History of Barron County Wisconsin, Part 5

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1922
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1767

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"Mound 14, standing 120 feet from the lake shore, measured but 26 feet in diameter and a little over 3 feet in height. The construction was somewhat similar to that of No. 8; first a layer of sandy loam, 1 foot thick, then the core, 2 feet thick; but in this case there was, immediately below the second layer, a stratum of charcoal 4 inches thick and covering the same area. Under- neath this, on the original surface, were the remains of three bundled skeletons partially burned. The remains of two logs, which had been nearly consumed by fire, could be traced in the layer of burned earth. They must have been about 6 feet long and 4 or 5 inches in diameter. They were parallel, within a foot of each other, and had evidently been laid on the earth covering the skeletons, but there were no indications of a wooden vault. The evidence seemed conclusive that the fire had been kindled here after the skeletons and logs were in place. The first skeleton was in the center under the two burned logs, and the indications were that it had been wrapped in birch bark, parts of which, although both wrappings and bones were charred, were obtained. The other two skeletons were north and east of this central one, and one of them showed but little effects of the fire, while the other was nearly consumed.

"Southward, outside of this burned area, but under the core or layer, were two other skeletons, which seemed to have been buried at the same time as the other three."

6. Hiawatha Park Camp Site (W. 1/2, N. W. 1/4, Sec. 15). On the east shore of Rice lake and on the north side of the Red Cedar river which here enters the lake, abundant evidence (fireplace stones and quartzite chips) were found in a potato patch. The larger portion of this beautiful point is still occupied by a woodland of deciduous trees and it was therefore impossible to determine how large an area this camp site may have covered. In the culti- vated fields along this stream beyond this site arrowpoints and a few stone celts had been found. This property has been subdivided into summer resort lots and is known as Hiawatha Park.

7. Draak Mounds (S. 1/2, S. W. 14, Sec. 15). On the property of Herman Draak, on the east shore of Rice lake, are located two conical mounds. These

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were within a short distance of the lake bank. The larger of the two was 32 feet in diameter and about 2 feet high and the smaller 24 feet in diameter and 11/2 feet high. The mounds were in a grove of mixed woods. This property was in former days a Chippewa Indian camping site and a few box covered graves were located here. Campers have dug into numerous tree falls on this property believing them to be Indian burial places.

8. Narrows Cemetery. A Chippewa Indian cemetery was formerly located at the north end of the railroad bridge, at the narrows between Rice lake and Lower Rice lake. The graves were covered with the customary wooden shelters. They were destroyed in grading the approach to the bridge. Several cottages now stand near the lake bank, near this place. Between the wagon road and railroad track, which cross the river within a short distance of each other, is a pond. Geo. C. Spore, Geo. Colon and others well remember these graves.

9. Colons Point Camp Site (N. E. 14, Sec. 27). On this point in Lower Rice lake, the well known Chippewa chief, Chenini, had his camp until the removal of all the Indians to the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation in 1833. He remained for several years after the others had gone. Mr. Geo. Colon, the former owner of this point, states that several hundred Indians encamped here at different times, frequently having festivities and ceremonies of various kinds. There were several Indian graves here also. One of these, the grave of a niece of the old chief, was disturbed by local summer resorters several years ago. A small amount of cheap jewelry, metal forks and other articles were found in the grave. The extreme end of this beautiful wooded point is now occupied by a number of summer resort cottages.

10. French Trading Post (S. W. 1/4, S. E. 1/4, Sec. 27). The Wisconsin Atlas of 1878 locates a French trading post at the narrows of Rice lake. According to George Colon, this post was really located on J. J. Silesky's place at the foot of Lower Rice lake. The investigators in 1912 visited this place and found several slight linear depressions said by local residents to be the remnant of a ditch which formerly surrounded the trader's cabin, and in which a palisade of upright logs is said to have stood. The longest depression was about 15 feet long. Mr. Colon states that stones from the trader's chimney formerly lay on the ground. These have evidently been removed as no trace of them could be seen. This site is in a level space at the foot of a small slope in the woods a short distance in the rear of the Silesky summer cottage. A short distance to the south of it is a small swamp. The site is opposite the portage (now occupied by a country road) between Lower Rice and Mountain lakes.

Wild rice still grows abundantly in the latter very shallow lake.

There are also mounds about Bear lake in the northern part of the county, and about the outlet of the Red Cedar lake into the Red Cedar river in the northeastern part of the county.

A survey of the mounds of the western part of the county is found in the appendix of this work.

The student of Barron county antiquities will find valuable information concerning its Indian remains in several other reports published by the Wis- consin Archeological Society. These are "A Record of Wisconsin Antiquities" (1906), "Pipestone Quarries in Barron County" (1910), "Aboriginal Evidences in Northwestern Wisconsin" (1914), and "The Chetek and Rice Lakes" (1917). The various publications of the Wisconsin Historical Society, especially the "Collections" and the "Proceedings," also teem with valuable information regarding this region.

At some period, the mound builders of this region ceased their mound building. If indeed, as it is believed, they were the Dakota, or as they are popularly called the Sioux, then their descendants mingled with Siouan peoples to the south and west.

With the passing of time, the Superior region was occupied by the Chip-

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pewa or Ojibway as they are sometimes called. The Chippewa belong to the great Algonquian family, and probably originally worked their way from the St. Lawrence river region until they occupied the area south and southwest of Lake Superior, including Barron county.

The Chippewa were not a mound building tribe, though there are burial mounds in northern Wisconsin which some investigators believe the Chippewa erected. In most of the places where Chippewa are found buried in mounds, however, it is fairly evident that the burials were comparatively recent and that the mounds had been built long before they were used for Chippewa burial places.

The woods and streams supplied the Aborigines their simple needs of food, clothing, and shelter. From the skins of animals they fashioned their garments, by hunting and by harvesting wild rice they gained their food. Their lodges were built of slender trees, covered with bark, and with mats formed of plaited reeds. Gradually they learned a rude form of agriculture, by cultivating the ground with hoes of bone and plows of wood, corn and pumpkins were added to their food supply. They had no domestic animals except dogs, which also served as an addition to their food supply. Their tools and implements of warfare and of chase were made of stone, flints chipped to a point tipped their arrows, axes and hatchets were of edged stone, war clubs swung a heavy stone head. The only metals known were lead and copper. The former mined in a crude fashion was mostly used for ornament. Copper, secured by intertribal trade from Lake Superior, was beaten by hand into oramental shapes, and occasionally used to tip weapons and domestic imple- ments.

The change of seasons brought to Wisconsin Indians changed modes of living. During the winter season they left their permanent villages and in small groups scattered through the forests, subsisting as best they might on the products of the chase. They built temporary wigwams of pelts thrown over poles, within which fires were kindled that kept them from freezing. Upon the return of spring they sought their villages and corn fields. The sum- mer was the time for religious rites, for council and for warfare. Raids upon neighboring enemy groups were a normal part of the Indian's life. In every village a council house was built where questions of war and alliance were discussed by the chiefs and elders. The religious rites clustered about a unit resembling a clan; the effigy mounds were the symbols of the clan totems. Near to these totems burial mounds were placed. The sacred mysteries of the tribe and clan were there celebrated.

Aside from warfare, intercourse was maintained with other tribes by means of trade. The extent and volume of intertribal trade was considerable. Sea shells found in Wisconsin mounds prove that they had passed from hand to hand among all the tribes between its inhabitants and the Atlantic coast. Shells, bits of metal, articles of dress and ornament, constituted the bulk of the exchange. Shells pierced and strung or wrought into belts were both the medium of exchange and the binding symbol of intertribal treaties and agree- ments. While the fate of captives taken in war was horrible, envoys were sacred, and the treaties were observed inviolate.

The red man's life was by no means as idyllic as children of nature have been supposed to lead. Famine and disease stalked his footsteps; war and wild animals carried away his young; struggle and hardships made up his lot in life. None the less it is open to question whether the contact with the white man did not make the condition of the Indian worse. He soon became depend- ent upon the farmer's products for clothing, implements and weapons. He for- got the art of his primitive economy. Urged on by the greed of traders he rapidly killed off the wild game or drove it farther into the wilderness, which he had to penetrate in order to secure the store of furs with which to purchase his necessities. Thus, hunting became more and more important to his existence, and with increased efforts and superior weapons brought very

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HISTORY OF BARRON COUNTY

diminishing returns. The red man became dependent upon the trader for the very means of life. After the French and Indian war, when all traders of the French race were withdrawn from Wisconsin, the English traders, who, after a lapse of two years, went to Lake Superior and found naked, starving savages, who in less than one hundred years had ceased to be self-sufficing and could live only by means of relations with white men. Thus arose the fur trade, which was not only a commercial or an economic regime, but a system of government, a form of social life, a means of exploitation and a stage in the development of the American frontier.

At the close of the Seventeenth century, Wisconsin was swarming with Indians. In the last quarter of that century the Miami, Mascouten and Kicka- poo moved to the Illinois river valley, out of the state. The Potawatomi moved south along the shore of Lake Michigan. The Foxes ventures from Wolf river to the river now called by their name. The Menomonie surrounded Green Bay, the Sauk and Foxes controlled the Fox-Wisconsin waterway, the Winne- bago occupied the upper Rock river. The Huron and Ottawa, who for a time had occupied the headwaters of the Chippewa, left nothern Wisconsin for homes on the straits of Mackinac. Thus the southern shore of Lake Superior was practically abandoned to the Chippewa, although the Sioux still bitterly contested their occupancy.

It was in this lake Superior region that the early explorers found the Chippewa. At that time the hereditary enemies of the Chippewa, Sioux (Dakota), had their headquarters in the Mille Lac region in northern Minne- sota, and ranged the St. Croix and upper Mississippi and the region to the westward as well as the region toward Lake Superior.

The Chippewa continued to press onward and having obtained firearms from the whites, they took possession of the Mille Lac region, and forced the Sioux down the Mississippi where they established a number of villages, the most southern of which was at Winona.

Warren (Minn. Hist. Colls. V, 164) says that the Chippewa had a village at Rice Lake as early as the year 1700.

War between the Chippewa and the Sioux continued, and the Sioux still continued to make many raids into the Lake Superior regions. Barron county, especially, was hotly disputed territory. In fact it is believed by investigators that the main cause of the wars fought by the Aborigines in this region was due to a desire to possess the rich rice fields. The desire to obtain pipestone was probably another factor.

"Almost every bend of the Red Cedar river," it has been said, "has been the scene of an Indian battle." Others took place on the shore of Prairie lake, the story of which is still preserved in Indian tradition.

By the Treaty of 1825 various tribes agreed upon the boundaries of their respective territories. The line between the Chippewa and the Sioux in this region fell a little south of Barron county and is described as follows: "From a point on the Chippewa river, half a day's march (ten miles) from Chippewa Falls to the Red Cedar (Menomonie) river, just below the falls (the city of Menomonie), thence to the St. Croix river, at a place called 'Standing Cedar,' about a day's paddle in a canoe above Lake St. Croix."

Benjamin G. Armstrong says (Early Life Among the Indians, 199-201) that in the fifties the Rice lake band numbered about 200, their chief being one Na-nong-ga-bee. "This chief with about 70 of his people came to La Point to attend the treaty of 1854. After the treaty was concluded he started home with his people, the route being through heavy forests and the trail one which was but little used. When they had reached a point a few miles south of the Namekagon river and near a place called Beck-gua-ah-wong they were sur- prised by a band of Sioux who were on the warpath and then in ambush, where a few of the Chippewas were killed, including the old chief and his eldest son.

"The trail being a narrow one, only one could pass at a time true Indian

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file. This made their line quite long as they were not trying to keep bunched, not expecting or having any thought of being attacked by their enemy. The chief, his son and daughter were in the lead and the old man and his son were the first to fall as the Sioux had, of course, picked them out for slaughter, and they were killed almost before they had dropped their packs or were ready for war. The chief had just brought his gun to his face to shoot when a ball struck him square in the forehead. As he fell his daughter fell beside him and feigned death. At the firing Na-nong-ga-bee's band swung out of the trail to strike the flank of the Sioux and get behind them to cut off their retreat, should they press forward or make a retreat, but that was not the Sjoux intention. There were not a great many of them and their tactics were to surprise the band, get as many scalps as they could, and get out of the way, knowing that it would be the work of a few moments, when they would be encircled by the Chippewas.

"The girl lay motionless until she perceived that the Sioux would not come down on them en-masse, when she raised her father's loaded gun and killed a warrior who was running to get her father's scalp, thus knowing that she had killed the slayer of her father, as no Indian would come for a scalp he had not earned himself.

"The Sioux were now on the retreat and their flank and rear were being threatened, the girl picked up her father's ammunition pouch, loaded the rifle and started in pursuit. Stopping at the body of her dead Sioux she lifted his scalp and tucked it under her belt. She continued the chase with the men of her band and it was two days before they returned to their women and children, which they had left on the trail, and when the brave little heroine returned she had added two scalps to the one she had started with."

Henry Schoolcraft gives the name of the Chippewa chief of the village at Lake Chetek as Kedug-e-be-shew (The Spotted Lynx), his village being located here during the latter part of the eighteenth century. There is some qustion, however, as to whether the Lake Chetek, of Schoolcraft, was the Lake Chetek in Barron county.

Many Indian trails traversed Barron county. Some of the most important were along the Chetek lake, Menomonie river, Rice lake, Cedar lake region. Some of these trails have been traced by J. A. H. Johnson, of Chetek, with the aid of early settlers and others.

One of these, which he had named the "Bayfield Trail," came from the vicinity of the west side of Cedar Lake and crossed the country to Rice Lake, passing down the west side. According to G. C. Soper, an old settler, who came to Rice Lake in 1876, the Bayfield Trail came from Howard's Point on the shore of Rice lake, passed through the mounds located here, and followed in a southwesterly direction along a rise of ground, now graded away, to the southeast corner of Knapp and Main streets. It continued on from this point, passing a pond then located near the present corner of Stout and Main streets, and proceeded down Main street to the corner of Main and Humbird. Here it forked, one branch continuing down the Red Cedar (Menomonie) river at the foot of the city, and the other taking a northwestwardly direction to the site of the present First Ward school and thence across the country to Bear creek. The branch down the Red Cedar continued on the west side of the river to the vicinity of the present village of Cameron, near which place it crossed to the east side of that stream and pursued a southeasterly direction to the shore of Prairie lake and down its shore and that of Chetek lake to the present site of Chetek.

The Superior trail coming from the west through the present site of Barron united with the Bayfield trail near the present shore of Prairie lake.

The so-called Flambeau trail coming from the banks of the Chippewa river passed between Lake Pokegema and Prairie and Chetek lakes, meeting the Bay- field trail near the present site of Chetek.

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The Chippewa trail left the site of Chetek, crossed the Chetek river, and ran in a southeasterly direction toward the Chippewa river.

The Sioux trail, also from Chetek, ran west to the Red Cedar river which it crossed and then followed the western side to Hay river.

To-go-ne-ge-shik and forty other chiefs and braves of the Chippewa executed a treaty at La Point, on Chequamegon bay, Lake Superior, Oct. 4, 1842, ceding all Chippewa lands in Wisconsin to the United States. A reserva- tion was set aside for the Chippewa above Sand lake in Minnesota.

But several bands of the Chippewa were much dissatisfied with the agree- ment and especially with the reservation. Therefore, the government returned to them a considerable tract on Lac Court d'Oreilles (Couderay lake) and the branches of the upper Chippewa.

From the Couderay reservation the Chippewa continued to range Barron county. Wild game was plentiful in the heavy forests and along the water courses. The lakes abounded in fish and wild fowl. Beaver sported in the brooks and supplied pelts which were readily sold and traded.

Rice lake and the Chetek lakes were a favorite resort of the Indians every fall. There they gathered their winter's supply of wild rice. When the dam was built at Rice Lake, late in the sixties, raising the water and flooding the rice fields, the Indians were much incensed, and for a while danger was threatened, but the excitement in time died down.

Writing of the rice gathering Indians in 1820, James D. Doty (Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. VII) says :

"The Indians in the month of September repair to Rice lake to gather their rice. In no other place does it grow in such large quantities as there. The water is not over five feet deep, and its surface is almost entirely covered with rice. It is only in morasses or muddy bottoms that this grain is found.

"It was formerly the practice of the Indians when the grain was in milk to pass around in canoes and gather up the tops in large shocks or branches and fasten them to render the collecting of the grain much easier after it was ripened. By this means they obtained it in much larger quantities than at present.

"This work of harvesting is performed by the females. It is now gathered by two of them, passing around in a canoe, one sitting in the stern and pushing it around, while the other with her back to the bow, and with two small pointed sticks about three feet long, one in each hand, collects it by running one of the sticks into the rice and bending it over onto the edge of the canoe, while with the other she strikes the heads suddenly and rattles the grain into it. This she does on both sides of the canoe alternately and while the canoe is moving. About a gill is generally struck off at a blow.

"It is not ripe when harvested. It falls covered with a husk, and has a beard about two inches long.

"One method of curing the rice, and that which makes it the most palatable, is by putting it in a kettle in small quantities and hanging it over the fire until it becomes parched. A round hole is dug in the ground one and a half feet deep and three in circumference, into which a moose skin is usually put. Into this hole the parched grain is then poured, where it is trod by an Indian until completely hulled. This is very laborious work and always devolves upon the men. The grain is then taken out and cleaned in a fan made of birch bark, shaped something like those used by early farmers. This is the most expeditious method of curing it.

"The other method differs from this only in drying. In the drying process a scaffold is made of small poles about three feet from the ground, and covered with cedar slabs. On this the rice is spread and under the scaffold a small slow fire is kindled, which is kept up until the grain becomes entirely dry. It takes nearly a day to dry the quantity contained on one of the scaffolds. The grain cured in this way is more nutritious and keeps much

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longer than the other. Parching in the kettle seems to destroy some of the substance.

"The rice when cured is put into sacks containing about a bushel. A sack is valued at two skins or about $4. A fathom of stroud or a blanket will buy two sacks.

"One family ordinarily makes about five sacks although those who are industrious sometimes make twenty-five. The last, however, is very rare. A few provident Indians save a little for the spring of the year to eat with their sugar, manufactured from the sap of the maple trees, though generally by the time they have done curing it, the whole is disposed of for trinkets, ornaments and whiskey."

Even to the present day the Indians resort to Mud lake, in Chetek town- ship, to gather rice.

Another of the features which attracted the Mound Builders and the more modern Indians to Barron county was the ridge of pipestone in Sections 27 and 34, Doyle township, and Section 3, Sumner township. This formation, called by the geologists "catlinite," is mentioned in the chapter in this volume on geology. It is a dark red clay, easily worked into shape with a knife, which hardens upon exposure to the air. The Aborigines came here, secured blocks of the soft clay, and fashioned it into pipes, beads, and other ornaments, which rapidly hardened into a substance which takes a high red polish.

G. A. West made an investigation of the pipe stone quarries in Barron county in 1910. He writes (The Wisconsin Archeologist, Vol. 9, p.p. 32-33) :

"The quarry in the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 27, Town 35, Range 10 (Doyle), was long worked by the Indians and an excava- tion formerly existed over an area of about 25 feet square and 3 feet in depth. This seems small and unimportant but as the material was used almost exclusively for pipes the amount of waste material being small, and there being other ancient quarries in the neighborhood, it seems safe to conclude that enough catlinite was mined in this district to supply the demand of the Wisconsin Indians for several centuries.

"Because of the swampy land surrounding it, this quarry is almost inacces- sible during the summer months, but in winter when the swamps are frozen, for several years past farmers have drawn upon it for building stone, thus almost completely destroying all evidences of aboriginal work.

"Along the highway leading from Rice lake in the direction of the quarry may be seen outcrops of shaly rock, much resembling pipestone, but coarser in texture.

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History of Barron County Wisconsin, Part 5

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1767

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1922
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1767