USA > Wisconsin > Winnebago County > History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People > Part 27
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is said to have been a most desperate one, thousands of warriors, women and children being slaughtered by the French and their allies.
One of the most notable events occurring at the "Hill of the Dead" was the great council of August, 1827, at which several thousand Chippewas, Winnebago and Menominees were assem- bled to meet Gen. Lewis Cass and Col. Thomas L. Mckinney, the United States commissioners appointed for the purpose of appor- tioning the lands of the various tribes represented and fixing their proper boundaries. Chief John W. Quinne, an educated Stockbridge Indian, with Eleazer Williams, the "Lost Dauphin," were present as representatives of the New York Indians, who had been ceded lands along the Fox river by the Menominees. There was also present at this treaty a command of United States regulars and volunteer troops, who had halted en route to the seat of the Winnebago war. It was during this council (on Au- gust 7, 1872) that the young Indian Oiscoss, or "Oshkosh," as the name is spelled in the treaty, was formally selected by the commissioners and recognized as the head chief of the Menominee Indians. It is greatly to be regretted that Dr. Increase A. Lap- ham's wishes, so strongly expressed in regard to the preserva- tion of this historic monument, should not have been heeded. In the year 1863 the Chicago and Northwestern railway constructed a pile bridge across Little Butte des Morts lake and made a deep cut through this point on the south side of and within thirty feet of the mound. Subsequently they excavated and removed the gravel at this place over an area of about five acres to a depth of about thirty feet, and with it, regardless of tradition or his- tory, went the "Hill of the Dead." Thus it happened that the bones and implements of the aborigines entombed therein were strewn along the railway right of way for miles. After one-third of the mound had crumbled into the pit made by the busy pick -and shovel, a large pocket of human bones was plainly exposed near its base. All about the outer surface, in shallow graves, were the remains of a great number of skeletons, possibly repre- senting burials of a later date than those found at its base. As I can find no indication of an aboriginal cemetery in this vicinity that may be ascribed to the Fox Indians, who resided from 1683 to 1728, or later, within a mile of the mound, I have come to the . conclusion that some of these latter interments were those of members of that tribe. I am informed, on good authority, that
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the early settlers and physicians often resorted to this mound for skeletons.
The "Hill of the Dead" was probably never properly sur- veyed. According to Augustin Grignon it was "some six or eight rods in diameter and perhaps some fifteen feet high."1 The author's measurements were obtained from Mr. C. V. Donald- son, of Menasha, and old residents of the neighborhood, who state that it was of an oval form, having a long diameter of sixty feet and short diameter of thirty-five feet. The height, corresponding with that given by Grignon and others, is fifteen feet. It was located a distance of 360 feet west of the lake shore and 300 feet south of the east and west quarter line of section 16.
About one-half mile west of the "Hill of the Dead" there is another eminence, apparently artificial, which has been referred to by Mr. Richard Harney2 in connection with the foregoing as the "two hills of the dead." It is nine feet in height, 100 feet in diameter and is built of boulders and gravel. It is now over- grown with trees and bushes. No attempt has been made to in- vestigate it.
In the vicinity of this mound there are a number of stone circles, each about four feet in diameter, constructed of boulders about ten inches in thickness. The areas enclosed within these circles have become filled in with earth and many of the circles almost hidden beneath the accumulation. From the center of one has grown a great oak tree so that the stones now lie in a ring about its base. In a cornfield adjoining north of the woodland, in which these are located, there were formerly hundreds of such circles, which the thrifty husbandman has now cleared from the field.
The village site stockade embankment of the Outagamie (Fox) Indian village, of which a full description and history has been given by the author in the "Proceedings" of the Wisconsin State Historical Society for the year 1900, is located on the farm of Mr. Henry Race, in the southeast quarter of section 8, one mile northwest of the "IIill of the Dead" and three-quarters of a mile west of Little Butte des Morts lake. Being driven from Michigan after their battle with the French and their Indian allies at De- troit in the year 1712, the remnant of the Fox Indians who took part in that raid returned to their Wisconsin ancient village site in West Menasha, and endeavored to form an alliance with other
13 " Wis. Hist. Colls."
"" Hist. Winnebago Co.," 1880.
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Wisconsin tribes for the purpose of again harassing the French, with the result that a war of extermination was ordered by the authorities in Quebec, and the fifty years' war was again in full flame.
In 1716, Sieur de Louvigny, in command of an army of 500 French and 1,000 Iroquois, came to Wisconsin seeking the Foxes. In the meantime the Fox Indians had prepared for his coming by erecting a strong stockade consisting of a triple row of oak palisades, with an outer ditch. From within this strongly forti- fied enclosure 500 warriors and 3,000 women for a period of three days successfully defended themselves against the French and their cannon. At the end of this time propositions for peace were received and a treaty finally concluded between the opposing forces. The French affected to suppose the Foxes failed to carry out their agreement under the treaty, and in 1728 Sieur de Lignery came to Wisconsin with a second expedition for the purpose of subduing them; but the Indians, being warned of his coming, only empty villages were found. These and the stockade were burned and destroyed by the French. The stock- ade embankment, which is still to be seen, partially encloses about seven and a half acres of land. The central portion is 700 feet in length and its two wings each 450 feet in length. It is twenty- five feet in width and now about three feet in height. On one wing and corner are bastion-like extensions, the probable site of block houses. The rear may have been otherwise defended. A low embankment 200 feet in length in a field a slight distance to the west is supposed to indicate the position of the trenches built by the French in their attack on the palisade. A description of this stockade has also been published by the author in the "Mil- waukee Sentinel" of September 10, 1899, and these events are more fully outlined on another page of this work.1
The Great Serpent mounds are located about one and a half miles west of Little Butte des Morts lake, and about two and one-half miles northwest of the city of Neenah. It is only about 500 feet northwest of the remains of the old Fox stockade em- bankment just described. The country about is old farming land. One of the mounds has never been disturbed, while the other one has been plowed over in parts and largely removed with scrapers.
' A plat and description of the group of great serpent mounds has been given by the author in the January, 1902, issue of the "Wisconsin Archeol- ogist," Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 35-36. A description of one of the effigies has also appeared in the "Oshkosh Northwestern" of September 3, 1898.
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The two reptiles are apparently rushing toward each other. Be- tween their heads runs a very small creek four feet wide and dry in summer, but which in 1728 was large enough a half mile below to admit several hundred canoes bearing the French and Iroquois army, which came to assault the Fox Indian village near- by. West of the mounds the land sinks into a basin, so that they seem to lie along the edge of the sharp depression of about three feet to the basin. They are constructed of red clay similar to the surrounding subsoil and with a few inches of vegetable mold on one and much more on the other. At the bottom of the slope along which they lie there is an artificial ditch extending their whole length (except at certain points in the one, which has been plowed over), which is now from three inches to two feet in depth. It is deepest at the head and gradually grows less deep toward the extremities, where it disappears with the tails of the mounds. The stumps on the mounds are numerous and some of them three feet through, showing ages from forty to one hundred and fifty years. The heads of the reptiles are not distinctly out- lined, but are flat as if mashed. In the jaws of one there is a four-foot elm stump. One of the mounds is a prominent feature of the landscape, as it can be seen from quite a distance. Its peculiar serpentine shape is very striking. The length of mound A is 1,210 feet, and of the other, mound B, 1,580 feet, making for both of them a total length of 2,790 feet, or half a mile. A draw- ing of these immense leviathans, lying full length upon the ground, made on a scale of one hundred feet to the inch, cannot convey to the mind any idea of the numerous coils and curves which make up the mounds. One great loop runs out twenty-five feet and returns within a few feet of its starting point. From the neck the mounds grow gradually higher and broader toward the middle of the effigies, then as gradually and gracefully grow smaller and smaller until they disappear into the surrounding soil. The smaller one ends among a lot of stumps, and the larger one up in the top soil of rock outerop of Trenton limestone. The lands across which the mounds lie are divided into half a dozen fields, with as many owners.
At various places in the southern portion of this town and in the town of Neenah, on the Blair, Jennijohn, Moulton, Hankey and other farms .. some burials or gravel pit interments are fre- quently disturbed in taking out the material for road work. These graves are usually at a depth of but a few feet beneath the surface. They are generally about two feet wide and deep
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and six feet long. The bones lie in a horizontal position, the di- rection varying greatly. From a pit near the "Hill of the Dead" the author obtained, in 1882, a dozen shreds of shell-tempered earthenware, several fragments of a carved bone and a number of bone awls. During the summer of 1902 a number of human bones and a copper spear-point found with them were taken from a pit on the Blair property by workmen. The gravel ridge in which these interments occur extends from this point across por- tions of the towns of Neenah, Vinland and Winneconne to Big Butte des Morts lake. On the farm of Mr. W. Weaver, in the southwest quarter of section 17, near a stone quarry, human bones and a considerable number of stone implements have been found at different times.
Evidences of the former existence of shell heaps are to be seen at the south side of the mouth of Sill's creek, or Duck creek, where it empties into Little Butte des Morts lake, near its lower end, in the northeast corner of section 3. The surface of the ground at this place is white with fragments and flakes of broken and decomposed clam shells over an area of three acres or more. The writer has collected from this site upwards of fifty finely chipped flint arrow points, several bone and horn awls and a con- siderable quantity of pot sherds. The most of the latter are fabric marked and tempered with black quartz. Two sockette copper spear points, one of which has the surface of its blade ornamented with small regular indentations, have also been ob- tained. The prevailing style of pottery decoration is in the chev- ron or triangular patterns, impressed in dotted and continuous lines made with a pointed implement or with twisted cords.
The town of Neenah, as stated in another page, originally in- cluded the towns of Menasha, Vinland and Clayton. After Vin- land and Clayton had been set off and the village of Menasha sprung up around the north outlet of Fox river in 1848, there was constant friction in the town meetings between the citizens of Winnebago Rapids and the hamlet starting up at Menasha. The contest originally grew out of the strife for roads, school money and the location of the place of holding town meetings. The natural place for the meetings was where it had always been held at Winnebago Rapids, now Neenah; but the village of Menasha desired that half the time it should be held in Menasha. This desire was finally accomplished by Menasha friends polling the most votes. Then the Neenah people determined to divide the town. The Menasha people opposed this. The place of holding
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the town election or town meeting was established by law at Neenah. Menasha having for a long time agitated the holding of the election alternately at that place and Neenah, the question was voted on April 5, 1853, and decided in favor of Neenah as the place of holding the next town meeting and against dividing the town-182 votes for Neenah and 160 votes for Menasha. At the next annual town meeting, April 2, 1854, a vote was taken to decide the place of holding the general election of 1854 and the annual meeting for 1855; 239 votes were cast for the Decker House in Menasha and 147 votes for R. C. Wheeden's brick hotel in Neenah. Menasha was at last victorious, and Neenah, being dissatisfied, made an application to the county board to divide the town, which was opposed by Menasha; but the town was di- vided and the town of Menasha set off from the town of Neenah. The cemetery had been located in West Menasha, as described in another place, and in the division a jog south was made in the straight east and west line of the division to carry the line through the center of the cemetery, giving half to each town.
The first permanent settler in the town is regarded as James Ladd, who with his family located near his future farm in the fall of 1846 in one of the log houses built by the Government for the Indians. This block house stood on the corner on the Blair premises. Mr. Ladd was born in Sudbury, Vt., May 16, 1799, re- moving with his parents to the state of New York at an early age, where he remained until 1845, when he traveled to Beaver Dam, in Wisconsin. IIe has told the story of the first settlement him- self in a letter written in 1877: "In March, 1846, in company with Deacon Mitchell and Mr. Wheatley, I arrived in Neenah, then known as Winnebago Rapids. We came from Dodge county, but had to leave our team on the other side of the river in Oshkosh. cross the river in a skiff and proceed on foot, following the Indian trail through the woods. We found at Winnebago Rapids a few log or block houses built by the Government for the benefit of the Indians, also the Government mills. At this time there were seven or eight families within four miles of Neenah and a large sprink- ling of Indians. We stopped over night with Harrison Reed and made inquiries of him concerning Government land. He directed us to Governor Doty on the island and there we were directed to Mr. Pendleton, who lived on the Cronkhite place, he being the old- est settler and best acquainted with the country. We got what information we could respecting the best locations and started off through the woods to look for land and lost our way. After
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wandering a long time we found an Indian trail, which brought us to Mr. Jourdain's, on the Neff farm. It was late in the afternoon and we were tired and hungry, but there we were served to a good dinner of wild duck. After wandering about through woods and brush, crossing the streams in a skiff, I concluded to make a claim where I now live. In October following I moved my family into a block house with Mr. Coldwell, who lived with an Indian wife on the Blair place. Other families moved in that summer and fall. We had no way to cross the lower lake with teams but to ford it, going into the lake by the old mill and guiding our course by an old oak on the Jourdain place, the water coming up to the middle of the wagon box, so that we were obliged to place ourselves and effects on top of the box to keep dry.
"Some Frenchmen with a load of calico and trinkets going through to trade with the Indians at their annual gathering to receive their annuity from the Government, in attempting to cross just at night to stop with me, there being no place in Neenah to stop, got out of the right course into deep water with a muddy bottom. They called for assistance and I went to them in a skiff. The men and horses were rescued, but wagon and goods were left to soak over night. The next morning, by means of long poles tied together and the oxen, the wagon was drawn ashore. They dried their goods and resumed their journey, thinking they would be none the less valuable to the redskins for having been soaked.
"My house, which consisted of three rooms with low chambers, was the only stopping place for travelers that winter west of the slough and the lake. That fall the settlers who were here clubbed together, there being no town board to raise an extra tax, to hire the Indians to cut a road through to the Oneida settlement, a dis- tance of fourteen miles. We were to furnish them with provisions while they did the work. That road connected with a road to Green Bay, which was the only way we could reach the bay with teams. The Indians camped in rude huts as they worked their way along, taking my house for the terminus of the road, which they reached one night, headed by their chief, Mr. Breed. We gave them (twenty in number) a good supper, after which each took his blanket and lay down before our old-fashioned fireplace. Before leaving in the morning they presented me a cane with a snake's head neatly carved on the top of it. These Indians brought us our lumber for the first building in Neenah from their mills on Duck creek.
"Some six or eight of the settlers agreed to pay me $100 to build
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a bridge at the big slough, which I did by making cribs of logs, laying stringers from crib to crib and covering with poles. This bridge was completed in the spring and lasted a number of years. "One of my family was taken sick that spring and I sent to Oshkosh for a physician, there being none nearer; but he did not understand the case, and I sent to Stockbridge for Rev. Dr. Cut- ting Marsh. The only way to get there was to cross the lake in a skiff. Mr. C. Northrup, of Menasha, went across, a distance of fourteen miles, and returned with the doctor. We had to take him home and send for him a second time in the same way.
"Work on the Neenah dam was begun in 1847, and as there was no place to board the men, I built the barn back of the Winne- bago House, moved into it and took fifty boarders, besides keep- ing what travelers came along. I have no record of the arrivals, but think there would be a long list. We often had to make a barrel of flour in a day. We lived in the town that summer and until I built the Winnebago House. The work on the dam caused quite an influx of men this year, while large numbers were con- stantly arriving for the purpose of taking up claims of Govern- ment lands, and on the whole it was quite busy during the fall of that year. During the winter the territory was changed to a state. The first town meeting in Neenah was held in the spring of 1847. Governor Doty, Cornelius Northrup and myself were ap- pointed supervisors and Lucius Donaldson town clerk.
"Neenah, 1877.
JAMES LADD."
Mr. Joseph Jourdain conducted the blacksmith shop down on the bank of Little Lake Butte des Morts, near the sawmill, for the Menominee Indian Mission, under the Government factor, in 1834, until the mission was abandoned under the treaty of Cedar Point, September 3, 1836. It is supposed that he afterward occupied with his family the block house in the town of Menasha, located on the place, which Thomas Jourdain, his son, took up as Govern- ment land in 1848. During a part of the time Joseph Jourdain was blacksmith to the Menominee with shops and buildings at Winneconne. Thomas Jourdain resided on the place he had pur- chased until 1871, when he moved to the city of Menasha, holding the position of policeman or marshal. He was a large, powerful man, and because of his good nature and common sense had a host of friends. The old blacksmith. Joseph Jourdain, of whom mention has been made under the history of Neenah, is possibly entitled to be regarded as the first settler of the town of Neenah, and after Menasha was set off he would be regarded as the first
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settler of the lands afterward included in the town. After the mission at Neenah was abandoned there is every reason to sup- pose that Joseph Jourdain remained living in the block house, where he afterward lived until his death in 1866, the land being purchased by his son Thomas as soon as opened for purchase. Mr. James Ladd mentions this Jourdain place when he moved into the town. It is supposed that Joseph Jourdain remained located on that place from 1836 until his death in 1866, excepting the few years he was in charge of the blacksmith shop at Winneconne for the Menominee. Mr. Thomas Jourdain was a blacksmith and as- sistant to his father at both the Neenah and Winneconne shops. The Jourdain family history and genealogy has been furnished for this work by Mr. J. P. Schumacher, of Green Bay, whose wife was a descendant. The family becomes interesting as among the earliest residents of the county and permanent settlers, as well as for the marriage of a daughter to the celebrated Eleazer Williams, to whom history points very clearly as the lost Louis XVII, King of France. Joseph Jourdain was born at Three Rivers, near Montreal, Canada, January 12. 1780, where he lived until May 10, 1798, when he appeared in La Bay, now Green Bay, the first black- smith to locate in Wisconsin, a prominent and necessary character in the romantic back-woods life of the early pioneers. An expert at his profession, he could fashion a razor or a sword as well as an ax, or hatchet, or shovel, and made the locks for their cabins and the cranes to do the cooking for the family, and andirons for the great open fireplace, and the shovels and tongs, the pans and copper kettles for the good housewife, repaired the guns and adjusted the flints for the early hunters. He made the spears and the fishhooks to catch the sturgeon and other fish, forged his tools to work with and made his own forge and bellows. The pipe tomahawk he made of old gun barrels were marvels of the smith's art. They were graceful and beautiful in design, a crescent on the side of the blade being inlaid with copper from an old French penny. The handles were made from an ironwood sapling and served as a stem for the pipe. One of these pipes is in the collec- tion of George A. West, of Milwaukee, and Dr. Tanner has one in Kaukauna, and Mr. Benedict, of Butte des Morts, has one. Mr. Jourdain for a long time was armorer and smith for the military post at Fort Howard and for a short time at Camp Smith, Green Bay; then he built himself a house and shop on the site where the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul depot now stands. Mrs. M. Lefevre has a picture of this house. In 1834 or earlier he took a
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claim of eighty acres of land at Bay Settlement (now town of Scott), five miles northeast of the city of Green Bay, on the east shore of Green Bay, and built a large house there. He gave the place to his daughter, Marguerite (Mrs. D. J. Parent), whose son, Medrions Parent, lives there at present and owns the place.
About the year 1834 Mr. Jourdain moved to Winnebago Rap- ids, now Neenah, as mentioned above, where the sub-mission for the Menominee Indians was established, where he held the posi- tion of armorer and blacksmith, his shop being at the foot of the Winnebago Rapids at Little Butte des Morts lake, the site of which is now covered by the Neenah writing-paper mill of the' Kimberly-Clark Company. He made his home over the lake in the town of Menasha in one of the log cabins erected by the Gov- ernment. After the agency was closed he remained and was the earliest permanent resident of the town of Menasha. He was a devout Catholic and his name is found on all the subscription lists for building churches and maintaining the priest. For sev- eral years he was treasurer of the church at La Bay. He was five feet six inches tall and straight as an arrow, heavily built and a handsome man, his deportment courtly, his manners pleasant, amiable and kind. He was known and esteemed far and wide as of a cheerful and peaceful disposition, considerate to the poor, and no one was ever suffered to leave his shop without their work on account of poverty. It was said of him that he had no enemies and never had any trouble with anyone, and the Indians loved him as their father. He died at Green Bay when on a visit May 22, 1866, at the age of 86 years, 4 months and 10 days, and is buried in Allouez Cemetery, where his grave is marked with an iron cross.
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