USA > Wisconsin > Winnebago County > History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People > Part 35
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"Mr. James W. Cheney,
"Librarian, War Department Library,
"War Department, Washington, D. C.
"Sir-Through Mr. E. M. Dawson, chief clerk of the Interior Department, this office is in receipt of the request made of you on October 2 by Mr. P. V. Lawson for certain references in an- nual reports on Indian affairs from 1832 to 1844.
"He wishes references to published reports referring to a mis- sion among the Menominees at Winnebago Rapids and the build- ing there by the Government of the dam, mill and block houses.
"A search has been made through all the annual reports relat- ing to Indian affairs published by the War Department from 1832 to 1842, and no mention of this subject is found. There is undoubtedly some unpublished matter in regard to it in the
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office files, and if Mr. Lawson will say just what facts or dates he specially wants verified I will try and have them looked up for him. Yours respectfully, C. F. LARRABEE,
"Acting Commissioner."
Complete search of all published reports has thus failed to discover any reference to this mission at Winnebago Rapids. Further effort was made to obtain an examination of unpub- lished documents, and this is going on now and may result in finding the original reports on this mission. It was felt that this founding of the first real settlement of the second most populous county in the state was an important subject of history not only locally, but in the history of the state and the West, and for this reason unusual effort was urged on the department to search out the original documents. In this view of the subject Dr. Cheney concurred and kindly writes: "It seems to me that your letter of October 25 to Hon. C. F. Larrabee, office of the Indian De- partment, will elicit all the information desired. If, however, you fail in that direction, let me know and I will make further efforts, because I appreciate the historical value of your work possibly more than the average department official, who is likely to take a greater interest in routine duties than historical studies."
Failing to discover the original reports, the historical mention of the mission has been examined with the government surveys. The map of Winnebago Rapids is Captain Cram's survey made in 1839 shows a row of houses along the river bank on what is now Wisconsin street. They extended from the bay in front of the residence of John Stevens west along the street as far as the crossing of the Northwestern railway and were ten in num- ber. At the foot of the rapids the grist and saw mill are in- dicated and the dwelling of the miller afterward occupied by Mr. Loyal Jones. The race or canal is shown on this map in its present location, and the wing dam extending into the river above about 900 feet and nearly half way across the stream, ap- proximately on the location of the more substantial dam after- ward constructed by Mr. Jones. The map of the United States Government survey made of town 20, range 17, on south side of the south outlet of Fox river and west of Little Lake Butte des Morts by Garret Vliet in 1839, sets down all the block houses of the mission of Winnebago Rapids. It locates the buildings above given and in addition ten block houses extending through
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the present Riverside park, as Mr. A. Duane Clinton says, from the council tree through the forest and across the present Wis- consin street to Doty street on the south. At the head of Wis- consin street there was a double two-story building, which was afterward occupied by Governor Harrison Reed for eighteen years. Another two-story block house stood on the bank of Little Lake Butte des Morts on the site of the present stove foundry of Bergstrom Bros. On the west side of Little Lake Butte des Morts a row of nine block houses extended from the site of the present brickyard of Louis Hanke, formerly the home of Joseph Jourdain, who occupied one of the houses, north along the shore of the lake. A larger block house was located on the hill near the stone house built in 1861 by Mr. Blair at the Springs and was later occupied by Mr. Blair. Another block house was located further north at the Hill of the Dead, later occupied by Mr. Samuel Neff. This map locates the blacksmith shop on the shore at the foot of the rapids near the mills. This map also shows a "bridge" over the slough and names all these houses as "farm houses," and shows the "mill race" and "wing dam." These houses were called block houses, as distinguished from the common log house of unfinished logs, because they were made of hewn timbers, and though put up by locking the ends of the tim- ber and with split shingle, yet they were regarded as a grade better than the common log house. Made in that way the in- terior could be finished and even plastered. Most of the build- ings were sixteen by twenty feet in size. The larger buildings were for the teachers and farmers and the smaller houses in- tended as homes for the savages and to show them the method of building houses. But the Indians preferred their tepee, which they erected in the yard near the houses and, tearing up the floors of the block houses, stabled their ponies in them. There were thirty-five dwellings erected in manner above mentioned.
Contract to erect the buildings for the mission was let to Gen. William Dickinson, who had arrived in Green Bay with a stock of provisions and groceries in the fall of 1820, being the second American storekeeper, Daniel Whitney being the first, who ar- rived in the summer of the same year. In 1859 Mr. Whitney was still alive, but Dickinson had died in 1849. In 1827 during the Winnebago outbreak Gen. Dickinson and Col. Ebenezer Childs raised a company of sixty-two Oneida and Stockbridge Indians, which was mustered into Colonel Whistler's detachment at the Little Butte des Morts, from whence they marched to Portage,
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where Colonel Childs received the surrender of Red Bird and his fellow murderers. In 1824 Gen. William Dickinson lived at Shantytown, Menomineeville, or Allouez, about two miles above Green Bay, as variously called, which was likewise the home of the English speaking colony, Governor Doty, Mr. Whitney, Rob- ert Irwin, senior and junior, and their wives. Mr. Whitney and Mr. Irwin each had a store. About 1830 General Dickinson re- moved to Depere. He seems to have been the successful bidder for the construction of the mission buildings at Winnebago Rap- ids. Engaging a force of about forty mechanics, they set to work to construct the buildings for the mission-the sawmill with its up-and-down saw, grist mill with one run of buhr stone, the blacksmith shop, the wing dam and the canal. This was a large undertaking in those days and required a large amount of capital or a large credit, as $19,000 had been set apart for the work, and before the work was complete the contract was trans- ferred to Daniel Whitney, of Green Bay. The accounts differ as to the date of the commencement of the enterprise, but . 1834 seems to be the most correct date, and it was not finished in 1836 when Mr. Gallup passed that way, a few months before Governor Dodge made the treaty with the Menominee by which the mission was abandoned. Mr. Henry A. Gallup says when he passed through Winnebago Rapids there was "quite a village." "Here the Government had built a grist and sawmill and had commenced the building of a large number of small log houses for the Menominee Indians, which were in different stages of completion when the work was stopped by the Indians consent- ing to sell the lands to the Government. Some of the houses the Indians had taken possession of by tearing out the floors and pitching their tents on the ground inside the walls." The "farm- ers were the only inhabitants of the place, at the house of one of whom, Mr. Clark Dickinson, we were welcomed and furnished with our dinner."
The farmers appointed under the treaty to act as teachers of agriculture to the Indians were IIenry Baird, Nathaniel Perry, General Ruggles, Rev. Clark Dickinson and Robert Irwin, Sr. A short character sketch of these pioneer residents of Neenah will be of interest at this late date. General Ruggles and. Gov. James D. Doty both married sisters, two of the daughters of General Collins, of New York, and sisters of Judge Alexander Collins. General Ruggles settled in Fond du Lac in 1842. Nathaniel Perry, one of the farmers, moved into one of the
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houses in 1834 with his family. He afterward remained a resi- dent of the county and was one of the commissioners to locate a county seat. Clark Dickinson afterward took up land in Black Wolf in 1841 and held many important offices in the county in pioneer days. He died there about 1870. Rev. Clark Dickinson was the first Methodist divine in the county and preached nearly every week until his death. He preached in this county nearly a half century.
Henry Baird, an Irishman and long a resident of Dublin, came to America in 1802 in the same vessel with Thomas Addis Emmet and other Irish patriots, his wife and four children coming three years later. He had been engaged in manufactur- ing and mercantile business in Pittsburg, then in New Salem, Ohio. In a few years they located at Cleveland. In July, 1832. the father and mother located in Green Bay with their son, Henry S. Baird, who had located there in 1824, the first lawyer in Wisconsin and president of the first territorial council of Wisconsin, first attorney general of the state and in many other ways a very distinguished pioneer. Mr. IIenry Baird died in Green Bay in 1842 when 83 years of age. Major Robert Irwin, Sr., was the father of Robert and Alexander J. Irwin, both mer- chants of Green Bay and much in evidence in its frontier days. Major Irwin was born in Ireland and was brought to this coun- try by his parents in 1774 when he was three months old. Until reaching his majority he resided in Baltimore and then moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he married and remained until after the birth of the said sons. He next removed to Greensburg and entered the service in the War of 1812 as a lieutenant and promoted to adjutant. In May, 1813, he became assistant com- missary, serving until June, 1821, and removed to Green Bay with his family in 1822. He died there in July, 1851, at the resi- dence of his daughter, Mrs. E. W. Follett. His daughter mar- ried Gen. William Dickinson, who had the Government contracts at the mission of Winnebago Rapids.
The blacksmith shop was erected on the bank of the river at the foot of the rapids about where the lock was located on ground now partly covered by the "Neenah" paper mill of the Kimberly-Clark Company. The blacksmiths were Joseph Jourdain and one Hunter. The first blacksmith to locate in Wisconsin came into the Fox river valley 110 years ago. a prominent and necessary character in the romantic back woods life of the earliest pioneers, a Frenchman, and his name was
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Joseph Jourdain. He was an expert at his trade and an artist in the smithy art.
In 1789 Joseph Jourdain arrived at Green Bay and was em- ployed at gun and blacksmith work by Mr. Franks, a trader. Afterward he set up his own shop at Menomineeville. He mar- ried a daughter of Michael Gravel, whose wife was a daughter of a Menominee chief. There were born to them several sons and daughters, and some of these and many of their descendants are still living in this valley.
One daughter, the beautiful creole, Mary Magdalene Jourdain, was enamored of a handsome young officer, but was persuaded against her own wishes to become the wife of an Episcopal divine, Eleazer Williams, since discovered to have been the lost dauphin, Louis XVII of France. Their only son, John, is buried in Oshkosh, and his son, the heir to the French throne and in whose veins courses the blood of the most ancient and brilliant of French dynasties, is a resident of St. Louis.
Joseph Jourdain was a devout Catholic and is found in all the records as a subscriber to the several projected church build- ings, the salary of priests and petitions for settlement of priests. He was treasurer of the church for several years. For many years he was armorer and smithy for the British detachment at Fort Howard, and in 1815 held that position at Prairie du Chien. In 1832 his salary under the United States Indian agency was $480 per annum. Ile was the most indispensable resident in all the valley. In 1834 he moved to Neenah, where the sub-mission was established for the Menominee Nation. He came as 'the mission armorer and blacksmith. Ilis shop was at the foot of the Winnebago rapids on Little Butte des Morts lake, the site of which is now covered by a double machine writing-paper mill. IIe made his home over the lake (afterwards within the town of Menasha) in one of the log cabins erected by the Gov- ernment. After the agency was closed in 1836 he remained and was the earliest permanent resident of the town of Menasha. He continued his shop at his home up to the time of his death, May 22, 1866. IIe was buried with his wife in Alouez Ceme- tery at Green Bay, where their graves are marked by two iron crosses. He was 18 when he located in Wisconsin and 86 years of age when he died. Though he came from Canada, he was of French parentage. IIe was five feet six inches tall, straight as an arrow, powerfully built and a handsome man. His de- portment was kind and courtly, his manner pleasant and amia-
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ble, and he was known and esteemed far and wide in all the West.
His wife, who was a creole, was a famous huntress. Her aim was sure and certain. No game ever escaped on which she drew her gun. This gun, with the shot-pouch made by herself of leather and the powder-horn are deposited in the museum of the Menasha Public Library.
Their son, Thomas Jourdain, came with them to Neenah and lived with them in the town of Menasha, and they afterward made their home with him. He was a large, powerful man, over six foot tall, and weighed over 250 pounds. He was for many years head constable and policeman and path master of the vil- lage and afterward of the city of Menasha. About seventeen years ago he was killed with fourteen others by the explosion of a rag bleach on the burning of the Whiting paper mills at Menasha. Complete history of the Jourdain family is given under "Town of Menasha."
Bishop Kemper mentions in his diary a conversation with Judge Doty in August, 1834, in which he writes of a rumor that Mr. Arndt and Mr. Perry were candidates for farmers. The good Bishop adds: "Arndt, who even now when a judge sells whisky, and Perry, who is said to be lazy and who when he wants to have a garden of one of the farms hoed, after waiting a week there doing nothing, made a bee and treated the Indians to whisky while they hoed the garden on a Sunday." The five farmers appointed to the position at the mission of Winnebago Rapids, it will be admitted, were of "established character for capacity, industry and moral habits." We do not find the names of the "five females of like good character for teaching young Menominee women in the business of useful housewifery," though doubtless these good women were the wives of the above named farmers, as they were all married, and their wives were capable of filling the position. The salary fixed for the farmer was $500 and for the women $300. In Kemper's Tour to Green Bay he says in his diary, under date August 5, 1834: "Five good farm houses have been erected on cleared land for the farmers who are to receive $500, and their wives $300." This is the only statement found to indicate who the women were.
The wing dam was completed and a shallow race or canal ex- cavated to lead the water to the water wheels to propel the machinery of the saw and grist mills. The sawmill was com- pleted and stood on the site afterwards occupied by the Neenah
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paper mill, the old red paper mill, which was the first in Neenah, and now occupied by the "Neenah" paper mill of the Kimberly-Clark Company. The flour mill, or "grist mill," as named in the treaty, was built on the site of the present Winne- bago paper mill, next to the old sawmill, and was operated for many years afterward. It was burned in 1874. Col. David John- son was employed under the Government as miller in this frontier mill. This was the first flour and saw mill built in the county, as this was the first real settlement in the county.
Rolette told Bishop Kemper that the efforts pledged by the Government to aid in civilizing the Menominee would fail. The huts built for the Indians in the woods are useless, as the Menominee will not live in them. "A sawmill is erected and a grist mill, both of which it is feared will go to ruin, for no timber is cut and the Menominee have not yet learned, and it is sup- posed they never will learn to plow," and will not raise grain. Mr. Webster Stanley was employed in the building of these mills and when his services were no longer required ne took his family and all his belongings with a supply of provisions in a boat pro- pelled by some men from this settlement and pushed out along the shore of Lake Winnebago into the Fox river and founded the city of Oshkosh in 1836. A dozen years later pioneers of Winnebago Rapids crossed the river and founded the city of Menasha.
The religious part of the mission was under Rev. Gregory, said to have been an Episcopal rector (which is possibly an error), and services are said to have been conducted regularly every Sunday. Rev. Whitford, of Milton College, says the mission school at Neenah was a branch of the Episcopal missionary school under the superintendence of Rev. Richard E. Cadle at Green Bay. Rev. Dr. Jackson Kemper came to Green Bay in 1834 under the Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church, and though he remained several weeks, he did not visit the mission of Winnebago Rapids. It is explained in the extracts given above that he was not pleased with it and gives no hint that his church had any interest in the mission.
Mr. Gregory, a brother of the minister, it is said, conducted the mission school. Some accounts say a school house was erected. The maps do not show this, and if there was a building set apart for a school it was one of the buildings marked on the maps as "farm houses." The teacher may have been Almon
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Gregory, who had been a teacher in the Cadle school at Green Bay.
As the tribesmen were gathered about the mission in 1835 an epidemic of smallpox broke out among them which swept off about one-third of the tribe. Col. George Boyd, then Indian agent at Green Bay, sent to their relief a surgeon of the regular army, stationed at Fort Howard, to give them the benefit of vac- cination. But Mr. Archibald Caldwell, a trader at the settle- ment, "benevolently took charge of the sufferers, nursing and nourishing the sick and watching by them night and day at the risk of his own life. He took the disease himself, suffered severely and barely escaped the fate of many of the unfortunate victims." He remained a resident and was still living in Win- nebago Rapids many years after. He once lived in one of the block houses on Blair's farm, and once maintained a trading post on the sixty-acre island at the foot of Little Lake Butte des Morts, since known as Strobey island, but then and for many years known as Caldwell's island. He is said to have had six Menominee wives at the same time, but his Mormonism has been forgiven on the recollection of his heroic acts during the small- pox plague.
The mission of Winnebago Rapids was abandoned by treaty made by Gov. Henry Dodge at Cedar Point, opposite Kimberly, November 3, 1836. In the last days of October, Governor Dodge and his escort appeared at Stanley's Ferry, now in Algoma, on the south bank of the Fox river, and Mr. Henry A. Gallup, in the absence of the regular ferryman, took him and escort over the river. "They were mounted on six saddle horses," says Mr. Gal- lup, "the Governor armed to the teeth. He had two pairs of pistols and a bowie knife on his person and a brace of large horse pistols in his saddle holster" to impress the Menominee, as he once said to the Winnebago: "That he was as strong as a lion and as brave as Julius Caesar." Governor Dodge held the great council of Cedar Point, now one of the historic landmarks of the state, as here was made the important treaty conveying the lands to the Government on which stands the cities of Oshkosh and Neenah and Appleton and Kaukauna. This important coun- cil has been described in another place. It has been stated that the whole Menominee tribe had assembled there. All the traders were there and numerous visitors from Green Bay, Kaukauna and Winnebago Rapids. The treaty is signed by twenty-four "chiefs and headmen" of the tribe and by "H. Dodge" and
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eighteen white witnesses. This treaty ceded to the United States 4,000,000 acres of land, which included all of the region after- ward included in Winnebago county between the Fox river at Oshkosh and the Fox river at Neenah, and the Wolf river and Lake Winnebago, and expressly abandoned the improvements at Winnebago Rapids in these words: "The said Menominee Na- tion do agree to release the United States from all such pro- visions of the treaty of 1831 and 1832 aforesaid, as requires the payment of farmers, blacksmiths, miller, etc. They likewise relinquish all their right under said treaty to appropriation for education and to all improvements made or to be made upon their reservation on Fox river and Winnebago lake, together with the cattle, farming utensils or other articles furnished or to be furnished to them under said treaty."
The treaty of Cedar Point was ratified by the Senate February 15, 1837. Two years later these lands were surveyed by the engineer of the United States land surveys, Mr. Garrett Vliet, in 1839, but were not offered for sale until October 2, 1843, and of the lands now included in the city of Neenah 562 44-100 acres were marked off as reservation and not allowed to be sold by the land office. The lands now offered for sale was all on the south and west side of the Fox river or south outlet. The land on the Doty island and north of the south channel had been purchased from the Indians in 1831, surveyed in 1834 and sold in 1835.
When Mr. George Wright made the journey in September, 1836, to Brothertown to build the grist and saw mills there, he passed Winnebago Rapids, and the visit has been described by Mr. W. W. Wright: "My father and myself landed at the foot of the canal that conveys the water to the mills and factories now located thereon. It was a wilderness, excepting the fami- lies of Clark Dickinson, Nathaniel Perry and Robert Irwin, Sr .. employed as teachers to the Indians. My father and I were on the way to Brothertown to construct a flour and sawmill for the Indians, engaged by the agent, Mr. Hotchkiss, who was with us on the journey, made in a large rowboat or lighter capable of carrying several tons and manned by seven stal- wart Brothertown Indians, six at the oars and one at the helm.
The water power for these mills at Winnebago Rapids was made by a wing dam about one-third across the river near the location of the present dam, and a canal to the mills. A grist and sawmill had been erected; but not then in operation. Colonel Johnson, the miller. had a salary of $500, and lived
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alone in a small log house, being a bachelor. The agent, father and myself, were invited to take dinner with him, of which he was the cook, and we accepted and had a well cooked and substantial dinner. My father asked the Colonel if he had ground any grain in the mill. He replied he had ground a bushel or two of corn in the two years he had been miller; but the mill got out of repair and there was no millwright to repair it. He also said the sawmill had cut several thousand feet of lumber; but was then out of repair. A blacksmith shop near by run by Mr. Jourdain was in full blast making spears and steel traps for the Indians, which kept the smith employed most of the time. Some twenty log houses had been erected for the Indians; but they preferred the wigwams. Some of the Indians set up their wigwams in the houses, and thus occupied it for a time, but would soon leave the house and set their wig- - wam outside. Every part of the site was as nature made it. except the wing dam and canal. While at dinner our boat crew had taken their dinner and with the help of a dozen or more Menominee Indians, were taking the boat up the rapids. We went on foot along a trail on the river bank, running along the present Riverside Park, to the old council tree near the lake, where we found several wigwams and the usual swarm of snarling dogs and pappooses. Here we boarded our boat and crossed the lake."
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