fortified enclosures extend in a line from western New York to the Ohio river.
The mounds proper are most numerous in Ohio and extend southward into Kentucky and westward to the Des Moines valley in Iowa. In the latter state they are most numerous in the counties of Jackson, Louisa, Clayton, Scott, Boone and Webster. This class of mounds may be subdivided, according to the pur- pose for which they were used, into altar or sacrificial, temple, sepulchral and observation. The altar or sacrificial mounds occur only near the sacred enclosure. They are stratified in structure and contain symmetrical altars or hearts of burned clay or stone, on which were deposited various remains, which in all cases have been subjected to the action of fire. They contain charred bones, charcoal, carved pipes and small trinkets, indicating that they were used for cremating dead bodies and it may be for human sacrifice. Temple mounds are chiefly in the form of truncated pyramids, with graded avenues to their top, which are always level. In Kentucky there is one fifty feet in height. The Teocallis struc- tures in Mexico and Central America were faced with flights of steps and sur- mounted by temples of stone. The sepulchral mounds are the most numerous. They contain the remains of one or more bodies, together with trinkets, cups, and vases. The vessels were probably filled with food for the use of the dead upon their long journey. In general this class of mounds are not large. Where they are of any considerable size they are the burial place of a chief. One near Wheeling is seventy feet in height and nine hundred feet in circumference. There were found in this three bodies and over 3.000 shell beads. Sometimes urns are found containing charred human remains suggesting a possible cremation. The observation mounds are so called because of the belief that they were used for signal towers. Their site, however, may have been chosen simply because of the beauty of the spot for sacrificial or sepulchral purposes. They are found on points of land overlooking the river valleys and commanding an extensive view. Here a smoke by day and a fire by night could carry its message of war or peace.
The Mound Builders must have been a very populous and comparatively civilized agricultural people or they could not have created the vast structures which they did. It is estimated that in the state of Ohio alone there are 10,000 of these mounds. They were a people with settled habitations, dwellers, and not wandering nomads. They had a government, so far centralized as to have an executive head, with power sufficient to maintain order and discipline, and direct intelligently the building of such large public works. An examination of the crania show them to have been a homogeneous people, but differing from the Indian. Their cranial development was of low order. They were of a mild disposition, inoffensive and unwarlike in their habits, and content to toil like Egyptian serfs in the vast and profitless labors of mound building. If unmolested, they would have in time developed a partial civilization of an agricultural type, in the favorable environment of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. Their disposition however made them an easy prey to warlike tribes, even if of an inferior civilization. Dr. Foster, in his book on the "Prehistoric Races of America," considers that these earliest inhabitants were in their cranial conformation and civilization closely linked to the people of Mexico, Central
FIRST NATIONAL BANK BUILDING. FORT DODGE. Opened for Business, April. 190S
PAINOG L EaR RY
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
America and Peru. Their long occupancy of the Mississippi valley developed a domestic economy and civil relationship, that widely distinguished them from the Indian races. They were probably sun or fire worshipers, and may have even sometimes offered human sacrifice. The gigantic structures, which they built, could only have been erected by a people among whom food was cheap. That food was undoubtedly maize, the most prolific cereal in the world.
The remains found in the mounds show an advanced knowledge of both art and manufacturing. There are arrow heads. stone axes, fleashers and scrapers for stripping hide from slaughtered animals and cleaning it, pestles and mortars for grinding corn, and pipes. Many of these pipes are elaborately carved and fashioned in the shape of animals and the human form. The best examples of these, thus far found, have been in Scott county, Iowa. They were made in the image of elephants and other animals now unknown to Iowa, thus indicating that these people may have lived in Iowa at the time when the mastadon existed. In some of the mounds have been found discs of hard quartz, the circumferences of which are perfect circles. These were probably used in games of chance. There have also been found implements used in the spinning of thread and manufacture of cloth. The cloth found in the mounds is closely woven. A specimen, now in the museum of the Davenport Academy of Science, shows great advance in textile art. The warp is composed of four cords, that is, of two double and twisted cords, while the woof is composed of one such double and twisted cord, which passes between the two parts of the warp, the latter being twisted at each change, allowing the cords to be brought close together, so as to cover the woof almost entirely. The pottery ware exhibits graceful forms and elegant ornamentation, besides displaying much skill-in its manufacture. On some the human face and form have been delineated with much fidelity and grace. The features, as pictured upon this ware, differ greatly from that of the Indian. The native Indian seldom made pottery. At Saline Springs, Illinois, there is found evidence of the manufacture of salt by evaporation. These people were also skilled basket makers.
The most important domestic industry of the Mound Builders was the making of copper implements, such as knives, chisels, axes, awls, spears, arrow- heads and copper bracelets. The softness of the metal made it impossible to use in cutting stone, and consequently they did not erect structures of stone like the peoples of the south in Mexico and Central America. They had no tin to use as an alloy in making bronze. However, they had some knowledge of the art of reducing metals.
The copper mines of the Mound Builders were in the Lake Superior region, where they mined the native copper. At Ontanagon and Kewanee Point on the south shore of the lake, and at Isle Royal on the north shore, are found the remains of their mining operations. Here was found a mass of native copper lying upon oaken sleepers and raised over five feet above its matrix. This mass of copper weighed six tons. Strewn about the place were the tools of the miners, their stone manls and hammers, props, levers and ladders. These were not used by the present race of Indians, for when the Jesuits first visited them they had no knowledge or use of copper except occasional fragments. On the rubbish of one mine refuse heap early investigators found growing a hemlock tree, which showed 395 annular rings.
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
The commerce of the Mound Builders was extensive and in some degree well organized. In their mounds are found copper from Lake Superior, mica from North Carolina, iron from Missouri, obsidian from Mexico, and ornamental shells from the Gulf Coast. Their commerce and exchange must have covered a large portion of the United States and Mexico. The same mica quarries, in North Carolina, which supplied these earlier races, is today the chief source of supply for the United States.
After the Mound Builders had been in possession of the country for some time, savage races from the east and west came down upon them. The Algon- quins, pushing westward by way of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, met in the Mississippi valley the Sioux or Dakotahs, who had come down the Missouri from the Rocky Mountains. The Sioux were even more warlike than the Algon- quins. Between the two the Mound Builders were crushed. In vain they opposed. Their resistance may have been slight, or they may have fought long and valiantly, and behind their mounds made many a brave defense. Iowa was the battle ground, but the records are lost. The mounds alone bear mute testimony to the deeds of the races that were. It is possible that the Mound Builders may have fled to the southwest and there became the Cliff Dwellers of Arizona and New Mexico.
The mounds of Webster county consist of the two classes, observation and burial mounds. They are found on both sides of the Des Moines river and along the banks of the Lizard creek. They are especially numerous in the neighbor- hood of Lehigh and McGuire's Bend. Mrs. George Marsh and a number of others living in that vicinity have fine collections gathered from these mounds and about them. Numerous skeletons have also been found in the Webster county mounds, and one recently opened in Boone county, a few miles north of Boone, contained many fine specimens. In 1876 an exceptional find was made on the Marshall farm near the southern boundary of Humboldt county. A number of people had gathered here to celebrate the Fourth of July and as part of the ceremony decided to erect a flag pole upon a large mound near the house. In excavating for the pole they unsuspectingly opened a burial place of the ancient Mound Builders. In it they found the skeletons of thirteen people. The bodies had been buried in a sitting posture, and were arranged in a circle facing outward.
Major Williams, writing to the "Iowa Northwest" in 1866, says: "We found many remains of ancient fortifications and mounds, which had evidently, from their location and construction, been at some remote period raised for defense, and positions of observation, giving evidence that this northern country was inhabited by a race of people living before the present race of Indians inhabited it. On viewing the location and tracing the lines, we found them arranged with some judgment. Others evidently were burial places. On directing the attention of the Indians to them, we were unable to find any, even among the oldest Sioux. who had any knowledge of them. either by traditions or otherwise. They all asserted that they were here when their people first came into the country. The most distinct of these ancient works will be found in the forks of the Boone, on and in the neighborhood of I .. Mericle's place, on the west side of the Des Moines near where Mr. Beam lives, also on Indian creek about twelve miles north of Fort Dodge, on Lizard river and at Fort Dodge. Some of the mounds
WAHKONSA HOTEL LOBBY, OPENED SEPTEMBER 19, 1910
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
at Fort Dodge have been removed, and in digging into them they were found to contain the remains of human beings; such as parts of skulls, teeth, thigh-bones, etc., and along with them pieces of burnt or charred wood and coals. From their location on high and dry ground, covered with sand and gravel, together with the appearance of the bones, their color, etc., physicians and all who examined them were of the opinion that a great length of time had elapsed since they had been deposited there, perhaps two hundred years or more. The ancient mound builders were in the habit of burning their dead, which is not the custom of any of the Indians of whom we have knowledge."
Some three or four miles north of the town of Lehigh is what is known as "Boneyard Hollow." There a little wet weather stream enters the Des Moines river from the adjacent bluff, making a terrace. This terrace is flat-topped, eight or ten rods wide and five to ten feet above the normal stage of water in the river. The river is here bounded by bluffs fifteen to thirty feet in height, and extending some distance back from the river. It is a picturesque gorge cut in the carbon- iferous sandstone. The age of the terrace is probably that of the Wisconsin glaciers. Whether or not the terrace is later than the deposit of bones, which have been found in connection with it, is difficult to tell. Intermingled with the bones are found arrow points. This would indicate that man and the animals were contemporaneous. It looks as if there had been no disturbance of the ter- race or addition to its materials since they were first deposited there. Forest trees have grown to maturity upon the earth covering the bones. The bone deposits occur upon both sides of the stream, which has evidently cut its way through the deposit. The bones that have been discovered resemble those of the deer, elk and buffalo. Upon exposure to the air they immediately crumble. The teeth, being of a harder substance, are still fairly well preserved, and have been gathered by various collectors. Scattered among the bones there have been found, besides the arrow heads, numerous flint and stone implements. Some of the imple- ments were made of native copper, which must have been brought from some distance. It is the opinion of some people, who have visited the "Hollow," that this deposit was the kitchen refuse from a settlement of Mound Builders, and that afterwards they were covered with silt from the Wisconsin drift. Professor Samuel Calvin visited this locality a number of years ago, but was unwilling to give an opinion as to the origin of the deposit, except that it was old as compared with the historic period of Iowa. He however thought it was highly improbable that the deposit was either preglacial or interglacial.
Another interesting find, which, however, is not connected with the Mound Builders, was a deposit of bones found by Mr. Henry Engholm upon his farm in Deer Creek township. These bones were the skeletons of the American bison. They were found in a slough where they had evidently mired down while in search of water, or where they were driven to escape from some pursuing enemy. Mrs. C. B. Hepler has a very fine specimen of a skull of one of these bisons.
Vol. 1-3
CHAPTER IV
THE RED MAN IN IOWA
COMING OF THE ALGONQUINS AND DAKOTAS- THE ILLINOIS-TIIE MASCOUTINES- LOCATION OF MUSCATINE- THE IOWAS-MEANING OF THE WORD IOWA-THE SACS AND FOXES-SAUKENUK-BLACK HAWK'S WATCHI TOWER- THE WINNE- BAGOES-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEUTRAL GROUND- THE SIOUX-"LAKE-OF- THE-SPIRITS"-SIDOMINADOTAH-BATTLE BETWEEN SIOUX AND POTTAWAT- TAMIES-AT M'LAUGHLIN'S GROVE-WAIIKONSA-HOW THE INDIANS LOST IOWA.
THE RED MAN IN IOWA
The Mound Builders, it appears, were an agricultural or shepherd race, rather than hunters, hence, during their occupation of this territory, game became very plentiful. The Indians who relied on the chase of a livelihood, upon learning of this delightful hunting ground began to press upon them from the north and west.
On the Atlantic coast lived the Algonquins. This had been their ancient home for generations. The Norsemen found them here in the year 1000. The prospect of better hunting grounds caused them to push westward by way of the St. Lawrence river and the Great Lakes, overflowing the country to the south and into the Mississippi valley. These Algonquins embraced the Delawares (sometimes called Lenni Lenapi), the Chippewas, Shawnees, Ottawas, Potta- wattamies, Narragansetts, Illinois, Powhatans (a confederacy of thirty-three tribes), Sac and Fox and other Indian tribes to the number of thirty or forty. All of these spoke dialects of the same language.
From the Rocky Mountain region and the Northwest came the savage horde known as the Sioux or Dakota, including the Dakotas proper, the Assiniboian, the Winnebagoes who were the parent stock of the Iowas, Kansas, Quappas, Omahas, Osages and other tribes of the lower Missouri district and others.
These two great streams of savages first came against each other in the valley of the upper Mississippi and then turned southward. The Algonquins from the east seem to have outflanked the Sioux, and began to occupy that part of Iowa that lies south of a line extending from the mouth of the Big Sioux near Sioux City, and the Sioux occupied the territory north of this line and in Minnesota besides penetrating into Wisconsin.
The first Indians seen in what is now Iowa by a white man, were of the Illini or Illinois tribe. When the French explorers, Marquette and Joliet, in 1673, coming down the Mississippi, landed in southeastern Iowa, they encountered Indians, who called themselves Illini, meaning "men." This apparently meant
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
they were very brave and superior to all other people. This name seemed to have embraced five sub-tribes, Peorias, Cahokias, Kaskaskias, Michigamies and Tamaroas. These being of the Algonquin race were hereditary enemies of the warlike Iroquois, or Six Nations, whose seat of government was in the Mohawk valley in New York. During the generations through which their wars had extended the Illinois had been gradually driven into the region between Lake Michigan and the Wabash river, and extending thence west across the Missis- sippi river. More than two hundred years ago, when visited by Marquette, they had become greatly reduced in numbers and strength from wars with the Iroquois on the east and the Chickasaws on the south. When Iowa was next visited by white men the once powerful Illinois Indians had been nearly extermi- nated by the Sacs and Foxes.
THE MASCOUTINES
The records of Father Allouez, written in 1670, mention a tribe called Mas- coutines, who had migrated from the Wisconsin river valley into Iowa. These Indians were on friendly terms with the Illinois and occupied a portion of Iowa west of Muscatine island. The Algonquin word "Mascoutenck" means a "place having no woods," or "prairie." The Mascoutines built a village on the island of that name, which was a level prairie embracing about twenty thousand acres.
Fierce, cruel and treacherous, the Mascoutines were, and generally at war with some other nation. They were bitter enemies of the Sacs and Foxes, whom they defeated in a great conflict near the mouth of the Iowa river.
When La Salle descended the Mississippi valley in 1680, he found this tribe still in that vicinity. The Mascoutines, displeased with the advent of the white men, sent emissaries to the Illinois to influence them to join in resistance. Ninety- eight years later they are mentioned as attending a council, when Colonel George Rogers Clark led a party into that region. Little more is known of them in later times, except that they lived near where Muscatine now stands, and that the city derives its name from them.
THE IOWAS
In the midst of the Algonquins, dwelt for many years, a Dakota tribe, the Towas. who under their noted chief Man-haw-gaw, migrated westward from the vicinity of the Great Lakes. They crossed the Mississippi and occupied the ter- ritory about the lower valley of the Iowa river, giving to that stream its present name, although it was for a long time called the Ayouas by the earliest French explorers. Early records show this name spelled in various ways, Ayouas, Ayouways, Ayoas and Aiouex. Lewis and Clark, in the journal of their explora- tions in 1804, refer to this tribe as the Ayouways. In later years the spelling became changed to Ioway and finally the y was dropped, and we have the name Iowa, with the accent on the I.
A half-breed of French and Indian parentage, Antoine Le Claire, who was familiar with several of the Indian languages, defines the word Iowa as "This is the place." Theodore S. Parvin, a high authority, relates an Indian legend as follows :
JOHN THISSELL Proprietor of Wahkonsa House, 1862
MRS. JOHN THISSELL (MARY JANE)
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX AND TILD N FOUNDATIONS.
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
"This tribe separated from the Sacs and Foxes and wandered off westward in search of a new home. Crossing the Mississippi river, they turned southward, reaching a high bluff near the mouth of the Iowa river. Looking off over the beautiful valley spread out before them they halted, exclaiming 'Ioway!' or 'This is the place !'"
The Iowas were worshipers of a Great Spirit, the creator and ruler of the universe. They had a tradition that a very long time ago a month's rain came, drowning all living animals and people, excepting a few, who escaped in a great canoe. The Great Spirit then made from red clay another man and woman and from them all Indians descended. They regarded rattlesnakes and a certain species of hawks with veneration.
Among themselves the Iowas were called Pa-hu-cha, which in English means "dusty nose." Their tradition is that they once dwelt on a sandbar from which dust and sand were blown into their faces, giving them dusty noses, and hence their name Pa-hu-chas. Their language was that of the Dakota group of which they were a part. They were, however, enemies of the other Dakotas, because an Iowa chief had been treacherously slain by a band of Sioux. They were divided into eight clans, designated as Eagle, Wolf, Bear, Pigeon, Elk, Beaver, Buffalo and Snake; each clan having a totem of the bird or animal they repre -. sented. These clans were also distinguished, one from another, by the fashion in which the hair was cut.
During the Civil war, the Iowas were loyal to the Union, many of them enlisting in the northern army, and making good soldiers. The name of the greatest of the Iowa war chiefs, Mahaska, has been given to one of the counties in the Des Moines valley, embracing a portion of our state over which this once powerful tribe held domain.
This tribe was so reduced by pestilence and war that it ceased to play an important part in the state's history after 1823.
SACS AND FOXES
The Sacs and Foxes, who probably held the most prominent place in the story of the Algonquin family in Iowa, had migrated from the country along the Atlantic coast now embraced in the state of Rhode Island. They moved along the valley of the St. Lawrence river and thence to the vicinity of Green bay, where they were found by Jean Nicollet in 1634. It is reported, that in 1667, Claude Allouez, a French Jesuit, found on the Wolf river in Wisconsin, a village of Musquakies, as the Sacs and Foxes were sometimes called, which contained a thousand warriors and nearly five thousand persons.
These Indians appeared to realize that the invasion of French trappers and missionaries threatened the eventual occupation of their lands by the whites, and from the first they waged war against the intruders, and were nearly the only tribe with whom the French could not live in peace.
About 1712 the Sacs and the Foxes became close allies. Each tribe, however, reserved the right to make war or peace, without the consent of the other. The Foxes had villages on the west side of the Mississippi, while the Sacs remained on the east side. The Sacs could muster about three hundred warriors, and the Foxes about three hundred and twenty. The Sacs had long before occupied the
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HISTORY OF WEBSTER COUNTY
region about Saginaw, in Michigan, calling it Sauk-i-nong. They called them- selves Saukies, meaning "man-with-a-red-badge." Red was the favorite color used by them in personal adornment, and it is said that the Sac covered his head with red clay when he mourned. The Indian name of the Foxes was Mus-qua-kies, signifying "man-with-a-yellow-badge." The French gave to this tribe the name Reynors or Foxes because of their thieving habits. The river in Wisconsin, along which these Indians had their home, was called by the French "Rio Reynor." When the English obtained the country from France, they gave the river its English translation Fox.
The Sac village on Rock river was one of the oldest in the upper Mississippi valley. Black Hawk, in his autobiography, says it was built in 1731. It was named Saukenuk. This was for fifty years the largest village of the Sacs, and contained in 1825 a population of about eight thousand. The houses were sub- stantially built, and were made with a frame of poles covered with sheathing of elm bark, fastened on with thongs of buckskin. Half a mile east of the town is a bold promontory rising two hundred feet from the bed of Rock river. This was known as "Black Hawk's Watch Tower," and was a favorite resort of that great Sac chieftain. Here he would sit smoking his pipe and enjoying the grand scenery spread out before him, the land which he clung to and fought so desperately to hold.
THE WINNEBAGOES
The Winnebagoes, too, belonged to the Dakota group; and are mentioned by the French writers as early as 1669. Early in the seventeenth century the tribes of the Northwest formed an alliance against the Winnebagoes, and in a battle five hundred of the latter were slain. It is thought that they and the Iowas were the only Dakotas that migrated to the east. After meeting the Algonquin tribes of Pottawattamies, Chippewas, Sacs, Foxes, Mascoutines and Ottawas, they finally formed an alliance, which lasted for more than one hun- dred and fifty years. They were reluctant to come under English rule, after the French were expelled; but finally became reconciled, and fought with the British through the American Revolution. In 1816, they entered into a treaty of peace with the United States; but in 1832 they joined Black Hawk in his war; and at its termination were required to relinquish their lands in Wisconsin in exchange for a tract in Iowa known as the "Neutral Ground." They were not, however, compelled to remove to their new home until 1841. By the terms of the treaty the Winnebagoes were to be paid $10,000 annually for twenty-seven years, beginning in 1833. The government agreed also to supply them with certain farm implements and teams, to establish schools for the Indian children and to maintain these schools for twenty-seven years. The Winnebagoes dis- liked to go to the "Neutral Ground," because on the south were the Sacs and Foxes, and on the north were the hostile Sioux. However, they grew to love the Iowa reservation; and after they had removed to Minnesota in 1846, they often returned to hunt and fish along the Iowa rivers.
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