USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 19
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Every species of torture was inflicted upon the hapless would-be murderer by the tyrannical officer, until the people of Menomineeville rose in a body and demanded that the man should, at least, be given a fair trial and not be left longer to the inhuman treatment of the commandant. Twiggs was afterward prominent as an officer in the confederate service.
Old settlers have stated that Jefferson Davis was at one time stationed at Fort Howard, but this is not true, although he visited there while on duty at Fort Winnebago and on one occasion went deer hunting up Devil river with Moses Hardwick, a sturdy pioneer and mail carrier of early days. The boat was capsized and Davis rescued by Hardwick from the treacherous stream, but later the Brown county man was wont to tell the story with the addition, that could he have looked into the future, the waters of Devil river would have closed the career of the future president of the Southern confederacy. Davis's first wife, Knox Taylor, whom he married when they were both very young, was the daughter of General Zachary Taylor, and according to contemporary testimony "a perfect little sprite." Her father, the doughty United States officer of Mexi- can war fame, and also the successful candidate for the presidency, named his little daughter after his old army friend, General Knox.
There is a manuscript record of a court martial which was held at Fort How- ard in the summer of 1828, making inquiry into the conduct of Captain Board- man, an officer who had injudiciously seen fit to censure his superior in rank for not only indulging too freely in intoxicants, but also while in that condition stealing from Judge Arndt's warehouse a keg of pickled oysters. A large number of witnesses were summoned and from the adjutant general's office at Washington on September 4, 1828, was issued the following report : "Before the General Court Martial which convened at Fort Howard, of which
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Brevet Colonel Lindsay is president, was tried Captain Elijah Boardman, of the 2d Regiment, United States Infantry on two charges : Charge 1 .- Conduct unbe- coming an officer and a gentleman.
"Charge 2 .- "U'n-Officerlike conduct and disrespect to his Commanding Officer."
The court found the offender guilty of both charges, and the sentence pro- nounced was that the accused Captain Elijah Boardman, 2d Infantry, be dis- missed from the service. The proceedings of the general court martial in the case of Captain Boardman having been laid before the president of the United States, the president was pleased to pronounce the following decision thereon : "The proceedings and sentence of the court are not approved," and then followed a most able summing up of the case in question, with the following ending : "The decision cannot travel out of the record, upon the face of which it appears to me, to be nothing to require upon Captain Boardman, even the censure of a reprimand.
"( Signed ) JOHN Q. ADAMS.
"Captain Boardman, of the 2d Infantry, will accordingly resume his sword, and report for duty to Lieut. Colonel Morgan, superintending the recruiting service, at New York By order of Major General Macomb.
"(Signed) R. JONES, ADJ. GEN."
This is the only record of a court martial being held at Fort Howard during the many years it was garrisoned. Criticism there doubtless was of other com- manding officers, but nothing flagrant enough to warrant the convening of a court of inquiry. Outside of the daily drill there was little to keep the crowd of gay young West Pointers busy. There was a great stretch of garden north of the fort, which the soldiers kept under fine cultivation and where they raised vegetables in profusion. . \ detachment from Fort Howard under an officer's command was usually employed in making roads through the forest in order to facilitate communication with other forts, and a crew of ten was detailed to man the government barge and four for the surgeon's gig, the "pill box." Still with a force of three or four hundred men, each company having its quota of officers ample time must have remained for pleasure or mischief.
A resident of Menomineeville in 1828, Satterlee Clark, well known through- out the western country, relates his first impressions of the Fox river settlement and says that in the spring of 1827. Fort Howard contained three companies of the first infantry under command of Major Twiggs and that his subalterns were Captain and Major Buell. Captain Spence and Captain William Harney, later a famous Indian fighter, over six feet in height, well proportioned, active and strong. That same summer Twiggs and his command were ordered to the portage of the Fox and Wisconsin, to build a fort to be called Fort Winnebago. This action by government was really in response to the earnest solicitation of John Jacob Astor, the Indians having been in the habit of levying tolls on the goods of the American Fur Company, when the boats were unloaded for the passage across the portage.
Twiggs was succeeded at Fort Howard by Colonel William Lawrence, who with four companies of the Fifth United States Infantry, came by boat from St. Louis, and so high was the water that year that the loaded barges floated easily across the dividing strip between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, thereby giving
FORT HOWARD, AT GREEN BAY, IN 1855
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
AUTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONE
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definite inception to the idea of a Fox River improvement Company. A great impetus was given to social gayeties by the influx of lively young officers and their genial commander. At Fort Howard, a grand ball was tendered the towns people as a return for courtesies received, a humorous description of which was given fifty years subsequent by one of the prettiest girls who danced away that summer night. Marie Brevoort, afterward Mrs. Bristol, a daughter of Major Henry B. Brevoort, the agent of Indian affairs.
It was the twelfth of July, and not later than four o'clock in the afternoon. the weather threatening, with thunder rumbles and lightning in the distance, when Lieutenant E. Kirby Smith, in spotless white trousers and trim military jacket appeared at the agency house to claim his partner for the evening's festivi- ties. The young people were eager to be away betimes, for Major Brevoort was rather a testy individual and disposed to hold a tight rein over his attractive daughter, so lest objection should be made to the jaunt the lieutenant and Miss Marie left hastily for the boat landing. where the doctor's gig. with its four military boatmen awaited them. Mrs. Bristol thus described her dress for the grand occasion; brocaded lavender satin, trimmed with white silk lace, long white kid gloves, red slippers and white silk hose. As a protection from the night air a white lace shawl and large green "calash" standing out far from her head.
At Fort Howard a fine supper was served early in the evening and later the miess room was filled with a gay throng of dancers. "The music was enchant- ing," according to Miss Brevoort, and up to twelve o'clock all went well. Then a terrific thunder storm arose, lasting about an hour, when again the sky cleared. and the stars shone out. Lieutenant Smith and his fair companion embarked once again in the "pill box" for the homeward trip, but presently another fearful storm overtook them, "we were on a sea of space. angry clouds burst asunder, revealing vivid streaks of fire." Rain fell in torrents; the soldiers, bewildered, lost the rudder and the boat began to fill with water .To prevent its sinking the four soldiers took off their caps and boots using them to bail, and thus keeping the craft afloat until they drifted upon a sandbar about two miles from the agency house-probably Grignon's Point.
Just as the sun was rising over the wooded heights to the eastward the two merrymakers entered the gate of the Brevoort home. The water had loosened the trimming on the young lady's gown and it trailed five yards behind her black as the earth, while her red slippers were soaked and mud laden. Her escort bade her 'good morning' at the door, after having been pressed by Mrs. Brevoort with the ever ready hospitality of the time to remain for breakfast. Lieutenant Smith was shortly after ordered to Mackinac or the episode might have had a more romantic ending.
The recruits at an extreme frontier post, such as was Fort Howard in those days, were often desperate characters ready for any deviltry and dreaded by the inhabitants of Menomineeville because of their lawlessness. Thus it was a band of soldiers from Fort Howard who stole from the village church the silver ostensorium presented to the mission of St. François Xavier at the Des Peres rapids in 1686. This receptacle for the sacred wafer in the celebration of the mass, was afterward carried to Detroit and drifted into the possession of St. Anne's church in that city, where it was found by Reverend Father Bonduel Vol. 1-10
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of St. John's church in Green Bay, redeemed for $13.00 and restored to its original home. As time passed the class of enlisted soldiers improved much. Many of them were strict in their church duties both as Roman Catholics and Protestants. Services were sometimes conducted at the fort by different denom- inations as when "Mr. Williams in flowing white robes officiated," ( McCall's journal ) and also when, the wife of the commanding officer belonging to that sect, the Methodists held regular services in the mess room. During the com- mand of Captain Moses E. Merrill, a detachment was marched each Sunday morning to old Christ church.
Occasionally a flurry of military excitement was wafted over the garrison as in the incident of the Black Hawk war, in 1832, when only seventeen soldiers were left in the fort under the command of Captain Nathan Clark for the pro- tection of the country between the Mississippi and Green Bay. The descrip- tion of Fort Howard at this date does not represent it as a very practical place of defense, the picketing having become rotten, much of it was removed, and "preparations were made for receiving the citizens and their property within the stockade, it having been patched out, by horizontal timbers across the curtains." This point being a rendezvous for the Menominees it was feared that the hostile Indians would make it a point of attack, the primary cause for the uprising and calling out of United States troops being the murder of a band of Menominees by Sauks and Foxes in their village near Fort Snelling the spring previous.
It was during Captain Clark's command that the murder of a young officer occurred at the fort. The perpetrator of the deed, Doyle, a private soldier had for some offence been placed by Lieutenant Foster's orders in confinement. Doyle persuaded the sergeant of the guard to allow him an interview with the lieutenant. and when brought into his presence wrenched the gun from the sergeant's hand and sent a bullet through the heart of the officer, who gave one sigh and fell dead. Doyle was hung outside the stockaded wall of the fort.
The two important highways, known for many years as the military roads, one following Fox river to Fond du Lac and striking across country to the Fox- Wisconsin portage, the other running southeast to Manitowoc and from thence along the lake shore to Chicago, were commenced about 1833. The Fort Winne- bago road. for twelve miles, was laid out and superintended by Capain Martin Scott and was considered a marvel of engineering at the time, straight as an arrow and absolutely free from stumps and underbrush, its principal guide post a tall pine tree which towered above the rest of the forest and was crowned by an eagle's nest. These highways through the forest were made by detach- ments of soldiers who worked a week in turn under the command of an officer.
Even as late as 1834, Fort Howard was more completely separated from civilized life than is any United States fort of the present day. It was garri- soned continuously from 1828 up to the latter part of the Seminole war in 1841, when the regiment was ordered to Florida. Following Captain Nathan Clark as commandant, was Major A. G. W. Fanning, who was relieved in 1833 by General George M. Brooke. In the summer of that year Black Hawk, under military guard passed down Fox river, and was held at the fort for a few days on his journey to the east and final imprisonment, and in 1834. General Brooke appears as entertaining the Right Reverend Jackson Kemper, at dinner. Dur-
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ing this same pastoral visitation of the famous missionary bishop, the follow- ing entry occurs under date of July 24, in Kemper's journal: "Dined at Mr. Whit- ney's at Navarino, nearly a dozen officers from the garrison in full uniform- pitcher full of lemonade and port, madeira and champagne wines-roast pig, veal, ham, venison and veal pie-sallid-cranberry (abound here ) tarts and float- ing islands-cheese, raisins, almonds, English walnuts filberts. The two doctors of the fort drank no wine-have established a soc. there which now includes 80 odd, on principle of total abstinence. Lieutenant Clary belongs to it likewise."
Mrs. Brooke, the wife of the commanding officer at this time, was as a strict Methodist, strongly opposed to the use of intoxicating liquors, so although the General appears to have mingled in all the gayeties and dinings of the town, his wife's influence undoubtedly changed the tone of garrison life, for Lieuten- ant William Chapman, writing home to Virginia in 1835, speaks of the austere society element that was gradually replacing the free and easy life of former days. The young officers under Brooke were men of exceptional worth and many gained distinction and high rank in later years. Lieutenant Randolph B. Marcy, who was second lieutenant in the Fifth infantry from 1833 to 1838, at Fort Howard, was later inspector general of the United States army. ITis dangh- ter Ellen, born at Fort Howard, became the wife of General George B. Mc- Clellan. Moses E. Merrill. Martin Scott, the two Kirby Smiths, Caleb Sibley, W. B. Rosselle, William 11. Chapman, John C. Robinson, were all men of high character and brave officers.
Captain Martin Scott is one of the most picturesque characters of the Ameri- can occupation : a man of many eccentricities and famous in his youth among the sharpshooters of the Green mountains. His wonderful success in the use of a gun gave rise to his boast that no bullet ever moulded could strike Martin Scott-a prediction unfulfilled in the end. He was a man who thoroughly en- joyed life-a great hunter, a horseman and a famous shot. Many stories are related of his marvellous skill; of his throwing two potatoes in the air, and piercing them both with a single shot : of the coon that offered to come down from the tree when it saw Scott below ; and of the duel where the generous Martin so skilfully shot away the diseased portion of his adversary's liver as to restore him to better health than he had before known. He never took aim, simply looked at an object and fired, the butt of the gun at his hip. Rows of dog kennels lined the path to his front door, and out to the southwest of Fort Howard was Scott's half-mile race track. In the gentler arts of floriculture and horticulture he was also noted; and flowers, shrubs and trees transformed the grounds around his quarters into a veritable little park.
General Brook was succeeded in command at Fort Howard in 1837, by Cap- tain Moses E. Merrill. a man of honorable and sterling character, much esteemed by the towns people. Intercourse between the fort and civilians was constant and most friendly. During the famous land sales held at Green Bay in 1834, many of the officers then at the garrison bought land and in this way made quite snug little fortunes.
The surgeons stationed at Fort Howard from 1824 on, were an important factor in the life of the time, for there were no other physicians within two hundred miles, so that in sickness or accident messengers would hurry to the fort to obtain medical aid. Dr. William S. Madison, post surgeon at Fort Howard
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in 1821, was undoubtedly the first physician to come to Brown county, or indeed Wisconsin.
Madison married according to the custom of the time and place an Indian girl, and may have intended to desert her, for he was on his way to visit his family in Kentucky, when shot by Ke-tau-ka, brother of the girl, who was acting as guide.
While the garrison party was resting not far from the lake, where Manitowoc is located today, Ke-tau-ka wandered away to an Indian village, where he found a band of his people commemorating their exploits in war by throwing a hatchet at a post as many times as they had killed men. They taunted the strange lad on never having slain anyone, when he immediately returned to the camp and stealing up behind Dr. Madison, who was leaning against a tree, shot him in the back. Returning, he informed his band of the deed accomplished. but far from upholding him in the crime, they seized him, and handed him over to the Fort Howard detachment, but Dr. Madison had already died. The In- dian was taken to Detroit for trial and later executed, the manuscript record of the case forming interesting data in Brown county history.
In 1824, Dr. Walter V. Wheaton held the position of post surgeon, a favorite alike with the garrison and civilians. He was an able physician, was fond of society,-a great recommendation in those days,-had a pretty wife and a scapegrace young brother, who on one occasion in the absence of Dr. Wheaton, successfully amputated the leg of a soldier who had lost his way on the bay and been badly frozen.
The most celebrated of the army surgeons stationed at Fort Howard was Dr. William Beaumont, who succeeded Dr. Wheaton in 1826. Near the surgeon's quarters in the old fort at Mackinac Island, stands a rough boulder with tablet attached, erected by the Michigan Medical Society to commemorate the experi- ments of this eminent physician, who after leaving Fort Howard, was stationed at Michilimackinac in the early thirties.
A French voyageur. Alexis St. Martin, a typical resident of the fur trading villages of that day, living in one of the quaint houses covered with bark that in old times were strung along Mackinac's water's edge, was accidentally shot in the stomach while lounging in the Astor company's trading house.
The surgeon from the fort on the hill, Dr. Beaumont, was hastily summoned who, after making an examination and dressing the wound, left, saying that the young man would probably die before morning. The next day the doctor found St. Martin not only still living, but showing increased vitality, and the case be- came interesting. In time a curtain of skin grew over the aperture, and by lift- ing this the physician could follow the process of digestion perfectly. Beau- mont's experiments and memoranda, which he carefully kept for years, have proved of great and permanent value, and as the memorial tablet records, added glory to his name and to the profession which he adorned.
Doctor Beaumont was followed at Fort Howard by Doctor Lyman Foote, distinguished as a physician in army circles, and also having a large outside practice. He in turn was succeeded by Doctor Satterlee, who with his wife came to the Fox river fort in the early thirties. They were a young and hand- some couple, much liked by the civilians, and were among those instrumental in establishing the Presbyterian church in Green Bay. Doctor Worrell seems
FORT HOWARD MEMORIAL TABLET
THR NAZ CA' PUBLIC LIER
ASTON LEAS! !! TILDEN FOL *: 4, =
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to have been stationed at the fort at the same period ; in the meantime, however, Doctor David Ward had taken up his residence in Menomineeville, and later in Wrightstown and in addition to his regular practice among the townsfolk and those in the vicinity, served as fort surgeon when any vacancy occurred. He also attended the detachment of troops engaged in putting through the military road and became thoroughly acquainted with the country.
In 1841, in order to quell the disturbances ensuing on the Seminole war, the old Fifth, so long identified with Brown county garrison life was ordered to Florida, the last officers to leave being Captain Moses E. Merrill, First Lieu- tenant, William Root, Second Lieutenant, John C. Robinson of Company K. It was a dismal day for the entire region when the fort was definitely abandoned. The cantonment glistening with whitewash, trim and picturesque in its setting of green fields, forest and stream, and which had so long dominated the land- scape still remained. but the kindly, pleasant, cultivated people who had called it home left in their departure a great gap in the social interests of the place. With the withdrawal of the troops passed too the military atmosphere of garri- son occupation : bugle calls echoing sweetly over water and hillside, the roll of drums, the crack of rifle practice.
In the war with Mexico, Fort Howard furnished no quota of troops, but the sympathy of the Brown county people was deeply enlisted because of the promi- nent part taken throughout, by their especial regiment, the Fifth, for so many years associated with their life. Relatives and friends of this and other regi- ments still resided in the town, and among those who had resigned from the army and liked Brown county so well that they remained here were Colonel Lee, Captain John Cotton, Samuel Ryan, senior, Thomas Camm, William Root and others. When war was declared the Fifth concentrated in Texas, joining the army of occupation under a former Fort Howard commandant, General Zachary Taylor. "old rough and ready" as he was dubbed.
Letters are still preserved written from the front by Lieutenants William Chapman and John C. Robinson, telling of the siege of Monterey, its capture, and the fortifying of the Bishop's Palace by United States troops. The Fifth participated in all the engagements of the war excepting that of Buena Vista. It formed the rear guard of the army in the march from the city of Mexico when peace was declared ; the last company to evacuate the city being commanded by Lieutenant Robinson. At the battle of Molino del Rey, Captain Moses E. Merrill, Martin Scott and Kirby Smith were killed, and Lieutenant (later Colonel) William Chapman was wounded.
The one newspaper published in Brown county at this time, the Green Bay Advocate, is filled with "latest dispatches from the front," but it was often months before news from far off Mexico was received. Beginning with 1841, Major Ephraim Shaylor, a veteran of 1812, was placed in charge of the military reserve with a sergeant and orderly under him; otherwise the fort remained ungarrisoned. In 1849, Fort Howard was repaired and renovated, for the recep- tion of Col. Francis Lee, and later of Lieut .- Col. Benjamin L. E. Bonneville, with a detachment of the Fourth regiment of infantry. The government had, however, definitely determined to abandon the old fort as a point of defense, although its situation rendered it of especial value in the event of a war with England. The troops were ordered to California in 1852 when Major Shaylor
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was again placed in charge. The old stockade about twelve feet high, con- sisting of timbers from ten to twelve inches square, closely set together, with numerous loop-holes, splayed within for observation and for firing, stood stoutly for several years, then gradually began to decay and sag down. The houses along its line also fell into dilapidation, only the commanding officer's quarters, a handsome well-built house with pillared balconies above and below, which faced eastward overlooking the parade ground, remained in fairly good con- dition. The solitary elm which stands today in the railway yards and has been protected by a surrounding fence through the care of the Chicago and North Western Railway Company, was just south of this house and about forty feet west of the stockade.
To the southwest of the fort on a sandy knoll lay the cemetery. In digging, water was reached a short distance below the surface, for the surrounding coun- try was very low, and the soldiers used to say that they would hate to die at Fort Howard, as it was bad enough to die without being drowned atterward. The stone foundation of the old government (or commissary's) warehouse can still be traced north of the Chicago and Northwestern railway station. This building stood outside the fort stockade some sixty feet nearer to the river, and just north from the sallyport. It had three stories above the basement. In 1862 and 1863 it was used as a warehouse by Dousman and Elmore, and was later removed by Hiram Cornell to Valentine, Nebraska, where for a time it served as the county court house. On the river shore a few feet to the south of this old foun- dation and in front of where the sally-port used to be, there can be seen at low water the piles of stones that were in the cribs supporting the government pier.
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