USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 1
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5
HISTORY OF
BROWN COUNTY
WISCONSIN
PAST AND PRESENT
By DEBORAH B. MARTIN
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME I
CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1913 CHI
-
PE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 633356 ASTOR. LENOX AND TILDEN F .... VIATIONS. F 1913
PREFACE
Brown county comprises that portion of Wisconsin lying at the southern extremity of a great arm of Lake Michigan, known from early times as Baye des Puans, la grande baye and finally Green Bay. This fine sheet of water ninety miles in length, joins the lake through many deep and navigable chan- nels at Deathi's Door, where it attains a breadth of some thirty miles. In shape the bay resembles a mammoth Indian celt, and extending in a south- westerly direction gradually narrows from its widest part until its span does not exceed five miles. At its extreme point is situated the county seat, Green Bay, a city with a population of 30,000.
The County's area is five hundred and eighteen square miles, twenty-four from its widest point from cast to west, and thirty from north to south. On the north it is bounded by the bay and Oconto county, east by Kewaunee and Manitowoc counties, south by Manitowoc, Calumet and a small corner of Outagamie while Shawano and Outagamie counties form its western limit. The Oneida reservation lies half and half in Brown and Outagamie counties.
Fox river cuts off the County's northwest corner, zigzagging toward the bay between wooded and fertile shores ; Wrightstown is the last river town within Brown county limits.
On Green Bay the county's water line extends for fifteen miles along the western shore and a like distance on the eastern. Fox river gives a frontage of twenty miles on either shore; East river flowing into the Fox near its mouth is navigable for some four miles. Both streams are extensively used for man- ufacturing purposes, and the entire inland area is largely devoted to dairying and agricultural pursuits.
The towns fronting on the bay are Suamico, Howard, Preble, Scott and Green Bay; those on the Fox river are Lawrence, Ashwaubenon, Wrights- town, Rockland, Depere, Allouez ,and. Proble. Inland lie Morrison, Holland, Glenmore, New Denmark,' Eaton, Hun'bold? and Pittsfield.
The population of Brown county, according to the census of 1910 is 54,098, and is composed of widely diverse nationalities. The original settlement was made by French Canadians, followed by English, Americans, Germans, Bel- gians, Flemish, Irish, Hollanders, Scandinavians, Danes, Bohemians and Poles.
Although originally Brown county stood for the whole state it has been mercilessly shorn of its generous proportions until at the present time in the seventy-one counties now comprising Wisconsin, Brown stands fifty-six in point of size, the remaining fifty-five averaging anywhere from 1,497 square miles down the scale. Shawano in its secession took from Brown 1,135 square miles, Outagamie 634, the little counties of Kewaunee and Door 274 and 454
V
vi
PREFACE
respectively ; Manitowoc 590 square miles, and so on through the acres of fertile land composing the twenty-two counties that were cut off from Brown.
Notwithstanding this ruthless hacking away from the parent stem, Brown county continues to be regarded as the most important in Wisconsin.
In point of history the rest of the state is obliged to stand as a blank num- ber up to 1840, while Brown county furnishes interesting material by the volume for every United States history that finds its way to the public library shelves.
It is a wealthy county, the assessed valuation in the government census of 1910 placing it twelfth in the long line of its larger sister counties. In population to the square mile Brown stands fifth in the state, the counties averaging higher being Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine and Winnebago.
The total farm acreage is 301,519, on which 3,615 farms are located. Of these 3,349 are owned and operated by the farmer himself, 246 are under lease, and 20 are owned by farmers who employ a manager to look after the property.
Green Bay, the county seat, is one of the most thriving and progressive busi- ness cities in the United States, with the handsomest courthouse in the west. It guards the gate of the waterway which connects the St. Lawrence valley with that of the Mississippi, and is a central shipping point for coal and grain.
Milwaukee, at present the largest city in Wisconsin, was originally platted and owned by Green Bay men, who had, however, largely disposed of their interests by 1855; the lead mines in southern Wisconsin were first controlled and operated by Green Bay capital, the tremendous water power of the Fox River valley was made available and of value through the progressive business spirit of Brown county men, and Wisconsin's capital, Madison, was first located, platted and named by Judge Doty, a prominent political leader in Brown county.
In the formation of the territory and state of Wisconsin, and in the organ- ization of state, county and town government the men of this county took prominent part. The public press of Wisconsin had its beginnings here, and on the shores of Fox river the first advance toward permanent civilization and educational enlightenment was made.
In compiling this history I have received valuable aid from my sister, Sarah Greene Martin, and from many others who have kindly given me permission to use manuscripts and family papers never before published. Among these may be mentioned Mrs. Curtis R. Merrill, Mrs. H. O. Crane, F. W. Taylor, J. H. M. Wigman, of Green Bay, and :M. J. Maes; of De Pere ; also Francis Bloodgood, of Milwaukee, who allowed the insertion of the interesting letter written by Lieutenant Henry H. Loring to. Mr .: Bloodgood's mother, Caroline Whistler, then a girl of sixteen at Fort Howard.
Thanks are also due Dr. Reuben G .: Thwaites, secretary and superintendent of the State Historical Society : Fredrik T' Thwaites of Madison, Arthur C. Neville, President of the Green Bay Historical Society ; Mrs. Dorr Clark, Albert L. Gray, Elmer S. Hall, Clerk of Brown county, and Judge Carlton Merrill.
(Reference, Wisconsin Blue Book, 1911.)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
BROWN COUNTY BOUNDARIES. I
CHAPTER II
GEOLOGY
3
CHAPTER III
TIIE INDIANS IN 1634
7
CHAPTER IV
TIIE COMING OF JEAN NICOLET.
13
CHAPTER V
FATHER ALLOUEZ AND TIIE MISSION OF ST. FRANCOIS XAVIER.
19
NICHOLAS PERROT AND THE FUR TRADE.
CHAPTER VII
THE FRENCH FORT AT LA BAYE.
43
CHAPTER VIII
FORT EDWARD AUGUSTUS-CIIARLES DE LANGLADE-WAR OF ISI2. 61
CHAPTER IX
AMERICAN OCCUPATION
79
CHAPTER X
91
NEW YORK INDIANS AND ELEAZER WILLIAMS.
105
CHAPTER XII
MEN AND MANNERS OF 1830 117
CHAPTER XIII
THE BLACK HAWK SCARE.
127
vii
CHAPTER VI
27
BROWN COUNTY CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND COURTS.
CHAPTER XI
viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIV
FORT HOWARD-MEXICAN WAR. 137
CHAPTER XV BROWN COUNTY'S PART IN THE MAKING OF WISCONSIN-TERRITORY AND STATE 153
CHAPTER XVI
COUNTY AND TOWN GOVERNMENT. 163
CHAPTER XVII
THE FOX RIVER IMPROVEMENT COMPANY. 173
CHAPTER XVIII
LUMBERING IN BROWN COUNTY.
18I
CHAPTER XIX
BROWN COUNTY IN TIIE CIVIL WAR.
CHAPTER XX
TIIE GREAT FIRE OF 1871-IRON FURNACES-DAIRYING. 229
CHAPTER XXI
THE SCHOOLS OF BROWN COUNTY 241
CHAPTER XXII
CHURCHES OF BROWN COUNTY. 251
CHAPTER XXIII
LIBRARIES
165
CHAPTER XXIV
POLITICAL LIFE-BANKS-TIIE PRESS
269
CHAPTER XXV
RAILROADS-MAILS-WATER TRANSPORTATION-HARBOR 277
CHAPTER XXVI
BROWN COUNTY TOWNS
297
CHAPTER XXVII
FISHERIES-AGRICULTURE-BRICK YARDS-BRIDGES
327
CHAPTER XXVIII
333
COUNTY AND TOWN INSTITUTIONS ..
APPENDIX
BROWN COUNTY MISCELLANY 337
195
History of Brown County
CHAPTER I
BROWN COUNTY BOUNDARIES
Brown county once embraced half the area of what is now Wisconsin, but it has been gradually lopped off in every direction until reduced to the present size. Twenty-two counties have been carved from Brown, which when erected by proclamation of Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan Territory, on October twenty-sixth, 1818, had for its boundaries; north, the county of Michilimacki- nac ; east, that county and the northward extension of the line between Indiana and Illinois ; west by a line drawn due north from the Illinois boundary, through the middle of the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, extending to the county of Michilimackinac. The Illinois line forined the southern boundary.
The territory which now comprises Brown county has been subject to many jurisdictions, but always the land lying between De Pere and Green Bay formed its center and capital. It was an important post under the old French regime from 1669 to 1759-it then came under British rule and remained practically a British colony until after the war of 1812.
Under the ordinance of 1787. this section of country was included in the great Northwest Territory, defined as "The territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio," the boundaries of which were understood to be the Ohio river on the south, the Mississippi river on the west, while on the north the territorial limit was the undefined and unsettled line between the British possessions and the United States.
The area included in the original county of Brown was afterward added to the Territory of Ohio, then was transferred to Indiana with the county seat at old Vincennes ; later it became a part of Illinois, and when Illinois attained statehood in 1805 was handed over to Michigan which was set off as a separate territory on January eleventh, 1805.
In 1834 Milwaukee county was set off from Brown and the western boun- dary of the latter was enlarged to extend to the Wisconsin river. In 1836 the entire counties of Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc and Marquette, likewise the townships of Washington, Dodge and Portage were taken from Brown.
1
2
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
Between the years 1840 and 1850 Winnebago and Calumet counties were erected from a portion of Brown and Marquette, Portage and Manitowoc counties enlarged from the same source.
In 1851 Oconto county was pared off from the parent stem and in the same year Door and Kewaunee counties were also carved out of Brown. Later in that same year Outagamie county was erected from the remaining area of Brown, which was by this act reduced to its present boundaries.
All this territory originally forming an integral part of Brown county and which was cut from it to make these thirteen counties was in succeeding years subdivided until twenty-two counties in all mark the original limits of old Brown.
The county received its name in honor of Major-General Jacob Brown of the United States army, a successful leader in the war of 1812. At its close he retained the command of the northern division, and in 1821 was made General- in-Chief of the army.
The fur trade was for two centuries the absorbing commercial interest of this region. It began with the coming of the first Frenchman and continued uninterruptedly until there were no fur bearing animals of any value left in the woods to tempt the trapper. This portion of Brown County's history may be defined from the coming of Jean Nicolet in 1634 to 1844 when the American Fur Company wound up its business affairs in Green Bay for all time.
Already the lumber industry had taken hold of the people and as the fur trade declined the great forests of pine, birch, maple, and hemlock called for the erection of mills to utilize the supply of timber. This formed the largest interest in Brown county up to 1875, when practically no timber remained to be cut into lumber. The export of fish grew to be also a valuable factor in Brown county's prosperity, and the extensive fisheries were a valuable asset in its wealtlı.
The necessary clearing away of the dense forests for milling purposes and the consumption of waste timber in the great charcoal kilns during the period when the iron furnaces were in full blast in De Pere and Green Bay, furnished another avenue for labor and one that ensured more lasting and safer profits than any preceding venture. Agriculture and dairying inaugurated still another industrial era, the best as far as substantial growth is concerned. Brown county soil is rich and productive and the profits upon a single good crop today amount to more than all the pecuniary gains won from the forest. De Pere because of its water power was always a manufacturing center and Green Bay has within recent years advanced rapidly in this direction, as have also Wrights- town and Little Rapids, but the backbone of Brown county's prosperity is agri- culture and the systematic scientific tilling of the soil.
( References for Chapter I: Wis. Blue Book, 1911 ; Wis. Hist. Colls., Vol. 2; Strong's Territorial Wisconsin; L. P. Kellogg's Boundaries of Wisconsin Counties ; Wis. Hist. Proc., 1909.)
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CHAPTER II
GEOLOGY
The geological history of Brown county is full of interest. The oldest geological formations exposed within the limits of the county are of limestone and shale. These rocks contain abundant remains called fossils, of animals which must once have lived in the sea, a fact clearly indicating that the region was once submerged.
Millions of years ago a rather shallow sea covered a large part of North America, and in it accumulated mud and sand, worn from the unsubmerged portions of the continent. At times when no land waste was present, the remains of marine animals covered the sea bottom, thus forming considerable deposits of shells and lime mud.
After an immense lapse of time, in which several hundred feet of such material gathered, a gradual uplift transformed the region into dry land. The lime muds hardened into limestone, the shells into fossils, and the clay muds into shale. Within the limits of Brown county occurred two thick formations of limestone separated by a bed of shale. These three formations were tilted in the course of the uplift, so that they descend gradually towards the east. On the west side of the county occurs what is known as the "Galena" lime- stone. This rock does not everywhere reach the surface, but is the first solid rock found beneath the soil, and other loose material. It is the rock found in the quarries at Duck Creek.
East of the belt underlaid by this limestone is a band only a few miles wide where the "Cincinnati" shale is the "bed rock" or "ledge." It is seldom seen at the surface, except at the foot of some of the cliffs on Green Bay, this fact being due to the ease with which the weather breaks it down into loose clay. These cliffs with their fretted and escarped surfaces add beauty to the shores of the bay. Rising abruptly from the water's edge they simulate here and there the ruins of some mediaeval castle carved into curious semblance of casement and column and hung with a soft green drapery of vines and ever- greens.
East of the shale and lying on top of it as it passes beneath the surface is the "Niagara" limestone. This hard rock forms the backbone of the great ridge of eastern Wisconsin. Beginning to the east of Horicon it stretches north through Door county continuing thence beneath the water where it is revealed by soundings until it rises again on the Michigan shore. It is traceable in local names, "the ledge" "Winnebago ridge" "the cascade"; is an adjunct of picturesque beauty to the landscape, and for many generations has furnished picknicking grounds for hosts of juveniles. Gashed by chasms, where at cer- tain seasons waterfalls leap from the projecting rocks, tunnelled by caves, the
3
4
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
home until recent years of rattlesnake and wildcat, "the ledge" caps the barrier of hard flinty rock which resisted the force of the contending glaciers in pri- meval times.
This ridge owes its existence to the hardness of the rock. Following the emergence of the country from the sea, the streams, wind and rain began at once to wear it down. The shale was worn away faster than was the hard limestone ; thus was formed the valley now occupied by Green Bay, Fox river and Lake Winnebago, which follows closely this strip of soft Cincinnati shale.
Compared with the processes just described the ice age is a recent event in the geological history of Brown county. Tens of thousands of years ago the climate became colder and colder, until a great mass of ice accumulated upon the highlands of Canada. The weight of this ice caused it to spread out, and a glacier of enormous size was formed. Creeping towards the southwest, at the rate of probably less than a foot a day the glacier entered the valley now occupied by Lake Michigan. The Door county ridge of hard Niagara limestone served as a wedge to split the ice into two divisions. Of these the western one followed up the valley which passes through Brown county, it spread nearly as far west as Stevens Point, and southward almost to Janesville. The other filled the basin now occupied by Lake Michigan.
Soil and loose rocks were stripped off by the ice, but it did not grind away any large hills, or otherwise profoundly modify the country. When at last the climate became milder the front of the ice gradually melted, liberating the loose material or drift which it had picked up, and allowing it to gather on the ground, especially just at the edge of the glacier. These border deposits are called "terminal moraines," and it was the melting of great buried blocks of ice that gave rise to the abundant depressions without outlets called "kettles" from their resemblance to the large kettles used by early settlers for making soap. Notable examples of these are the deep indentations around Baird's Creek and the Octagon house.
As the ice retreated still farther towards the northeast, water filled the valley it had vacated. At first this lake found an outlet along the line of the Upper Fox river into that of the Wisconsin at Portage. In the lake accumu- lated a great thickness of sand, gravel, and red clay, washed from the bare hills of drift just left by the glacier. This red clay now forms the soil of a large area in lower Brown county.
With the retreat of the glacier the water level fell. The successive levels of the lake are recorded in the ridges of sand and gravel formed by the waves along the ancient shores. Long used by the Indians as convenient routes of travel. their true origin was early recognized and commented upon in narra- tives of exploration. At Dyckesville, in the town of Seott, there is a fine exam- ple of this formation of nature in a distinct sand ridge seventeen feet above the bay.
These abandoned shore lines record the melting and gradual receding of the ice sheet. In the city of Green Bay and on its outskirts as at Long Tail Point, the shifting water line indicates that active deposition still goes on. Near the city in the direction of Bay Beach for instance the old lake floor between the ridges and the present shore is extensively ditched and cultivated as truck gardens, much of it being so close to present lake levels that it is too
5
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
wet to be occupied. Back toward the interior, southeast of the city, there are irregular gravel deposits which seem to have been shaped by the melting ice and its short lived streams and floods rather than by shore deposits.
When Lake Michigan reached its present level, the appearance of Brown county must have been substantially as it is today. The net result of the glacial period was to fill the deeper valleys with a great thickness of clay, sand, gravel and boulders so that the underlying rock is often deeply buried. Only the higher hills like the Door county ridge or "ledge" which existed before glacial times now project through the drift. In the time which has elapsed since the ice disappeared the streams have made but slight progress in wearing away the surface. Fox River has cut quite a deep channel as at Wrightstown and above, but the smaller streams have only formed narrow steep sided gullies. The same process of erosion as described before is nevertheless now going on Material is being removed from the land and carried into the great lakes or the sea where it is deposited.
Such has been the geological history of Brown county. No volcanic erup- tions or other spectacular events have marked its even course. Yet it is none the less impressive, in that it shows only these slow processes. Continuing through untold ages they built up the rocks on the sea bottom. elevated them into land, then in turn wore them away to be deposited elsewhere. The ice age was a comparatively recent incident in the development of the present face of the landscape. Being recent it has markedly altered the aspect of the country by smoothing over the older features with a mantle of loose material.
(The geological data for Chapter Il has been furnished by Fredrik T. Thwaites.)
CHAPTER III
THE INDIANS IN 1634
Powerful and hidden forces of nature working not always silently formed as ages passed this habitable spot for man. The bare rocks were gradually clothed with verdure, animal and plant life appeared ; the streams were stocked with fish; buffalo, elk, moose, bear and deer, the rightful prey of the men of the stone age, roamed its forests, while vast numbers of wild fowl inhabited its marshes and open waters, furnishing food and clothing for the people of these prehistoric and legendary days. How early in point of years man dwelt in this region is not known, but that it was inhabited many centuries before discovered by the French is a certainty.
In the Green Bay public library is a remarkable collection of stone and cop- per implements-weapons, tools, domestic articles and ornaments-furnishing the only record of this period of Brown county's history. Through them we can trace with some degree of sequence and definiteness the life and pursuits of our predecessors. Its owner, John P. Schumacher, has gathered this drift of bygone generations almost entirely from Brown county in the immediate vicinity of Green Bay. There are spear heads. stone and copper axes, toma- hawks for use on the war path, spear heads for the chase ; celts for scraping the skins of animals and preparing them for clothing ; bone needles to be threaded with sinew for sewing garments, and the birch bark covering for canoes. Hatchets are here that were used to lop the trees for firewood, cabin poles and the frames for water craft; arrow points beautifully chipped and polished. curious pipes of flint, pottery, buffalo horn, stone clay and red pipestone, and, from a later period it is supposed, numerous articles made of the copper obtained from ancient mines in upper Michigan. Many of these mines have been discovered in recent years with the stone hammers and axes as they were left in the pits when used last by the Indian miners. There are also copper and some silver ornaments brought by the traders as early as the seventeenth cen- tury and exchanged by them with the Indians for furs.
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