History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People, Part 5

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

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Colonel Robert Dickson on his way to the British garrison at Prairie du Chien in the fall of 1814, caught by the freezing of Lake Winnebago at Doty island and forced to remain the win-

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

ter, writes in the spring: "I shall move from this as soon as I can, as the Puants are beginning to draw round me, and one had as well be in hell as with them."

After the peace the British held a council, June 3, 1815, at Mackinac, between Sau-sa-mau-nee, Black Wolf, Neokautah or Four Legs and forty warriors. Sau-sa-mau-nee was the orator for his people, and his speech is recorded. Judge Lockwood reports their number in 1816 as 900 warriors, from estimates of the traders best acquainted with them. The treaty made with a portion of the Fox tribes Nov. 3, 1804, which caused so much dis- satisfaction among members of that tribe, was confirmed at a council held at St. Louis May 18, 1816, at which those Winne- bago present, residents of Wisconsin, confirmed that part of the treaty which was supposed to grant their rights in the lands of the lead region.

The New York Indians.1

The Winnebago were involved in the immigration of the New York Indians by the range of their hunting grounds. The Winne- bago and Menominee, August 18, 1821, granted to the New York tribes a ribbon of land diagonally across the state five miles wide, the strip crossing the Fox river at Little Chute. At this time the Menominee claimed all Green Bay and the shore of Lake Michigan to the mouth of the Milwaukee river and west to the Mississippi river in a northwest direction. The Winnebago claimed all the balance of the state north and west of the Fox river and Lake Winnebago. The following summer the New York Indians returned to urge a larger grant; but on coming into the council the Winnebago refused to concede any further grants and left in a body to go on their hunt. Before leaving, however, they were induced to favor the visitor with an exhibi- tion of their war dance, pipe dance and begging dance, which are graphically described by General Ellis, who adds: "The Winnebago exhibited the largest, most perfectly formed men and women ever seen anywhere. The display of action and muscle in the dances struck the beholder with admiration and terror. The ring around the dancers of several thousand, all singing in chorus to the chief drummer, the voices of the Winnebago women pre- vailing in clarion tone above the whole." August 11, 1827, there

' Seventh Wis. Hist. Coll., 224; 2 do., 425. "Prince or Creole," Lawson, 200.

THE WINNEBAGO CHIEFS.

was a treaty concluded at the Little Butte des Morts, "the Hill of the Dead," on the west bank of the lake of that name, now in the town of Menasha, between the Winnebago, Menominee and New York Indians, by which the above tribes ceded their lands in the Fox valley to the United States. Lewis Cass and Thos. L. Mckinney were the commissioners. This council was held during the Winnebago war, so called. It was attended by 5.000 savages. Colonel Whistler, while on his journey up the Fox river from Fort Howard to join General Atkinson at Port- age, remained with his regiment at the Little Butte des Morts as the Governor's guard until the close of the council. when he resumed his journey up stream. During the council the Winne- bago were notified that they must give up the murderers. It is said to have been due to this council that brought the sur- render at Portage the next month on the arrival of Colonel Whistler. There is a painting of the Little Butte des Morts coun- cil made by Lewis, "painted on the spot," in his rare portfolio of frontier scenes.

The Winnebago war took place in 1827. It was not a war but only a widespread scare to the few pioneers who had come to settle in the faraway lands of the west. Those who mention the events of that day generally agree that the energetic movements of Governor Lewis Cass, and the promptness of the militia under Gen. Henry Dodge, and the dispatch of General Atkinson with the United States army into the field, inspired the Winnebago with such respect for the power of the United States that the incipient disturbance was quelled before it was barely com- menced. As there were at that time nearly nine thousand Winne- bago, they could have set the torch to the whole frontier before being conquered. At that period there was a small settlement of whites at Green Bay, another at Prairie du ('hien, and possi- bly seven hundred people in the lead region south of the Wiscon- sin river. Fort Winnebago was then erected at Portage as a protection to the frontier from any Winnebago treachery.

In Settlement Days.

By this time the tribe had very much increased in numbers, and were scattered all along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. Mrs. John Kinzie reports in "Wau Bun," in 1830, two divisions of Winnebago Indians, "one paid by the agent at Portage and the other at Prairie du Chien." "The Portage division numbered be-

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

tween four and five thousand." At the Winnebago annuity pay- ment in 1834, Mr. Henry Merrill says there assembled at Portage upwards of three thousand men, women and children. Mr. Mc- Call reports in 1830, "Four thousand Winnebago in the nation."

The smallpox scourge broke out in the tribe in 1834 and raged a fearful epidemic, from which nearly half the tribe died. The medicine men abandoned their futile attempts to stay its ravages, and the pest swept through the villages, the survivors fleeing be- fore it, leaving their dead unburied.

The delegates who visited Washington in 1837 to make a treaty had no authority to conclude a treaty, and so declared. This was the treaty (Nov. 1, 1837) by which all the lands of the Winnebago east of the Mississippi were ceded to the United States. It was loudly proclaimed by the tribe to be a fraud. Chief Yellow Thunder, whose village was near Eureka, in this county, and two others were of this party, and all declared they had no right to make a treaty. The first attempt to remove the tribe was begun in 1840, when a considerable band were induced to remove to the Turkey river in Iowa. In 1837 the Winnebago, headed by One-eyed Dekaury, Little Dekaury, Winnosheek, Waukon Dekaury, and six other chiefs, went to Washington and ceded all the land still claimed by them east of the Mississippi river, reserving the privilege of occupying until 1840. That year the troops came to Portage to remove them. Yellow Thun- der and Black Wolf's son were invited to Portage to get pro- visions, but as soon as they arrived they were put in the guard- house with ball and chain on their ankles, which hurt their feel- ings, as they had done no harm. The General had understood they were going to revolt, and refused to emigrate; but as soon as Governor Dodge came to Portage they were released. They all promised faithfully to be at Portage in three days, ready for removal, and they were all there. Two large boats were provided to take down the Indians who had no canoes. At the head of Kickapoo creek they came to some wigwams, where two old women, sisters of Black Wolf, fell on their knees, crying and be- seeching Captain Summer to kill them ; they were old and would rather die and be buried with their fathers and mothers and children than be taken away. The Captain let them remain, and left three young men to hunt for them. Further down they came to the camp of Ke-ji-que-we-ka ; the people were told to put their things in the wagon and go along. Depositing their belongings, they started south from where they were when the Captain sent

THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE.

to ask where they were going. They said they were going to bid good-bye to their fathers, mothers and children. The interpreter followed them and found them on their knees, kissing the ground and crying very loud where their relations were buried. This touched the Captain, who exclaimed: "Good God, what harm can these poor Indians do among the rocks."

After being removed at different times to locations in Iowa, Minnesota and Dakota, they were finally located on 128,000 acres of the northern part of the Omaha reservation in eastern Ne- braska, containing some of the best timbered lands, by May, 1866. There still reside in the pine barrens of Jackson and Adams county stragglers who have returned, reported in 1887 to number 1,600. Most of these have homesteads, where they live by pick- ing berries, fishing and hunting, with ever increasing families. Large families are the rule among the Winnebago. Green Grass, son of Kayrahmaunee, came to the payment at Black River Falls to draw for fifteen children; but could not count or name them. Major Halleck, the agent, had him bring them in and stand them in a row.

"The Winnebago as a tribe have due them $883,249.58 under their treaties of 1837 and the act of July 15, 1870. which has not been capitalized and placed in the treasury as a trust fund. Con- gress annually appropriates five per cent interest on the principal, amounting to $44,162.47. The Wisconsin band receives 1,180/2,613 of that amount, which is paid them in cash. They also receive $7,000 each year from that amount to equalize their payments with the Nebraska branch under the act of 1881. Un- der that act they have received $147,000, and $73.969.91 is yet due them in yearly instalments of $7,000. The Nebraska branch receives yearly $10,000 cash for per capita payments, and after this and the amounts due to Wisconsin branch are deducted the remainder is subject to expenditure for supplies for the Nebraska, branch. Eventually the Wisconsin branch will receive their share of the principal after it has been capitalized and segre- gated."1

Their Habits and Domestic Life.

There are at this writing 1.180 Winnebago listed in Wiscon- sin and 2,613 in Nebraska, making a total of 3,793, or about 4,000

' From a private letter to the author by Hon. C. F. Larrabee, acting Com- missioner of Indian Affairs, Washington, D. C., January 26, 1907.

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

Winnebago now living. This shows an increase in 200 years of 700 per cent, due to enforced peace; and notwithstanding the nat- ural decimation due to smallpox, famine, habits and whisky.

Rev. Cutting Marsh crossed Doty island in 1832, and found still there a small village of Winnebago. This was the remnant of Four Legs' tribe. He was dead two years before. Three years later the Menominee mission was established at Neenah, before which time, it is presumed, these last of those who had made this ancient village famous in border annals had moved up the river and away.

The totems of the Winnebago were the lynx, catamount, wild- cat and stag. They dressed in earlier days much as the primitive tribes, in the tanned skins and furs of the wild animals, as also in woven cloth. The special manner of doing their hair was to shave the sides of the head and do the hair in two square cushions on the back of the head. The artist in the Nicolet landfall re- cently hung in the rooms of the State Historical Society has taken their nakedness too literally and made a caricature of their nude- ness. There is no authority for such literal nakedness. They were an industrious and thrifty people, having at all their vil- lages wide fields of corn and vegetables. Some of these fields were several hundred acres in extent. They gathered wild rice for food also. Sat. Clark told Dr. Lapham that Gen. Atkinson pur- chased 6,000 bushels of corn from the Winnebago; and in 1848 he had driven over half a mile of old Indian cornfields in Co- lumbia county, which a pioneer had told him the Winnebago had cultivated. Their villages contained well constructed, warm cabins or wigwams, and they appeared to enjoy prosperity, not- withstanding their history contains so much of war, pestilence and whisky.

Whatever may have been the truth of the matter, they seem to have the universal hatred or disfavor of all their neighbors and the whites. The whites write them down invariably as filthy. It is such a general charge that one might be inclined to suppose it to be repeated by suggestion. Whether any one took the trouble to inquire if this was a domestic infirmity or only came from the supposed derivation of their name we cannot learn. One hundred years ago Capt. Thomas A. Anderson wintered on Rock river at the foot of a precipice, 300 feet above the river, trading with the Winnebago, and long afterward said, "They were the most filthy, most obstinate and bravest people of any Indian tribe." As an instance of their independence,

THE WINNEBAGO TRIBE.

Hon. Morgan L. Martin relates of the guide he procured at Tay- cheedah, who, after leading them into the prairie, laid down and refused to proceed, saying he "had never yet been the slave of a white man, and never would be."

The numerous missionaries who had gone among the Wiscon- sin savages seem to have made little progress with the Winne- bago. The first to devote himself specially to one of the bands was Rev. Father Mazzuchelli, who, April 16, 1833, visited the Winnebago at the old Decorah village, eight miles up the Wis- consin river from Portage. Pietre Paquette assisted him to talk with the savages. Two hundred converts were made, and he translated Father Barago's Catechism from Ottawa to Winne- bago, going 700 miles to Detroit to get it printed, and returned. It had eighteen pages. The influence of the missionary was such that on Mrs. Kinzie's offering wine to one of the Indian women she pointed to the cross about her neck and refused to drink.

Remains of Winnebago Village on Doty Island.

Situated partly upon the property of Mr. John Clovis and Mr. William Striddie, at a distance of forty-seven rods east of Ninth street in Neenah and directly in line with a series of effigy mounds, are located the remains of the earthen embankment at one time supporting the walls of the Winnebago stockade or fort, which was destroyed in 1728 by the French and Iroquois expedi- tion, which also destroyed the Fox Indian stockade on the main- land, as already described.

While the villagers returned and continued to inhabit the island, it does not appear that the stockade was rebuilt. The position and shape of the embankment enclosure can still be seen, though most of it has been plowed over. As it was not possible to enclose the entire population of the island within the stockade, it is supposed that it was only occupied in time of war, when the women and children were probably removed to a distance for safety. The peculiarity of the double enclosure indicates that one is simply the result of the enlarging of an earlier and smaller stockade. There is enclosed at present within the embankment of the stockade about three-quarters of an acre of land. The northern side of the enclosure is 200 feet, the southern side 300 feet in length and its extreme width about 160 feet. The em- bankment is from eighteen inches to three feet in height.

The cornfields of this village are still to be seen at the eastern

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

end of the island, on the property of Mr. G. C. Jones, and along the Neenah Fox river. They consist of long regular drills or ridges, covering several acres of ground, each row being from three to six inches in height, about three feet in width and from four to six feet apart from center to center.1

Dr. Lapham said: "The eastern extremity of Doty island has long been occupied by Indians, as is evidenced by the regular cornhills covering nearly the whole surface, as well as by a new feature not before observed or supposed to be within the pale of Indian customs. The ground was originally covered with loose stones, fragments of the solid limestone rock that exists every- where not far beneath the surface. These stones had been care- fully collected into little heaps and ridges to make room for the culture of the native crop. The stone heaps are six. or eight feet in diameter and from one to two feet in height. The inter- stices are now filled with soil and partially covered with grass and weeds." These stone heaps are still to be seen at this place. At the water's edge several hundred feet southeast of the old Doty homestead there is a black trap boulder having on its top several highly-polished basin-shaped depressions, which are said to have been employed by the Indians in grinding their corn. This boulder is somewhat oval in form, six feet in length, three feet in height and three feet in thickness .?

1 These cornhills are mentioned by Dr. Increase A. Lapham, "Antiquities of Wisconsin," p. 61, April, 1855.

" Briefly described in the October, 1902, issue of the "Wisconsin Arche- ologist,'' Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 30.

IV.

THE WINNEBAGO CHIEFS.

The Sachems of the great Winnebago, who have become inti- mately associated with the beginning of the history of Wiscon- sin, were either residents of Winnebago county or were sired by its ancient lords. The mother and grandmother of that noble line of Decorah chiefs, who met the pioneers of the state, was the beautiful queen of the Winnebago, "Glory of the Morning," sis- ter of the head chief of the Winnebago tribe on Doty island, now in Menasha and Neenah, on the Fox river at the foot of Lake Winnebago. Her Indian name was Hopokoekau, also spelled by La Ronde, Wahopoekau. Her birth is not of record. She mar- ried Sebrevoir De Carrie, who was an officer in the French army in 1699 under De Boisbriant. He resigned his commission in 1729 and became the first trader in Indian goods in the county, living and trading with the Winnebago on Doty island. During the French and Indian war De Carrie re-entered the French army and was mortally wounded before Quebec, April 28, 1760. In some of the almost daily assaults made by Wolfe upon some part of the long defenses on the bluffs of the St. Lawrence, and being taken to Montreal, died there in the hospital, and two weeks later France lost Canada forever. Three sons and two daughters were born of this union. Glory of the Morning refused to go to Montreal with her husband and remained on her island home with her family ; but De Carrie took with him one daughter, who married there Sieur Laurent Fily, a merchant of Quebec, who subsequently removed to Green Bay, where they have de- scendants still living in the valley. Captain Jonathan Carver, who visited the Queen in 1766, on Doty island, mentions the pleas- ure his attentions to the Queen gave her attendants as well as herself. She received him graciously and sumptuously enter- tained him during the four days he remained in her village. He writes of the town that it "contained fifty houses." "The land," he says, "was very fertile; grapes, plums and other fruit grew in abundance. The Indians raised large quantities of Indian corn, beans, pumpkins, squash, watermelons and some tobacco." Mrs.

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

Kinzie gives a long character sketch of the ancient Queen in Au- gust, 1831. "No one could tell her age; but all agreed she must have been upwards of 100. Her dimmed eyes, almost white with age; her face darkened and withered, like a baked apple; her voice tremulous and feeble, except when raised in fury -she usually went on all fours, not having strength to stand up- right. On the day of the payment she received her money and crawled to the agency door to count it." Mr. Henry Merrill, writing of the year 1834, says that she "was pointed out to me several years after (1834), and I was told she must be 143 years old. She was then able to walk six or eight miles to Portage. She lived several years after, and was finally burned to death by the burning of her wigwam."1

As she then lived in the village of her late grandson. Old Gray- Headed Decorah, eight miles below Portage, on the west side of the Wisconsin river, she was probably buried there. She is said by some writers to have been a daughter of the head chief. It has been said of her descendants, the Decorah chiefs, that "they were generally good Indians and frequently urged their claim to the friendship of the whites by saying they were themselves half white." They are said to have been "influential men in the nation," and Augustin Grignon says, in 1801, the "Decorahs were among the most influential of the Winnebago." Of this marriage there were two sons, whose names have been reported. The oldest was Chou Ke Ka, or Spoon Decorah or Ladle; the other was Chahpost Kaw Kaw, or the Buzzard, who settled with his band at La Crosse about 1787.

Chou Ke Ka, also spelled Chau Ka Ka, called Spoon Decorah, or Ladle, was the eldest son of Sebrevoir De Carrie, says La Ronde. Augustin Grignon renders the name Chongarah. As he knew the chief in the winter of 1801-2, he reports him then as head chief of the Winnebago, and "he was then a very old man and died at Portage in 1808. By his request he was buried in a sitting posture in a coffin, placed on the surface of the ground, with a low cabin above it, surrounded with a fence." His death occurred in 1816, according to La Ronde, when he was "quite aged." It also appears that Chau Ke Ka signed the treaty of St. Louis, May 18, 1816, and therefore could not have died until after that.

Old Gray-Headed Decorah, or Old Decorah, or Gray-Headed

17 do., 376.

THE WINNEBAGO CHIEFS.

Decorah, or White War Eagle, whose common Indian name was Schachip Ka Ka, and whose Winnebago name was Warrahwi- koogah, or Bird Spirit, was a son of the Ladle, and grandson of Glory of the Morning. He died at l'etenwell, the high rock on the Wisconsin river, April 20, 1836, said to have been ninety years old. He fought under the British General Proctor at Sandusky, where the small force under Major Croghan, who was then but twenty-one years of age, gallantly held the frontier fort with but one cannon. The War Eagle also fought with Proctor and Te- cumseh at the battle of the Thames, where the British army was mostly slain or captured and Tecumseh shot, Oct. 5, 1813, by the Americans under William Henry Harrison. The War Eagle was held as a hostage at Prairie du Chien in 1827 for the good be- havior of the Winnebago during the so-called Winnebago war, and for the delivery of Red Bird to justice. It was while Major Zachary Taylor was located at Prairie du Chien that he received from Old Gray-Headed Decorah his "peace pipe," and during the Winnebago war it was he who gave assurance to General Atkin- son at Portage, of the peaceable intentions of the Winnebago. Soon after Laurent Barth purchased the right from the Winne- bago over the portage, 1793, Old Gray-Headed Decorah moved from Apuckawa lake, on Fox river, in Green Lake county, and formed a village with his tribe on the Wisconsin river about two miles above Portage. La Ronde says: "Schachipkaka De Kawry died April 26, 1836, aged ninety, at his village, the locality in 1876 known as the Caffrey place in the town of Calidonia, at the foot of the bluff, between the Wisconsin and Baraboo rivers. School- house of District No. 5 occupies the spot where the old chief died. This town contained over 100 lodges. He was a Catholic, and was buried in their cemetery, near the site of the present courthouse in Portage City." He signed the treaties of 1828, 1829, 1832. Mrs. Kinzie described him as "the most noble, dignified and venerable of his own or, indeed, of any other tribe. Ifis fine Ro- man countenance rendered still more noble by his bald head, with one solitary tuft of long silvery hair neatly tied falling back on his shoulders." Old Gray-Headed Decorah came over to Portage from his village during the famine in 1831 and reported his people as starving. He was offered enough food for his own family. "No," he said, "if my people could not be relieved my family and I will starve with them."

Chah Post Kaw Kaw, or the Buzzard Decorah, was a son of Glory of the Morning and Sebrevoir De Carrie, so One-Eyed

HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.

Decorah told Judge Gale. He settled at La Crosse in 1787 with a band of Winnebago, and was soon after killed by his own son in a drunken row.

One-Eyed Decorah, whose Indian name was Wadge-hut-ta-kaw, or Big Canoe, was a son of the Buzzard. He died at Channel (near the Tunnell), Monroe county, Wis., in August, 1864, at an advanced age, as Grignon says, of ninety-two. His village in 1832 and later was at the mouth of the Black river, or some say near the village of Salem, on La Crosse river, in Onalaska town- ship, La Crosse county. Also said by Rev. Brunson to be at Prairie La Crosse in 1832. In 1826 he was said by Gen. H. L. Dousman to have his village on Black river. Thomas P. Bur- nett, in 1832, when he went up the river to keep the Winnebago canoes from Black Hawk, says he "found One-eyed Decorah and Little Thunder at the lower mouth of the Black river." One- Eyed Decorah was born about 1772, and was fifteen years of age when his father settled at La Crosse. He aided in the capture of Mackinac (July 17, 1812), and was out with the British in the attack on Fort Stephenson, Aug. 2, 1813, and was with Mckay in the capture of Prairie du Chien; and signed the treaty of 1825. The act for which he became celebrated was the capture of Black Hawk and the Prophet in 1832. The daring warrior. his band and followers broken, slain and scattered by the mur- der at the Bad Axe, had fled northward into the forests and en- tered the picturesque and rugged valley of the Lemonweir river, and then toward the La Crosse river, where Big Canoe was hunt- ing near Bangor, below Sparta, and found Black Hawk. who con- sented to go with him to Prairie du Chien, where he delivered the captives.

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History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People, Part 5

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