USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 3
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The important visit proceeded most successfully and amicably. News of Nicolet's coming having spread among the neighboring tribes a great council was held, the first of many that were to be carried on between palefaces and Indians in the limits of Brown county in coming years. "Four or five thou- sand warriors assembled, each of the chiefs gave a feast and at one of these not less than six score beaver were eaten. Peace was concluded." Thus ends Père Vimont's account of the coming of the first white man to Green Bay.
Jean Nicolet blazed the trail for exploration, commerce and civilization in this region. In his wake followed a varied unending procession of fur traders, missionaries, adventurous spirits in all walks of life, who were to make this a central point for trade and colonization. The place where the brave Norman met the Winnebago in friendly council in this twentieth century has become a conventional summer resort, with picturesque cottages gleaming through wooded glades. Its winding paths still recall the forest primeval, although the thick growth of juniper and fir which used to fringe the edge of the bluff has disap- peared. In the sandy soil the archaeologist still finds relics of Winnebago and Pottawatomie occupancy, and at a turn of the road which leads to Red River, to Dyckesville and other Brown county towns stands a rude boulder with bronze tablet attached. On it are marked these words: "1634-1909-Commemorating the discovery of Wisconsin in 1634 by Jean Nicolet, emissary of Governor Champlain of New France. In this vicinity Nicolet first met the Winnebago
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Indians. Unveiled August 12, 1909, by members of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and the Green Bay Historical Society."
Nicolet well deserves a lasting monument, not only commemorative of his discovery of Wisconsin, but also of the man himself, the sturdy self-respecting and respected Norman whose few remaining years after his famous voyage were full of usefulness and honor. Beloved by the French and Indians and the trusted ally of the missionaries in their work of conversion, he contributed much toward the advancement of the colonies in Canada. His death was sud- den and much lamented. While making the trip from Quebec to Three Rivers to save an Indian prisoner from torture he was drowned in the St. Lawrence, October 27th, 1642.
Not until 1658 is there further mention of European exploration as far as Green Bay, and then by men as different from Jean Nicolet as can well be imagined. Champlain's ambition in sending his envoy to seek out new coun- tries was the spirit of exploration rather than trade, but the passion for the large and easily obtained profits to be gained in furs rapidly spread among the youth of New France; agriculture was neglected and the whole masculine colony took to the woods.
Medard Chouart Groseillers and his brother-in-law, Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur Radisson, young men living in the colony of Quebec, determined in 1658 to explore the country of the great lakes. The two formed a brotherly partner- ship "to travell and see countries" and Radisson with the true explorer's spirit kept a journal as keenly descriptive today as when he noted down events of the year 1658. In it he records that as soon as he and Groseillers made their resolution, "many undertake the voyage, for where is lucre there are enough peo- ple to be had." This might indicate that coureurs de bois or wood rangers were already seeking in considerable numbers the rich fields of this western wilder- ness.
The two Frenchmen visited first the Ottawas on the Manitoulin islands, and there met a band of Pottawatomie "Ambassadors," Radisson grandilo- quently calls them, who prayed the travelers to return with them to their villages on Green Bay. Here the winter was passed with the Pottawatomies at their large village, probably on the shore between Point au Sable and Red Banks.
The Frenchmen's winter on Green Bay seems not to have been a very severe one in point of cold, but the following year Radisson gives a thrilling narrative of hardship and suffering from the extreme weather experienced in the northern part of what is now Wisconsin. On the shores of Lake Superior famine over- took them, not an unusual thing among the Indians in those days during the extreme cold, when game disappeared entirely from the gaunt snow laden forests. The Indian lodges were filled with starving folk and Radisson's wonderful word picture vividly impresses the reader as it did when fresh from his pen. two hundred and fifty-eight years ago.
"We stayed 14 days in this place most miserable like a churchyard, for there did fall such a quantity of snow and frost and with such a thick mist that all the snow stucke to those trees that are there so ruffe, cedars and thorns that caused ye darkness upon the earth that it is believed ye sun was eclips. The two first weekes we did eate our doggs. Finally we became the very Image of death with barely strength to make a hole in the snow to lay us
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down, * * or to cutt a little wood to make a fire to keep us from the rigour of the cold."
Other daring spirits followed close upon Radisson and Groseillers. The journey from Quebec was a long and dangerous one but on the shores of "la grande baye" were to be found ample profits to repay the adventurous fur trader for all his toil.
INDIAN MOUNDS IN BROWN COUNTY
Town of Green Bay, Brown County, Wisconsin
No. 1. A large Indian mound was located on the fractional northwest quar- ter of the northeast quarter, section 13. township 25, range 22, on the south shore of Green Bay and the cast bank of a small creek ( sometimes called Little Red river or Petite Rivière Rouge) extending south and east along the bank of the creek about 900 feet to a large sand hill called "The Hog Back." The foot of the hill is covered with remnants of fire pits and fragments of pottery and large quantities of flint chippings and pieces of flint (also a large heap of clay which was evidently used in the manufacture of pottery). The top of the hill was used for burials.
No. 2. A smaller village was located in the fractional northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 13, township 25, range 22, on the south shore of Green Bay and the east shore of a small creek ( sometimes called Little Red river or Petite Rivière Rouge). There was a small oval mound (now obliterated ). about 200 feet east of the mouth of the creek and 100 feet south of the low water mark of Green Bay.
Note. It is a question which of the two streams is the Little Red river or Petite Rivière Rouge as it was called by the early French settlers, as both are referred to by that name by the farmers in the neighborhood.
Town of Suamico, Brown County, Wisconsin
No. 1. An oval mound about 70 by So feet on land of Peter Devroy in the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter, section 23, township 25, range 20, being 100 feet north and 125 feet west from the center of Brucetown road and the north by east section line.
No. 2. A large village site (Oussaquaimmy, a village mentioned in the Jesuit relations), located on land of- ---- Anderson, along the west shore of Green Bay, covering the greater part of the fractional east half section 24, town- ship 25. range 20, south of the Big Suamico river.
No. 3. A village site on the farm of William Gokey on the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 14, township 25, range 20.
No. 4. A small village or camp on the land of Dr. Colver on west half of the southwest half, section 14, township 25, range 20.
No. 5. Workshop on a sand hill on the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of the. southeast quarter, section 15, township 25, range 20.
Note. There are none of the usual signs of a village or camp at this hill except a few remnants of fire pits, but quantities of small flint-chippings. Vol. 1-2
.
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
Note. Nos. 4 or 5 may have been part of village No. 3. being so close to them, in fact the whole territory between all the villages on both sides of the Big Suamico river shows signs of former occupation.
Town of Preble, Brown County, Wisconsin.
There was a village on the east bank of East river ( Devil river) on lot 37 of Newberry's addition, division No. 2.
( References for Chapter IV: Jesuit Relations, Vol. 23; Butterfield, Dis- covery of Northwest; J. P. Schumacher, "Indian Mounds;" Hebberd, Wiscon- sin, under French Dominion.)
CHAPTER V
FATHER ALLOUEZ AND THE MISSION OF ST. FRANCOIS XAVIER
The site on the shore of Fox River where stood the Mission House of St. François Xavier two hundred and forty-one years ago has never as in many similar instances been wholly lost. Through reminiscence and tradition and the writings of Fathers Allouez and Dablon almost the exact location of this pious retreat can be traced. Early American settlers found still visible the foundations of chapel and dwelling house (W. H. C., Vol. 2) for although burned by hostile Indians in 1687, the stone foundations and stout timbers were not entirely destroyed and defied time's ravages. So the great name of its founder, Claude Allouez, and the work accomplished by him, withstand the waves of oblivion that have swallowed up other and less strong personalities.
It was in the month of November, 1669, that Father Allouez began his journey to the great bay of the Puans, leaving his mission "La Pointe du Saint Esprit" on the shores of Chequamegon Bay in charge of Father Jacques Mar- quette. It is a season that in our northern latitudes means blustering north winds. with a strong skimming of ice, as the days shorten, on the borders of creek and river. Allouez had steadfastly purposed to reach the extremity of the bay before winter set in, and urged the two French voyageurs who accompanied him in his bark canoe to use every effort to gain this goal. All the experience of these skilled Canadian boatmen was called into requisition, for the journey was a dangerous and terrible one.
On the twenty-fourth of November ice began to form, cutting their perishable bark craft: snow fell and their garments were drenched. At intervals they landed to mend their canoes and make friends with the Indians camped along the shores; for the most part Pottawatomies, who like the voyageurs were short of provisions, for there was no game and it was too early in the season to spear the sturgeon. The travelers labored on, Father Allouez ever encouraging his companions and invoking the aid of St. Francis Xavier, while his crew implored the protection of St. Anne, patron saint of all voyageurs.
When they reached the mouth of the river where they were to join a little band of fur traders, they found it closed by ice, but that night a tempestuous wind arose and cleared the channel, so that they were able to enter. On the second of December, 1669, they made port, landing a short distance up a stream on the west side of the bay. This point is now definitely identified as the Oconto river, where there was a large Indian village.
Six Frenchmen had encamped here for purposes of trade, and these with the two voyageurs formed the worshipers at the first mass offered on these isolated shores. It was for Father Allouez a service of thanksgiving that his life had been spared through so many dangers, and that he had been enabled
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to gain this goal of his pious hopes. Here Allouez spent the winter of 1669- 70, visiting a number of Indian villages in the vicinity, among them that of the Winnebagoes at Red Banks, also the Pottawatomie "who lived near them." One especially difficult trip was made by the priest in visiting these two tribes. After giving instruction to the dwellers in this encampment. in all perhaps one hundred and sixty persons, Father Allouez began his dangerous return jour- ney to Oconto. The cold on the open bay was so intense, with the mercury below zero and the unsheltered expanse by a cutting wind, that the mis- sionary was nearly overcome, and was forced to sink down on the snow. His nose was frozen, his strength well nigh exhausted, but in telling of the perilous trip he says, "through Providence I found in my cassock a clove" and the pungent spice so revived him that he was enabled to continue his journey.
When the ice broke up under the rough winds of March, Father Allouez prepared to carry on his missionary work to the southward. Passing to the head of the bay he entered the river of the Puans ( Fox River) a water high- way that became only a few years later, and continued to be for nearly two centuries, the most important route connecting the Mississippi with the great lakes. Allouez promptly rechristened the beautiful stream "Rivière St. Fran- çois." This name it retained until the middle of the eighteenth century, when constant war between the French and the war-like Fox or Outagamie nation made this section of country the peculiar territory of these aggressive Indians, and the waterway, which had become a source of contention between the combatants was known as Rivière des Outagamies or Rivière des Resnards.
To one who passes up Fox river today the journal kept by Father Allouez with its minute memoranda of people and places in that early period of our his- tory. is of absorbing interest. Although a tremendous water power has made the stream a center for manufacture and modern industries still one may even now float for miles along its waters and view practically the same general landscape as did Allouez on this first memorable journey-the steep overhanging banks fringed thickly by apple and other low growing trees, woodlands rising in the background with wide open spaces between, and the calm even flow of the river. unvexed for leagues by modern improvements.
Allouez made a hasty review of the field at this time and in May he was back at his Oconto mission. He stopped there but a short time, for in June he was due at Sault Ste. Marie where Sieur St. Lusson by royal authority was to claim for Louis XIV of France this wide western territory. With imposing ceremonies during which speeches were made by St. Lusson and Father Allouez, the arms of France were raised on high by Nicholas Perrot, and fastened to a solidly planted pole, while St. Lusson in a commanding voice took possession of this land in the name of the "most high, mighty and redoubted monarch Louis Fourteenth of the name, King of France and Navarre."
In September, 1670, Allouez again made the voyage up the Fox River in company with Father Dablon, newly appointed Superior of all the Canadian missions. It was a pleasant journey in congenial companionship. full of variety and incident. Where the city of Kankauna now overruns the once beautiful island and commanding bluffs the travelers found set up on the bank of the river a grotesque idol of stone. to which every red man in passing made hom- age and propitiatory offerings of tobacco. Without ceremony the missionaries
ALLOUEZ MONUMENT
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
tumbled this gayly painted image into the river, where it doubtless still rests. The Indians were uniformly docile, and gave glad welcome to the kindly "black robe," as they called the visiting priest, but Father Allouez was inex- pressibly shocked that they should treat him as a deity, and lay offerings of tobacco at his feet. "Take pity on us," they cried, "thou art a Manitou. We give thee tobacco to smoke. We are often ill, our children are dying; we are hungry. Hear us, Manitou; we give thee tobacco to smoke," while Allouez in horror yet deeply touched by this plaintive appeal called upon them to give up their idolatries, and listen to him as he told them of the true and only God.
In the winter of 1671-72 a permanent mission house was built on a pro- jection of land around which the last series of rapids eddy before Fox river makes its final sweep towards Green Bay. It was a level plateau, "a prairie" Father Allouez calls it, with a sandy beach skirting its borders some five feet below. To the eastward the place was sheltered by high banks covered from base to crown by a heavy growth of forest. The mission of St. François Xavier occupying this accessible and pleasant spot was at first merely a lodge such as the Indians used. This burned and was succeeded by a solidly con- structed chapel and dwelling house, probably built of logs with a stone founda- tion, for the missionaries, and still another structure for the traders and casual visitors of whom there were many coming and going.
The mission at Rapides des Pères speedily became a center of interest for the whole northwest. Allouez was efficient as an organizer and wide expe- rience had taught him right methods in controlling and attaching to him the wily and childish savage. He was a man of indomitable courage and persever- ance with a thorough knowledge of the various Algonkin dialects and this last equipment made his missionary labors more successful than any of his colleagues, and gave him an immense advantage over Father Marquette and other contem- porary priests as an itinerant missioner. More help was urgently required how- ever and precisely the right person came to Father Allouez's assistance when in December, 1671, Father Louis André joined the mission. The fathers agreed to divide the field, Allouez to pass through the river villages to the prairie dwellers, the Miamis, Mascoutins, Kickapoos and Illinois, while Andre went to those In- dians living on the bay shore, the nomadic fisher population, who built their reed lodges close to the water's edge and speared through holes in the ice sturgeon and muskellunge, or set nets for smaller fry.
Father André was at this time forty-one years of age, a native of southern France, strong of body and intellect, and with decided views as to the most effective way of reaching the savage conscience. His recital of daily work sent to his superior in Paris is picturesque in the telling and through its pages we see the shore of the bay and the daily life there as in a picture; the Indian lodges clustered at Suamico and Point au Sable, the stretches of cornfield bounding them on either side, heaps of fish drying everywhere, within and without the low cabins-an industry that often made it impossible to hold service in the church, and drove the priest to the outside air, so close was the interior with this all-pervading fishy odor.
Father André set forth from "the house," as he designates St. François Xavier Mission, in the autumn of 1672, reaching Chouskouabika,-"the place
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
of slippery stones," as it is translated-on the 16th of November. It is impos- sible to locate this village accurately ; no vestige of its Indian name remains, as in Oussouamigong (Suamico) and many other towns of today, to give hint of its prehistoric title.
Six tribes inhabited this upper bay region in the thirty odd miles extend- ing between the present cities of Green Bay and Menominee. The population of these villages varied from 150 to 300 souls and the work in hand proved sufficient to keep André's heart and hand active.
"Father André," writes Allouez, "by his firmness has succeeded in sub- duing the minds of the savages, who were most ferocious and superstitious, by gradually and with unswerving constaney subjecting them to the yoke of the Faith." To gain insight into the manner in which Father Andre accomplished this remarkable change we must look over his shoulder as he writes in his little reed hut at Chouskouabika. "The fire that broke out in my cabin on the 2211d of December destroyed my writing case and journal," he notes down, and then proceeds to tell how the calamity really turned to good, for the savages immediately set about to remedy the loss by building him a hut according to their own methods, using straw to the height of a man; above this mats which they wove from the long grass of the marshes bordering the bay. The mats were laid with a slight slope, so that the water ran from their smooth surface. "They afford greater protection against cold and smoke than do bark cabins," André writes, "and one need fear neither rain nor snow within their comfortable shelter."
The reference by Father Andre to the burning of his cabin leads one to wonder whether possibly at this time the priest lost his sole scientific instru- ment, a bronze compass and sextant combined; for two hundred and thirty years later, in the autumn of 1902, F. B. Duchateau and A. G. Holmes of Green Bay tracking over the site of an Algonquin village on the east shore of the bay near Point au Sable found one of these ancient instruments, black- ened and discolored from the centuries it had lain in the earth. The interest- ing relic was made in Paris, and bears upon its face the names and latitudes of the French forts and mission stations most important in the seventeenthi century. from Montreal to "la baye." There is no name to give clue to its possible owner, but it undoubtedly belonged to one of the early missionaries, in all probability Father André, as these bay villages were his especial field of labor.
As the priest writes in his journal or rather on such scraps of paper as he has rescued from the conflagration, Indians enter the cabin, young war- riors with faces blackened and daubed with coarse paint, terrible to behold and looking more like fiends than men. "I found no better way of compelling them to clean their faces than to show them the painting of the devil to whom they made themselves similar, and to refuse them entrance into my cabin when they came to pray to God."
But the father possessed a gift that aided him greatly in gaining an in- fluence over the children of his flock, a cultivated taste for music. He set to fascinating airs of old Provence pious teaching framed in such simple lan- guage as the savage youngsters could understand. The experiment proved most successful, and the little wild swarthy creatures followed the priest with
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devotion, playing on their rude instruments and chanting the melodious tunes he had taught them.
With his singing children Father Andre passed up and down the shores of Baye des Puans, "making war against the jugglers, dreamers, and those who had many wives, and because the Indians passionately loved their children and would suffer anything from them, they allowed the reproaches strong as they were cast upon them in these songs."
The cold in that winter of 1672-73 was intense, and the straw cabin was not proof against its inroads. When Father André said mass at daybreak in order to avoid possible interruption, he thawed the wine by the smoky fire in the center of the cabin; but it would freeze again before the consecration and the chalice stuck to his lips. Yet no word of complaint escaped him; it is only an interesting incident to be recorded in the day's story.
On the first day of Lent, the sixth of March, 1673. Andre returned to the central mission house at Rapides des Pères. As I had given my word to Rev- erend Father Allouez that I would proceed to the house at the beginning of March I started on the sixth, notwithstanding the gout that had attacked me on the previous day. For that reason I was compelled after walking two leagues to have myself dragged by a dog from the mouth of the river to the house. When the elders heard that I was to leave them they came to me and begged me to stay, saying. "Now that all pray, thou leavest us," but he assured them of his return.
Life at St. François Xavier's mission house was varied and busy enough, to judge from the journal of Father Allouez and the record of contemporary writers. Service in the chapel, attendance at Indian councils, visits to sepa- rate cabins and instruction given to their inmates : careful noting of astronomi- cal data as when Father Allouez makes minute mention of an eclipse of the sun which occurred on the sixteenth day of April, 1670, and lasted for over two hours. Father Andre on the bay shore kept accurate record of the curi- ous tides that for many years and to this day puzzle students of inland water phenomena.
Many visitors came to the mission whose names are familiar now through history and romantic tale. Daniel Greysolon Dulhut, coureur de bois and soldier of fortune, a typical outgrowth of that reckless life and age; Baron Lahontan, courtier and dilettante whose blithe chronicle of his travels and ad- ventures savors of Baron Munchausen ; Henri de Tonti with the hand of copper who in his retreat with four companions from the beleaguered fort on Starved Rock, Illinois, reached the friendly shelter of the mission house in December, 1680. In the first week of May, 1683, his cousin, Dulhut, was again in this region with thirty men, and valiantly helped to defend the mission stockade against an incursion of the Iroquois, just then raiding Wisconsin tribes who had fled from Lake Huron.
In the spring of 1073 Father Jacques Marquette and his sturdy companion, Louis Joliet, stopped at St. François Xavier on their way to that great and as yet unexplored stream "that flows toward the south, and empties into the sea of Florida or California as we believe." In the fall the travelers returned, Mar- quette broken in health and content to take a much needed respite from labor among his brethren at the Rapides des Pères. Joliet returned to Canada with
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