History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People, Part 3

Author: Publius Virgilius Lawson
Publication date: 1948
Publisher: Chicago : C.F. Cooper
Number of Pages: 773

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HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

east. The heads of all these lie toward the south. The fourth lizard mound in the southeast corner of the park is nearly oblit- erated, as Park street is graded across it. It lays southwest across the street with its head toward the southwest, and was about seventy feet long. The fifth mound of this group is a turtle mound. It is fourteen inches high, thirty feet across from toe to toe, and thirty-seven feet from nose to where its tail ought to be. It is the only turtle born without a tail. On its head there is growing a thirty inch diameter oak tree. Its head is toward the south and it lies southwesterly.

About 600 feet south of this group in Neenah on the Geo. Webster lot there are two lizard mounds, with their heads in a southeasterly direction and lying within twenty feet of cach other. Their feet are toward each other. The west one is 283 feet long and twelve inches high. The east one is 137 feet long and sixteen inches high. The head of the longest one has been much plowed over in another field, but its outlines are not en- tirely obscured. East of the above about twenty feet there was a similar mound, with head to south, now obliterated by the plant- ing over it of a row of apple trees. South of this in the Wm. Stridde's lot there is one mound that has been much cut up. Over fifty loads of black mould were removed from it. But the mound was so high that its outlines have partly survived this as well as several years' plowing. A drawing of it appears most like a water pitcher, but it is supposed to represent a fish. It is seventy feet long, and from nose to tip of longest tail is 112 feet. A part of it is still thirty inches high and one part eighteen inches high. East of the Wm. Striddie lot, down on the lower land toward the lake, there existed twenty years ago, in the native woods, another lizard mound, which was at least three feet high and about 150 feet long, with its head lying in a south- westerly direction. It was entirely removed when the track was graded for the Island driving park, in the City of Neenah.

Part of the group is on the premises of Roberts' summer hotel, which is the old homestead of Gov. James D. Doty. The first one near the driveway and entrance gate is a circular mound forty-five feet in diameter, two feet high. It appears, however, to have a head and two feet, and may have been made as a bird or turtle mound. Across the driveway there is an oval mound now only three inches high. Further toward the house there is one that is thirty inches high, sixty feet north and south at front leg, and seventy-one feet east and west across the body. which

PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

may have been a bear mound. Its exact outline has been disturbed . and was much obscured by grass when surveyed. In the rear of the house is an oval mound twenty feet in diameter, two feet high; and in the barn lot a mound that was deep in grass when surveyed, but has the appearance of a bird mound. It is two feet high and sixty-three feet in diameter. It has been plowed over and the wings and tail are but indistinctly made out. A twenty- one inch diameter decayed oak stump is on its head. West of this last mound, in a vacant wooded lot which is in grass but may have been plowed over, is a fish mound. Its head lies against the fence on Fourth street, Neenah. It is eighteen inches high, forty- eight feet long, fifteen feet wide. Its two fins are three feet long and its tail about fifteen feet long. On the body there is a four- teen inch oak stump, a six-inch hickory tree and an eight-inch hickory tree.

All these mounds seem to have been made of materials at hand. Those in Smith park are made of red clay and the others of sandy or gravelly earth. The mounds are rounded and gently slope to the level ground, no excavation appears near any of them. The straight and exact lines and graceful curves, and proportioned size of all the effigy mounds bear witness to. considerable art. None of these mounds have been excavated to explore their in- terior arrangements or contents.

The hill or oval mounds are distinguishable from the effigy mounds, and referable to a different object, and possibly made by another nation or tribe. They are also made of earth and are oval or conical in design or oblong. They range in height from one to fifteen feet. There were hundreds of them in the county and therefore we can only mention a few of the locations.

In former years before Lake Winnebago had eaten away the lands on which it stood there was in the east side of the City of Oshkosh, at an equal distance between Washington and Merritt streets, a beautiful circular oval hill mound. It stood close to the shore in 1865 and had nearly disappeared by 1875. It has been entirely washed away with the soil on which it stood. Originally the soil was only one to three feet above the lake toward which it sloped. This has been described to the author by Mr. Charles Nevitt of Oshkosh. It was eight feet in height and about twenty feet diameter, slightly oblong. The old resi- dents tell of a number of other mounds along the river in Osh- kosh, but all trace and description of them seems to be lost. There was a number of groups of interesting oval mounds in the

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

Rush lake region. Many of them have been excavated. and one found to contain a stone coffin, which is evidence of another tribe, as stone graves are unusual in our state.

Of the fine group of eight hill mounds in the fourth ward, City of Menasha, only one remains, with some trace of the outlines of two others. Dr. I. A. Lapham visited them in 1850, and de- scribed them :1

"Half a mile from Menasha is a group of eight mounds about four feet high and from forty to fifty feet in diameter. They are on the southeast quarter of section fourteen, township twenty, range seventeen, not far from the shore of Lake Winnebago. This ground has been selected for a cemetery by the present in- habitants, who do not scruple to dig up the Indian skeletons to make room for the bodies of a more civilized race. The ground here, as in numerous other places, exhibits marks of former cul- ture in rows or beds, very different from that of the modern Indians. These are covered with a dense forest of young and thrifty trees, the largest not more, perhaps, than 150 years old; so that the whole have grown up since the time of Marquette, or within 180 years." The tract of land occupied by these mounds, and formerly known as Little Prairie, has long since become a thickly settled residence portion of the City of Mena- sha.

The most notable example of the hill mound in the county was the Butte des Morts or Hill of the Dead in West Menasha, which was the largest mound reported in Wisconsin. A picture of it was made by J. O. Lewis in 1827, and by Dr. I. A. Lapham in 1850. Many historical events to be mentioned hereafter have taken place at this historic landmark.

Around this prehistoric monument there gathers through the rolling years a romantic interest, second to none, in the Fox river valley, richly laden with historic lore. The hill stood up boldly in plain view of all voyagers up and down the little gem of a lake, to which it early gave its name. It could be plainly seen in settlement days by the pioneers of Menasha and Neenah on the opposite bank of the lake. It was twelve feet high, sixty feet long, north and south, and thirty-five feet wide. It stood in the midst of a prairie 300 feet back from the lake shore, on a point of land that was thirty feet above the level of the lake, and the only high land on its west banks. In 1863 the North-

'Antiquity of Wisconsin, p. 61, I. A. Lapham, 1855.

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western railway constructed a pile bridge across Little Butte des Morts lake, making 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 of the point over an area of about five acres, to a depth of about twenty feet, and with it, regardless of tradition or respect for the graves, went the "Hill of the Dead" all in the same mixture. The skulls and bones and relics of ancient kings were strewn along the right of way for miles. All such structures are considered the work of the mound builder race, monuments erected over the grave of some hero of these simple children of the forest. After one-third of this ancient monument had crumbled into the pit made by the busy pick and shovel a large pocket full of human bones was plainly exposed near the base. All about the outer surface, in shallow graves, were hundreds of skeletons, possibly of later date and so-called intrusive burials, as not being the objects of its con- struction. The early settlers and doctors often resorted to the mound for skeletons. One of them came near being the subject of a tragedy. As he bent over digging in the bushes and grass on the side of the mound Mike Krause, hunting deer, came out of the grove, and taking him for a deer had leveled his gun to shoot, when that instant the digger raised his head, just in time to save his life. As no burying ground has been found that may be traced to the Fox Indians, who resided from 1680 to 1763 within a mile of the hill, it is supposed that some of the intrusive burials were of that tribe.

A widely heralded and old tradition told in history, song and story, weaves a tale of how the Fox Indians, demanding tribute of all traders who passed the lake, finally became a nuisance not to be longer tolerated. And one Moran, covering soldiers in his bateaux, as if they were goods, came to the shore near the point, on the signal challenge of the tribe. As they crowded on the beach for presents up rose the bloody Frenchmen and killed, murdered and slaughtered, while a detached body had made a detour to the village and slaughtered the remnant of red men and women amidst the burning wigwams. This tradition ascribes the origin of the Butte des Morts to the burial of the Fox tribe. Whether true or not it is fixed in the legendary lore of our romantic valley.

A group of six mounds is located in section 23, on an open prairie elevated about ten feet above the Fox river, near the village of Delhi. The first mound is about ninety rods south of

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

the river. It was formerly six feet in height and seventy feet in diameter. In 1849 Mr. G. H. Elliott built his residence upon it, excavating into the mound for his cellar. It is said that no discoveries of any consequence were made during the digging. The site is now occupied by a barn. About 180 feet south there is a second mound measuring three feet in height and forty-five feet in diameter. The third mound is about 420 feet south of the former. It was sixty feet in diameter and six feet in height. Mr. Louis La Borde, a pioneer, built his house upon it, and in digging his cellar he disinterred human and animal bones. At a distance of about 420 feet south of the third is a fourth mound, which was formerly used as a graveyard by the La Borde family. This mound is seventy-five feet in diameter and six feet in height. The fifth mound is about 460 feet west of the last. It is eight feet in height and seventy-five feet in diameter. In 1846 this mound was employed .by Mr. Luke La Borde as a root cellar. Mr. La Borde told Mr. H. H. G. Bradt that near its bottom he found a bed of charcoal and "a large mass of copper." Mr. Bradt recollects meeting Governor J. D. Doty at the La Borde's in 1849. When told of this find the Governor remarked: "We are in a country with a great, but I fear an unfathomable, his- tory." The last mound in the group is situated in a cultivated field at a distance of 750 feet southeast of the fourth mound. It is eighty-four feet in diameter and eight fect in height. All of these mounds are constructed of clay and mold of the same na- ture as the surrounding soil.

On a range of glacial hills on the Cross farm in section one in northeast corner of the town of Winneconne, and on the summit of the most prominent elevation, there was a series of thirteen hill mounds within a distance of 900 feet, which in 1848 were about four feet high and conical in form. When the early sur- veyor passed these mounds they were prominent against the hori- zon for a long distance, resembling a row or cluster of balls, from which the surveyor gave the region the name "Ball Prairie," a name it has borne ever since and often placed on maps.

There were numerous trails over the county, their direction controlled by its rivers and lakes. From the mainland to Doty island both channels of the river was crossed by fords at the east end of the island and mouth of the river just at the margin of the lake. The south end of the lake Little Butte des Morts, where the big slough of town Neenah enters it was crossed in two feet of water from present City of Neenah to near the old .

PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.

home of Joseph Jourdain in town Menasha. At Oshkosh the Fox river was thirty feet deep and not fordable. The river was crossed near the old trading post of Augustin Grignon, where there was more shallow water in the river and the wide marsh to cross, to the point on south side of Fox river at the point near the latter trading post of Robert Grignon. At Winneconne the Wolf river was twelve to twenty feet deep and not fordable. In the northern part of the county the Wolf could be crossed in low water. The upper part of the Fox within the county in town Rushford was fordable at a few points.

The fords determined the cross county trails. The Fox river trail, known as the "Tomahawk Trail" on the route from Green Bay to Fort Winnebago, was a very ancient trail. It came into the northeast part of the county, on the shore of the river and ran inland a half mile at Caldwell's (now Strobey's) island at the foot of Lake Little Butte des Morts, to reach a fordable place over Mud creek; it then comes back to the margin of the higher banks of the lake which lay above the flood plane or bottoms. It runs south along this higher land or margin of the lake, wind- ing along the sinuosities of the headlands and down over the wide channels of ancient creeks until it passes the "Hill of the Dead," midway of the west bank of the lake; it then curves away from the lake on to a gravel ridge at Blair's Springs, which it follows to the Big Butte des Morts ford. Near the site of the Little Butte des Morts the trail can still be traced in the woods for a thousand feet, since used for a bridle path and then for wagon teams, and abandoned for the line highway. Some traces of the trail remains, about 500 feet in length at Blair's springs. Both these visible trails are in town Menasha. This trail was the highway up and down the river before and after white contact. It may not be out of place to add here that the beauty and fer- tility of the county was not the whole reason why it was so long and persistently populated by savages; but the natural defenses, impassable lakes and the deep rivers made the savage home nearly impossible of attack in primitive days. This was.also the reason why the mound builder made it his home so many years, and the copper Kings found safe retreat, and the clam eaters were safe upon the banks of its deep rivers.

On land of Albert Frieberg on Long Point bay, on shore Lake Winnebago, in town Black Wolf, there stands on the shore at the waters' edge a great granite boulder, not much rounded, but angular, which is eight feet in diameter across the top and

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

stands five feet above the ground, and though a farmer excavated down its side for wild animals five feet he did not reach its bottom. It is a prominent landmark of the vicinity, where there are no other large boulders. It is the largest glacial rock in the county. On its top are two artificially excavated basins or "corn mills," polished like glass, about three inches deep. All about the vicinity are found stone axes, celts, arrow and spear points, the long, narrow corn rows or garden beds, and aboriginal graves. An interesting tradition or legend clings to the Manitou rock.

Another Manitou boulder of black gabbro, about eight feet diameter, has been pushed upon Island Park by the ice, to which cling Indian legends. On Doty island, on the river bank at the Governor Doty loggery, there is a black trap boulder, six feet long, three feet wide and three feet high, rounded and egg shape. Its weight is about three ton. On the top are two concave basin shaped highly polished depressions, which in former days were used to grind Indian corn or wild rice.

III.

THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE.

Origin.

Archeologists have concluded that the Winnebago were the first tribe of Indians who came to Wisconsin, as they made their first home on Doty island, and were there visited by Nicolet, the first white man to come to Wisconsin, and this war loving tribe of savages were so prominent in pioneer days they became the most important tribe in the state. Recent investigations have led many students of Indian history to suppose that the Winne- bago were the builders of the mounds. They have been phoneti- cally assigned to the Siouan family of Indians, a family which . originated on the Atlantic coast.1

The Siouan tribes occupied a vast region, 70,000 square miles in extent, along the eastern foothills of the southern Alleghanies, from the Potomac on the north to the Santee river on the south, including all central Virginia. or one half the area of the state, and two-thirds of North Carolina, and all the northeastern por- tion of South Carolina, with an Atlantic coast line of 200 miles in the Carolinas. The Catawba and other cognate tribes of the Siouan stock related by archeologists through a study of scraps of their language occupied parts of these regions down to a very late date. This region is regarded as the "original home of the Siouan race." That the migration of the tribes of the plains was from the east is evident from "the older dialectic forms to be met with in the east. and the concurrent testimony of the Siouan tribes themselves." The language of the east was older in its forms than the cognate dialects of the west. The move- ment was doubtless by tribes and slow. constantly fighting their way along the pathway to their future home. After crossing the mountains they passed down the New and Big Sandy rivers to the Ohio, down which they slowly passed, remaining a long time at

" For complete reference to the Winnebago tribe and their history see Lawson's "Winnebago Tribe, " published in Wis. Archeo, 1907.

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

the falls of the Ohio, now Louisville. As early as 1701, Gravier said, the Ohio was known to the Illinois and Miami as the "river of the Arkansa." The name of the tribe is now Kansa or Qua- paw of the Winnebago branch of the Siouan stock, living then on the lower Arkansas river. Traditions of the Osage, Mandan and almost all the tribes confirm this. Two of the plains tribes, the Kansa, cherish sacred shells which they assert were brought with them "from the great river of the sunrise." It is possible that the Winnebago also brought the sea shells with them. They have been found in large numbers in Wisconsin. Mr. Clarence Olen of Oshkosh has several picked up in Winnebago county. When the migration took place is not known. Doubtless it was of gradual progress during several centuries. When De Soto looked over the broad Mississippi from the Chaska mounds at Memphis in 1541 he found these "Capaha" or Kwapa, the southern branch of the Winnebago, already established on the western bank, though still a considerable distance north of their later location on the Arkansas river. The name Kwapa signifies people living "down the river," the converse of Omaha, which means "up the river." "In their slow march toward the setting sun the Kwapa probably brought up the rear, as their name lin- gered longest in the traditions of the Ohio tribes, and they were still near that stream when encountered by De Soto."

The principal reason of this movement from Virginia was the presence, both north and south, of powerful and hostile tribes leaving them only one way of retreat across the mountains. As late as 1728, as mentioned by Byrd, the Iroquois had "an implac- able hatred" for "the Siouan tribes of the south," who still clung to their ancestral domain.

From the mouth of the Ohio the Winnebago worked their way up the Mississippi. As they are first known from Champlain's map (1632) as located on Lake Winnebago it is supposed they made the journey by the Wisconsin river to the Portage into the Fox river, where they descended to the spot on Doty island, under wide branching oaks and elms, which they occupied so many years. There is evidence in their traditional wars with the Illinois, the Menominee, the Potawatomi, Sauk and Foxes, that the maintenance of this Siouan wedge in the beautiful region of lake, forest and prairie, occupied very soon for hundreds of miles in all directions by Algonquian tribes, was attended by constant and bloody warfare.

The oldest map of the region, now known as Lake Winnebago

THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE.

and the Fox river, is Champlain's map of 1632, on which he names the "Nation des Puans" on a lake named "Lac des Puans," which discharges itself through a long river to Lake Superior. That the map was intended to represent Lake Winne- bago and the Fox river is now accepted and seems the correct interpretation from the later known habitat of the Winnebago. This map was said to be made up from information furnished by western Indians visiting at Quebec. It furnishes the evidence that both Lake Winnebago and the Fox river were the earliest names of all the physical objects in Wisconsin, and the lake has ever since retained the name given it by Champlain, two years before any white man had been within several hundred miles of the state.

It was two years after the date of this map that Nicolet visited Wisconsin in 1634, "delegated to make a journey to the nation called 'Gens de mer,' People of the Sea, and arrange a peace between them and the Hurons, from whom they are distant about 300 leagues westward." The account of Nicolet's journey was not published until 1643, nearly ten years after his visit, and then only mentioned as an incident in western travel, giving such vague description of places and topography that it was not until over 200 years afterward that John G. Shea discovered, in 1852, that "Gens de mer," the People of the Sea, referred to the Win- nebago, and that Nicolet visited Wisconsin; and the year (1634) of his coming was not settled until 1876. In 1643 Jean Boisoeau's map was published, in which he followed the main topography features of Champlain's map, placing "La Nation des Puans" on "Lac des Puans," and named the river from which it discharged "R des Puans."1

Charlevoix, who visited the tribe in 1720, names them "the Otchagras, who are commonly called Puans." Father Hennepin in his map 1697 has this same name spelled Ocitigan placed against Lake Winnebago. The name by which the Winnebago are best known to all the old French writers is "Puans" or "Puants." This is said to have been an erroneous translation by the French of the Algonkin name for the tribe, which was Ovenibigoutz. It is from the English spelling, and the French Oui being pronounced as we, and the free pronunciation of the Algonquin name, handed down in the Jesuit Relations, that the modern name is derived; and the Bureau of American Ethnology

1See for collection of all references and maps Lawson's "Habitat of the Winnebago, 1632-1832."-Proceed. Wis. Hist. Soc. 1906.

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

have determined that the plural of Winnebago shall be the same as the singular.

Most writers have amused themselves by giving the reason why the Winnebago were called Puans. The French word for Oueni- bigoutz of their Indian neighbors, the meaning of which was feted or putrid or foul smelling as variously given. It has been noticed that as early as 1632 and 1643 the tribe and Lake Winne- bago, where they lived, and the Fox river had all been named Puans. No one knows why their neighbors gave them this name. As long ago as 1720 Charlevoix had said they were called "Puans, for what reason I do not know." Yet he did try an explanation : "They seated themselves on the border of a kind of lake, (Winne- bago), and I judge it was there that living on fish which they got in the lake in great plenty they were given the name of Puans, because all along the shore where their cabins were built one saw nothing but stinking fish, which infected the air. It appears at least that this is the origin of the name which the other savages had given them before us, and which has communicated itself to the Bay."" John G. Shea says their name Ouenibegoutz, given them by the Algonquians, means "feted," therefore the French translated it by the word "Puants."

This name of Puans was frequently more roughly translated "stinkards," as used by Augustin Grignon as late as 1857. In 1816 Mr. Biddle mentions, "the Winnebago, a bold and warlike tribe, who lived at Lake Au Paunt or Stinking Lake, now Lake Winnebago"; and the eccentric student of English, Radisson, wrote of them in 1659, as at "the great lake of the Stinkings"; while Allouez, before his visit to them, mentions their lake of "the Stinkards" in 1666, so that this "ill smelling" name has clung to the tribe through all the centuries down to the present moment.

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History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People, Part 3

Author: Publius Virgilius Lawson Publication date: 1948 Publisher: Chicago : C.F. Cooper Number of Pages: 773

Author: Publius Virgilius Lawson
Publication date: 1948
Publisher: Chicago : C.F. Cooper
Number of Pages: 773