USA > Wisconsin > Fond du Lac County > Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 9
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Section 2. That townships number fourteen, fifteen and sixteen north, of range number fourteen east, embracing the organized towns of Ceresco, Alto and Metomen, and included by the act of the seventh day of December, 1836, in both the counties of Fond du Lac and Marquette, are hereby declared to be a part of the county of 'Fond du Lac, as recited by the several acts organizing said towns.
Section 3. The acts of the county of Fond du Lac exercising jurisdiction over either of the before-mentioned townships, or the acts of the towns organized therein, shall not be deemed invalid or illegal in consequence of either of said townships having been included in any other county, or for not having been included in the said county of Fond du Lac.
Section 4. That all that part of Lake Winnebago lying north of the north line of the county of Fond du Lac, as hereinbefore described, and west of the range line separating ranges number seventeen and eighteen, as extending through said lake, is hereby declared to be a part of the county of Winnebago; and all that part of said lake lying east of said range line and north of the north line of Fond du Lac as hereinbefore described, is hereby declared to be a part of the county of Calumet. All process issuing to officers of either of the counties bordering upon. Lake Winnebago, may be served upon the waters of said lake by the officer or person charged with the service thereof; and the said counties shall, for all the purposes of civil and criminal process, have concurrent juris- diction on the said waters.
TIMOTHY,
Speaker of the House of Representatives HORATIO N. WELLS, President of the Council.
Approved March 6, 1848.
HENRY DODGE.
The above-mentioned act brought into the county of Fond du Lac the territory constituting the present towns of Osceola, Forest and Marshfield, and made certain what was left doubtful by the act of December 7, 1836, as to the territory now included in the towns of Ashford and Auburn, by making it unmistakably a ' part of Fond du Lac county.
By the revised statutes of Wisconsin of 1849, the boundaries of the county were established, as at present constituted, as follows :
Section 10. The district of country included within the following boundaries shall form and constitute the county of Fond du Lac, to wit: Beginning at the southeast corner of township thirteen north, of range nineteen east of the meridian line aforesaid; running thence north, on the range line between ranges
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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY
nineteen and twenty, to the south line of the Indian reservation; thence west on said south line to a point in Lake Winnebago in the range line between seven- teen and eighteen east; thence south on said range line to the range of the town- ship line between townships sixteen and seventeen north; thence west to the northwest corner of township sixteen north, of range fourteen east; thence south on the range line, to the southwest corner of township fourteen north, of range fourteen east ; thence east on the township line to the northwest corner of town- ship thirteen north, of range eighteen cast; thence south to the souhwest corner of the last named township; thence east on the township line to the place of beginning.
These boundaries have since been affirmed by the revised statutes of 1858, and a second time by the revised statutes of 1878.
FIRST WHITE MEN IN THE COUNTY
The region now comprising the county of Fond du Lac was visited by French traders as early as the year 1787, for in that year a trading post was established at the forks of the Fond du Lac river, by one Jacob Franks of Green Bay, and Franks' clerk, Jacques Poltier, was placed in charge of the stock of goods. In 1791, Franks sent his nephew, John Lawe, to the post, to take it under his man- agement. Shortly after Franks' advent here Augustin Grignon had an Indian trading post on the west branch of the river, below the first rapids. About the year 1819, Peter Grignon, nephew of Augustin, passed the winter in a shanty, which stood between Forest and West Division streets. At about the year first mentioned, it is said that white men traded with the Winnebago Indians at their village, near the present Taycheedah. Other Indian tribes were wont to gather at this point for the purpose of exchanging peltries for gewgaw and whisky with their "white brother" of the French persuasion. The names of some of them have been preserved. Laurent Ducharme, a Canadian by the name of Chavod- reuil, who was killed by a jealous Indian; Joseph Rolette, Michael Brisbois and one Ace, a Spaniard, who also met his death at the hands of a treacherous red man. The practice of these traders was to ascend the Fond du Lac river in their canoes laden with articles of merchandise and, making a "portage" to Rock river, they would descend that stream to the Mississippi, which brought them to the Indian villages along its banks.
Augustin Grignon, heretofore referred to, in his "Seventy-two Years Recol- lections of Wisconsin," does not agree with the dates given of the opening of the trading post by Franks and the coming of Lawe. But, at the time of writing his recollections, he was a very old man and could have been mistaken. He says: "John Lawe * * was a native of York, England. His father was a captain in the English army, and his mother an English Jewess, a sister of Jacob Franks, who had come to Green Bay as early as 1795, as a clerk in the trading establishment of Oglevie, Gillaspie & Company, of Mackinaw, who had a store at Green Bay. John Lawe was educated at Quebec, and Joseph Rolette, so well known as a trader and early settler at Prairie du Chien, was one of his school- mates. When his uncle, Mr. Franks, had been about three years with Oglevie, Gillaspie & Company, he ceased serving as clerk, and went to Canada and obtained a stock of goods. He returned to the bay and opened a store, bringing
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his nephew, John Lawe, with him, then a young man of sixteen years. This was in the summer of 1797.
"Lawe engaged in his uncle's employ and the following winter was sent with a supply of Indian goods, accompanied by Louis Bauprez, to Fond du Lac river, which was then known among the French and traders by that name, and took possession of the old trading post, about a mile and a half above the mouth of that stream, on its eastern bank. This had been a winter trading post for many years. Laurent Ducharme, who one year caught a large number of ducks there by means of a net, salting and preserving them for winter's use, was about the earliest trader at that point; then one Ace, a Spaniard, and, subsequently, one Chavodreuil; and still later, Michael Brisbois and I wintered there two winters.
"The Indians, whose trade was there sought, were the Winnebagoes, who had a village where Taycheedah now is, three miles east of Fond du Lac city, and had other villages along Rock river. Mr. Lawe afterwards spent several winters at different points among the Indian hunting bands between Green Bay and the Mississippi, and up to the time when his uncle left the country and went back to Canada, which was about the commencement of the War of 1812, leav- ing Mr. Lawe as his successor as a merchant and trader ; and he continued more or less in the Indian trade as long as he lived."
THE LAND IS SURVEYED
At the close of the Black Hawk war in 1832 and immediately upon the con- clusion of the treaties between the Indian tribes and the United States, the gov- ernment commenced a survey of the land ceded. The northern boundary of Illinois, fixed April II, 1818, was made the base line of the surveys. A principal north and south line (known as the Fourth Meridian), was run, extending from the base line to Lake Superior. This line is west of the territory now included in Fond du Lac county, running on the east boundary of what is now Grant county, and on the west boundary of La Fayette and Iowa counties, and thence due north at a distance west of the west boundary of Fond du Lac county of seventy-two miles, striking Lake Superior near the mouth of Montreal river, on the east boundary line of Wisconsin and at the most westerly point of the state of Michigan.
To the fourth meridian parallel lines were run every six miles on the east and west sides of it. Thus townships were blocked out and more minutely surveyed into sections. By the end of the year 1833 a large portion of what is now south- ern and eastern Wisconsin had been surveyed and, by an act of congress, approved June 26, 1834, two land districts were created, which embraced all that tract north of the state of Illinois, west of Lake Michigan, south and southeast of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, included in what was then the territory of Michigan. It was divided by a north and south line, drawn from the northern boundary of Illinois, between ranges 8 and 9, to the Wisconsin river. All east of this line was called the Green Bay Land district; all west of the line, the Wis- consin Land district. Fond du Lac county was included in the Green Bay dis- trict. A land office was established and opened by the government at Green Bay and a notice was issued by the government land agent that all the lands then surveyed were for sale and early in the year 1835 the sale took place. Lands not
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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY
disposed of at this sale became open for entry at the Green Bay Land office and a large proportion of the land in Fond du Lac county was thus obtained from the government, by early settlers and speculators, at $1.25 an acre.
THE FIRST SETTLER IN FOND DU LAC COUNTY
Colwert Pier was the first settler in Fond du Lac county and it was through an arrangement made with a land company, formed to exploit this section of the country, that he became the pioneer of the county.
In November, 1835, a number of prominent men of Green Bay associated themselves into a land company, for the purpose of buying and selling land at the head of Lake Winnebago, then in the county of Brown, Wisconsin Territory. Articles of association were drawn up and signed by the parties interested and the organization became known as the Fond du Lac Company. Three hundred shares were issued and sold at the par value of one hundred dollars each. These shares were distributed amongst the members of the company as follows: James Duane Doty, president, 46 shares; Joshua Hathaway, 12 shares; John Parndt, 40 shares ; George McWilliams, 20 shares ; R. S. Clarey, 10 shares ; R. B. Marcy, 4 shares ; F. F. Hamilton, 35 shares ; David Ward, 3 shares ; Brush, Rees & Com- pany, 6 shares; C. C. Sibley, 12 shares; William Brown, 64 shares; Henry S. Baird, 3 shares; M. E. Merrill, 10 shares ; R. S. Satterlee, 20 shares ; Silas Sted- man, 10 shares; Samuel Ryan, 7 shares; Alexander J. Irwin, 4 shares; David Jones, 15 shares; W. Alexander, 4 shares; E. Childs, 14 shares; M. Scott, 3 shares.
The company, by the first of January, 1836, came into possession of 3,705 acres of land, all of which now lies within the confines of the city of Fond du Lac, and the officials of the company, comprising James Duane Doty, president ; David Jones, George McWilliams, F. F. Hamilton and W. H. Bruce, directors, had laid out a village and completed its survey in November, 1835, the name of which was designated as the "Town of Fond du Lac." The plat of the village was acknowledged before a notary public and on August 23, 1836, was recorded in the office of the register of deeds from Brown county, of which Fond du Lac county was then a part.
After the necessary preliminaries of laying out the "town of Fond du Lac" had been completed, the company took the main step in the enterprise by making preparations to dispose of its holdings in the embryo city. The plat was lith- ographed and widely circulated. The world at large was notified in printed cir- culars, made a part of the plat, that "Winnebago lake is thirty miles long and ten miles wide. The town is fifty-eight miles southwest from Green Bay; thirty- three miles from the banks of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Sheboygan river ; fifty-four miles from Fort Winnebago and fourteen miles from Rock river."
Needing shelter for its agent or any settlers that might arrive, the Fond du Lac Company, in a spirit of enterprise and foresightedness, erected a double log cabin, in the spring of 1836, on the east side of Brooke street, east of the present railroad track and between the river and what is now known as Johnson street. This was the first house built in Fond du Lac county and was a double log affair with an open hall running through the center from front to rear. It was two
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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY
stories in height and had an inside stairway. A party of the civilized tribe of Brothertown Indians came from the village of the same name and put the logs of the cabin together, and in this cabin Colwert Pier and his wife began life in the wilderness of Fond du Lac county. Here Mrs. Pier died, as did also Wil- liam Carey, Mrs. Laughlin and Mrs. Carey. George McWilliams, a member of the Fond du Lac Company, occupied a room in the building for some time and in later years it became the shelter for several families at a time. In the year 1864, this old building, which had done splendid service as the pioneer house and tavern of the county, had become old, decrepit and useless. Its logs were taken from their long resting places and many of them were taken to the Boulay farm east of the city.
The Fond du Lac Company remained in existence a number of years and sold to settlers many of its lots in Fond du Lac, but in the year 1844, dissensions be- tween the company and Dr. M. C. Darling, a stockholder, culminated in the latter instituting proceedings in chancery against the company, asking for a dissolution of the company, which had been incorporated in February, 1842, and also for the settlement of its business and the distribution of its assets among the stock- holders. As a consequence, the court, on the 9th of March, 1844, appointed Edward Pier receiver and in 1846, A. G. Ellis as master in chancery, sold all the holdings of the company, which were situated in Fond du Lac, and the proceeds of the sale were distributed in accordance with the prayer of Dr. Darling. The act incorporating the company had been repealed in 1845 and the company be- came legally dead.
THE PIERS VISIT FOND DU LAC
Colwert Pier, who had arrived in Green Bay from Vermont early in 1834, with his two brothers, met and convened with members of the Fond du Lac Com- pany soon thereafter and, being impressed with the description of the Fond du Lac country thus secured, he determined on a tour of exploration. On the 16th day of February, 1836, in the company of his younger brother, Edward, he started with a horse and sled from Green Bay for the head of Lake Winnebago and the vicinity, to see what manner of country it was. There being no roads at that time, except what had been made by the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians as far as the Grand Kaukauna, so that travel in winter from Green Bay to that place was chiefly upon the ice. Reaching the Grand Kaukauna the travel- ers learned that the Indians had cut a road as far as the locality where the Stock- bridge mission was afterwards established. That route was taken by them, being attracted thereby from having been informed of the presence of several families who were living at the proposed site of the mission. The Piers reached the place at the end of the first day and stopped over night with a Stockbridge family named Jourdan, living in a small cabin, near which was a shed. The last men- tioned building gave shelter to their horse. The Jourdans entertained the travel- ers most kindly and in the morning started them on their way, by directing them to the lake, up which, so the elder Jourdan said he had heard, was Fond du Lac, which came into the lake on the west side of the prairie in the timber.
The ice on the lake at this time was frozen over, the roughly snow-covered ice being about eight inches in thickness. The going was slow, difficult and track-
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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY
less. But, being young and hardy and ambitious to see what was before them they started out on the lake, making their way toward the woods and coming to the shore about one-half mile east of the mouth of the stream. Then bearing west the river was reached. Coming up on the east side of the river the Piers made camp near the spot on which the residence of George McWilliams was subsequently built. Here a fire was soon burning, where the adventurers spent the rest of the day and night. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, however, after picketing their horse, the men started out to look for desirable farm land. Returning to camp in the evening, they found James D. Doty there, agreeably to a promise previously given, and with him were Dr. Richard M. Satterlee, Lieu- tenant Merrill, and a trooper by the name of Collins. This party had come up the river and finding the tethered horse and camp equipment, determined to re- main for the night, not being certain who their hosts would be. The meeting, needless to say, was a pleasurable one on both sides, and although the night was bitterly cold, all concerned were ready for an early breakfast, after which, hav- ing learned all they could of the country from Doty the brothers took their course towards the west; crossing the river below the forks and walking up across sec- tions 9, 8 and 18. About noon snow began to fall and a start was made back in the direction of the camp. The men came down across section 10 and struck the west branch. Here they became confused in their surroundings and for some time were at a loss to find their bearings, not knowing that the river had two branches. This, however, became apparent after reaching the forks, and then it was not long before they had reached the desired destination.
Feeding their faithful horse and satisfying their own hunger, the brothers broke camp and began a retrograde movement toward Green Bay. The snow was still coming down thickly and reaching a tract of country overgrown with weeds the height of a man's head, making it almost difficult to determine direction, and being fearful of losing their way, Colwert sat on the sled and with a compass in hand, directed his brother Edward, who walked in advance of the horse, which way he should go. About four o'clock in the afternoon the lake was again reached. The snow had ceased to fall and, taking the lake just east of where Taycheedah now lies, a team was discovered there emerging from the timber. Behind the horses were Doty and his party, who joined the Piers and with them returned to Green Bay.
COLWERT PIER SETTLES IN FOND DU LAC
The Fond du Lac country, what they had seen of it, had so pleased and im- pressed the Pier brothers, Colwert and Edward, that they determined to return to it, if satisfactory arrangements could be made with the Fond du Lac Company. In furtherance of this object they met the directors of the company and extracted from them the promise of the transference to each of them of a quarter section of the company's land and, in the event of the settlement of the parents of the two brothers at Fond du Lac, they also should have a quarter section adjoining those selected by the boys, the latter agreeing, in consideration thereof, to move to Fond du Lac and improve their farms. It was stipulated that Colwert should take the double log cabin and convert it into a tavern. This he did and the "Fond du Lac House" has become a matter of history.
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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY
In pursuance of the agreement made with the Fond du Lac Company, Col- wert Pier returned to Fond du Lac on horseback, in the month of May, 1836. His wife, in company with a Mrs. Robean, followed her husband, in a boat deeply laden with provisions, merchandise and household goods. The vessel was in command of Captain Samuel Irwin and propelled by Indians and half-breeds ; the route was by way of the Grand Kaukauna. Here a "portage" was necessary. Everything had to be unshipped and carried three-fourths of a mile above the rapids and then reloaded. However, all these difficulties were overcome and on the 6th day of June, 1836, the boat reached the vicinity of the "Fond du Lac House" and here Mrs. Pier, the pioneer woman of Fond du Lac county, rejoined her husband, who had only preceded her but a few days, and the actual settle- ment of the county had commenced. Mrs. Robean, who had left Green Bay with Mrs. Pier, was taken to her husband, who had entered a tract of land on the east side of the lake. Of the leave-taking between the Piers and Captain Irwin the latter relates :
"I bade good-bye to Mrs. Pier with feelings not unmixed with sorrow. She endeared herself to all of us by her uniform kindness. She assisted us in our cooking, and cheered us by her looks and words through all the trying scenes of the nine days we were on the voyage. When we left her on the bank of the Fond du Lac river, a lone region, surrounded by hundreds of Indians, with no one but her husband to protect her, we all felt sad. 'I have often thought,' says a recent writer, 'that if she had lived, her version of those times and those scenes would be of great interest to some of the ladies now living in the county. She once told me that when Captain Irwin's boat was out of sight and she and her husband were left alone-feeling that they constituted the only civilized inhabit- ants of the entire region-she sat down upon the ground and cried a considerable time, then wiping away her tears, she resolutely got up and walked to the house where her home was to be and took a calm view of the surroundings. She found the log building to consist of three log cabins united; there was an open hall between the dining room and sitting room, and a kitchen in the rear, the floor of which had been laid by her husband after his arrival, but previous to her com- ing. He had also put in two windows and a door. "My husband tried to soothe and comfort me, but I felt that he needed," said she, "some one to comfort him as well; so I took hold and helped him put up the stove, and I went about put- ting our house in as good condition as circumstances would permit." Within half an hour a squaw came in and by signs made Mrs. Pier understand that she wished to exchange some feathers for flour. These she purchased, and, as she afterwards discovered, paid liberally for them, for in half an hour her room was filled with squaws wishing to "swap" feathers for pork. Her stock in trade con- sisted of one barrel of pork and two of flour. That afternoon she bought of the squaws feathers sufficient to make two good sized feather beds, and paid for them in pork and flour.'"
Colwert Pier and his brave helpmeet were the only white residents in Fond du Lac county from June 6, 1836, to March II, 1837. Then it was that Edward Pier, long delayed, arrived, and with him was his family, consisting of a young wife and two daughters, one a baby about four weeks old. The population of Fond du Lac was now six souls, which was increased on the first day of June by Norman Pier, of Middlebury, Vermont, and Albert Kendall, of Rochester, Ver- Vol. I-5
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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY
mont. On the 17th of June, Miss Harriet Pier, who became the wife of Alonzo Raymond, added one more to the colony, and on September 3d, the parents of the Pier boys, Calvin and Esther Pier, and their youngest son, Oliver W., a boy of fourteen years made the settlement larger by three more inhabitants. The Piers and Albert Kendall constituted all of the population of Fond du Lac county until March, 1838, and then sadness and death came to mar the happiness of all. Mrs. Fanny Pier, the brave and noble wife of Colwert Pier, was unable to withstand the rigors and hardships of a pioneer life and on the first day of March, 1838, was relieved of her burdens. That day marked the first death in the county, and to the little settlement, composed mainly of men and women of the same family, the day was a sad one. The funeral was held on the third day of March, Rev. Cutting Marsh, missionary to the Stockbridge Indians, preaching the sermon.
Edward . Pier, co-pioneer with his brother, Colwert, wrote an interesting article on this period, which was published in a history of Fond du Lac issued in 1880. He tells of many things of which he was conversant and which should be made a part of this chapter. The article follows :
"On the 17th of June, 1836, my father arrived at Green Bay, in search of his three sons, whom he had sent west two years before to seek their fortunes. He had been quite sick on the boat coming up the lakes and was in feeble health. I had purchased one small pony and had engaged others, so that when father came, I could accompany him to where my brother Colwert was. The Frenchmen at the Bay from whom I expected to hire ponies, tried or pretended to find theirs, but without success; we therefore on the 20th started with one only. I tried every man I met to hire a horse to ride to Fond du Lac, but without success. When we got to Shanty Town, about half way to Depere, I asked an old French- man where I could hire a horse for my father to ride to Fond du Lac, to be gone a week. He said that he had a good one and if I would give him a dollar for its use, I might have him. I asked him where his horse was. He said it was on the commons. I told him several men had been looking three days for their ponies and could not find one. He declared he could get his in one hour. We waited two and a half, when he came with his horse. That night we got as far as Grand Kaukauna, and stopped with one of the Stockbridge Indians over night. My father was quite sick during the night, so that I gave up the idea of going any farther. I was up early to look after the horses. The feed was good but the fence was poor. I found the animals all right. My father was very anx- ious to see Colwert and his wife, also the country where we intended to make our future homes. An old squaw gave him some medicine and made him a strong cup of tea, which he drank, but he could not eat much breakfast. He said that he would go on as far as he could, for he did not like to go home until he had seen all his children. We found the way exceedingly wet. It was almost one continuous slough of water and mud for sixteen miles to where the Stock- bridge Mission was then building. Here we found the Rev. Cutting Marsh, a missionary to the Indians. He had a house up and partly inclosed ; also a stable completed. He let us have all the feed for our horses he had-about six quarts of oats. My friend, Joseph King, was with us, so that we had three horses. We got some dinner with the missionary, and about three o'clock we left to find our way as best we could to my brother's. Before our arrival at Fond du Lac we
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