History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin, Part 63

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1298

USA > Wisconsin > Richland County > History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin > Part 63
USA > Wisconsin > Crawford County > History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin > Part 63

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expense of an appeal; in fact the traders made use of him to hold their men in subjection, but never submitted to him any difficulty between themselves. These were left to the arbitration of other traders. It was said of him, that a bottle of spirits was the best witness that could be introduced into his conrt, and that after the decision of a case, the losing party produeing the above witness, has been granted a new trial or re-bearing, and a reversal of the former de- cision obtained. For misdemeanor, he sen- teneed the culprit to labor a certain number of days on his farm or eut and split a certain num- of rails for him.

During my stay at Green Bay, waiting the arrival of my employers, one of their engages or boatmen had left their employ and engaged himself to an American concerned in sutling for the troops, and I went to Judge Reaume, stating the case to him, asked him what the law was on that subject, and what could be done. Hle answered me in his broken English: "1'77 -make-de-man-go-back-to- his-duty." "But," I again asked, "what is the law on the subject?" He answered: "de-law-is-I'll- make-de-man-go-back-to-his-duty." 1

reiterated my inquiry: "Judge Reaume, is there no law on the subject?" He replied with a feeling of conscious dignity: " We -are- accustomed-to-make-de-men-go-back-to their-bourgeois."

On the 16th of September, 1816, I arrived at Prairie du Chien, a traders' village of between twenty-five and thirty houses, situated on the banks of the Mississippi, on what, in high water, is an island. The houses were built by planting posts upright in the ground, with grooves in them, so that the sides could be filled in with split timber or round poles and then plastered over with clay and whitewashed with a white earth found in the vicinity, and then covered with bark, or clapboards riven from oak. Tradition says the place took its name from an Indian chief of the Fox tribe by the name of Chien or Dog, who had a village

somewhere on the prairie near where Fort Crawford now stands. Chien, or Dog, is a favorite name among the indians of the north- west.

There were then [when Mr. Lockwood ar- rived there] of the old traders residing at Prai- ric du Chien, Joseph Rolette, Michael Brisbois, Francis Bouthillier and Jean Baptiste Faribault, all Canadians of French extraction, except Bou- thillier, who was from France, and Nicholas Boilvin, who was Indian agent and held the commission of justice of the peace, under the government of Illinois territory, whence he came.

Michael Brisbois informed me that he had resided in Prairie du Chien about thirty years ;* and there was an old Scotehman by the name of James Aird,t connected with the company by which I was first employed in the Indian trade, who generally wintered among the Sioux Indians, and had been a trader about forty years. There was also another man by the name of Duncan Graham, who had been en- gaged in the Indian trade about the same length of time, and was captain in the British Indian department during the war, from whom I obtained considerable information of the In- dian country, and of the earlier days of Prairie du Chien.

Prairie du Chien was, at this time, an im- portant post for Indian trade, and was consid- ered by the Indians as neutral ground, where different tribes, although at war, might visit in safety; but if hostile, they bad to beware of being caught in the neighborhood, going or re- turning. Yet I never heard of any hostile movement on the prairie, after they had safely arrived.

*Mr. Hrisbois, in 1820, gave evidence before Isaac Lee, the government agent, that he had been thirty-nine years in the country, and was then sixty years of age; and this would give the year 1781 as the year of his coming to Prairie du Chien.

+Mr. Aird was from Mackinaw, and was a worthy man and enterprising trader. His feld of operations was mainly with The Sioux, in what is now lowa and Minnesota. On the re- turnof Lewis and Clark's expedition in 1806. they met Mr. Aird with twotrading boats above the Hig Sioux river. on the Missouri; and in their journal they speak of him as "a very friendly and liberal gentleman." In 1812, he had a trad- ing post at Mendota.

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

The factories which John W. Johnson had charge of, were established by an act of Con- gress previous to the War of 1812, for the humane purpose of preventing the British traders from extortions on the Indians, and of counteracting British influence over them, which they exercised through the traders. But unfortunately they had the contrary effect, and through the bad management of the traders, the government of the United States was made to appear contemptible in the eyes of the Indians. The idea was then prevalent in the United States, that the most sleazy and cheap goods were what the Indians wanted, whereas the blankets furnished by the British traders, al- though of coarse wool, were thick and substan- tial, and so were the cloths and calicoes, while those furnished by the Americans were greatly inferior. It was many years before Mr. Astor, with all his wealth and sagacity, could obtain in England suitable blankets and cloths for the Indian trade, and also the proper guns. There was, at that time, an Indian gun manufactured in England, called the Northwest gun, of simple, plain and strong construction, and it was understood that the manufacture of blan- ket«, cloths and guns was so much under the in- finence of the Northwest Fur Company, that an American could not procure the genuine article, and hence the goods furnished by the factors were all of an inferior article, except tob cco; and the British traders took especial pains when they happened to have a poor arti- cle, to call it American. They had been fur- nished for many years with their tobacco from Albany, an inferior article, made into carrots of from two to three pounds; and when the American tobacco in plugs, and of a tolerable good quality, was introduced among them, they admitted that it was the best.

goods which they brought into the country but too generally warranted this reproach. But after Mr. Astor had purchased out the South- west Company and established the American Fur Company, he succeeded in getting suitable kinds of goods for the Indians, except at first the Northwest Indian gun. He attempted to introduce an imitation of them, manufactured in Holland, but it did not succeed, as the In- dians soon detected the difference.

At that time there were generally collected at Prairie du Chien, by the traders and United States factors, about 300 packs of 100 pounds each of furs and peltries, mostly fine furs. Of the different Indian tribes that visited and traded more or less at Prairie du Chien, there were the Menomonees from Green Bay, who frequently wintered on the Mississippi; the Chippewas, who resided on the head waters of the Chippewa and Black rivers; the Foxes, who had a large village where Cassville now stands, called Penah; the Sauks, who resided about Galena and Dubuque; the Winnebagoes, who resided on the Wisconsin river; the Iowas, who then had a village on the upper Iowa river; Wabashaw's band of Sioux, who resided on a beautiful prairie on the Iowa side of the Missis- sippi, about 120 miles above Prairie du Chien, with occasionally a Kickapoo or Pottawattomie.

The Sauks and Foxes brought from Galena a considerable quantity of lead, moulded in the earth, in bars about two feet long, and from six to eight inches wide, and from two to four inches thick, being something of an oval form, and thickest in the middle, and generally thinning to the edge, and weighing from thirty to forty pounds. It was not an uncommon thing to see a Fox Indian arrive at Prairie du Chien with a hand sled, loaded with twenty or thirty wild turkeys for sale, as they were very plentiful about Cassville, and occasionally there were some killed opposite Prairie du Chien.

When I first came to the country, it was the practice of the old traders and interpreters to call any inferior article of goods American, and I must not omit to mention an early Ameri- can settler-Ezekiel Tainter. In 1833 the quar- to speak to the Indians in a contemptuous man- ner of the Americans and their goods, and the ter-master of Fort Crawford advertised in Ga-

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

lena for proposals for a contract to furnish the fort with a year's wood. Mr. Tainter and a man by the name of Reed got the contract, and came to Prairie du Chien and supplied the first contract together, at the end of which Mr. Reed left the country. Mr. Tainter remained and continued for several years to take the wood contract, together with that for supplying the fort with beef; and at this business, which he well understood, in connection with the cultiva- tion of a farm on the bluff where he cut his wood, he made money quite fast, as he was in- dustrious and saving. He sent for his family, whom he had left in the State of New York, and paid off some old scores that he had previ- onsly been unable to do, and had some money left, for which he had no immediate use. Not- withstanding he knew nothing about merchan- dizing, he concluded, as he expressed it, " that the merchants were coining money, and that he would have a hand in it;" and borrowing some means in addition to his own, went to St. Louis and purchased a small stock of goods, which, as might be expected, were not very judiciously selected for the market.

During this time Mr. Tainter's brother, Gor- ham, arrived by his assistance, whom he took into partnership; but knowing as little about mercantile affairs as his brother, the business was not very well conducted. Both had large families to support, and it appears that they kept no account of expenses, or of what each took from the store. If one wanted an article, the other took something else to balance it. They continued business for about two years, when they took an account of stock, and found a deficiency of about $3,000, for which they could not account; and as goods to this amount had been taken from the store without keeping any account of them, it did not at first occur to their minds that their families had consumed them. This satisfied Mr. Tainter that money was not so easily gained by merchandizing as he had supposed, and he returned to farming,

and is now a resident and worthy citizen of the county.

Until the year 1824, it was believed that a steamboat could not come up to Prairie du Chien over the Des Moines and Rock river rapids. But, in the spring of that year, David G. Bates, who had for several years been en- gaged in running keel boats on the upper Mis- sissippi, the water then being in a good stage in the river, brought to Prairie du Chien a very small boat called the Putnam. She was one of the smallest class of boats that run on the Ohio in a low stage of water. Capt. Bates proceeded to Fort Snelling with his boat. In June follow- ing, boats of a much larger class came over the rapids and went to Fort Snelling with supplies for the troops. Since then, the river from St. Louis to Fort Snelling has been navigated by steamboats, increasing every year in size and convenience.

During the summer of 1826, I built the first framed house that was erected in Prairie du Chien .* I sent men to the Black river and got the timber for the frame and the shingles, and had the plank and boards sawed by hand, and brought down to Prairie du Chien. But then 1 had no carpenter or jo'ner, there being none here. I went on board of a keel boat that had landed, and inquired if there was a carpenter and joiner on board, on which a ragged, dirty- looking man said that he professed to be one ; and, having seen quite as unprepossessing fel- lows turn out much better than appearances in- dicated, I agreed with him at $1.50 a day and board.

I built on the site near Fort Crawford, now occupied by what is called the commanding officer's house. My house was of the following description : A cellar-kitchen, 30x26 feet, with frame on it of the same size, two stories high, with a wing 16x20 feet, on the south side, one- story, which I used for a retail store. There was a hill through the south end of the two-

* This is an error, as there was a framed house in the place when visited by Thomas G. Anderson, as we have already seen, in The year 1800 .- [ED.

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

story part, the whole length of the house, with stairs from the cellar kitchen up into the hall, and stairs from the hall to the upper story. The north end of the house was divided, the front part, about 14x16 feet, into a parlor, or sit- ting room; a chimney in the center of the north end, and a bedroom in the back part, about four- teen feet square; a door leading from the hall to the bedroom and one to the sitting room, and a door by the side of the chimney from the bed- room to the sitting room, and a door from the hall into the wing or store.

This house I afterward sold to the government, with the land on which the fort now stands. It was good enough for Gen. Taylor and family when he commanded here ; but as soon as Gen. Brooke was in command, he got an appropria- tion from Congress to repair the house and had it all torn down except a part of the cellar wall, and built the one which is there at present [1855] at a cost of about $7,000.

BY WILLIAM J. SNELLING.

The Chippewa and Dakota (Sioux) tribes have waged war against each other so long that the origin of their hostility is beyond the knowledge of man. Gen. Pike persuaded them to make peace in 1805, but it lasted only till his back was turned. The agents for the Government have brought about several treaties between the tribes, in which forgiveness and friendship, for the future, were solemnly promised. Indian hereditary hate is stronger than Indian faith, and these bargains were always violated as soon as opportunity occurred. Nevertheless, our executive gave orders in 1825 that a general congress of all the belligerent tribes on the frontier should be held at Prairie du Chien. They flocked to the treaty ground from all quar- ters, to see the sovereignty or majesty, we know not which is the better word, of the United States, ably represented by Govs. Cass and Clark, who acted as commissioners.

The policy of the United States on this oeca- sion was founded on an error. It supposed that the quarrels of the Indians were occasioned by

a dispute concerning boundaries of their re- spective territories. Never was a treaty fol- lowed by more unhappy results, at least as far as it concerned the Dakotas. They concurred in the arrangement of their boundaries proposed by the commissioners, as they do in every measure proposed by an American officer, think- ing that compulsion would otherwise be used. But they are not satisfied, nor have they reason to be, for their ancient limits were grievously abridged. All the Indians present had, or im- agined they had, another cause of complaint. They had been supplied with food, while the congress lasted, by the United States, as was the reasonable practice, for they cannot hunt and make treaties at one and the same time. Dysentery supervened on the change of diet ; some died on the ground, and a great many per- ished on the way from Prairie du Chien to their hunting grounds. Always suspicious of the whites, they supposed that their food had been poisoned ; the arguments of their traders could not convince them to the contrary, and hundreds will die in that belief.

Moreover, they did not receive such presents as the British agents had been wont to bestow on them, and they complained that such stingi- ness was beneath the dignity of a great people, and that it also showed a manifest disregard of their necessities.

They were especially indignant at being stinted in whisky. It behooved the commis- sioners, indeed, to avoid the appearance of ef- feeting any measures by bribery, but the barba- rians did not view the matter in that light. To show them that the liquor was not withheld on account of its value, two barrels were brought upon the ground. Each dusky countenance was instantly illuminated with joy at the agreeable prospeet, but they were to learn that there is sometimes a "slip between the eup and the lip." Each lower jaw dropped at least six inches when one of the commissioners staved in the heads of the easks with an ax, and suffered all the coveted liquor to run to waste. "It was

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

a great pity," said old Wakh-pa-koo-tay, speak- ing of the occurrence, "there was enough wasted to have kept me drunk all the days of my life." Wahk-pa-koo-tay's only feelings were those of grief and astonishment, but most of his fellows thought that this making a promise to the eye in order to break it to the sense, was a grevious insult, and so they continue to regard it to this day.

Everyone knows that, in the western country, French people make maple sugar in the spring. In March, 1827, one Methode chose to set np his sugar camp at the mouth of Yellow river, two [twelve] miles from Prairie du Chien. His wife, one of the most beautiful women we ever saw, accompanied him with her five children. Besides these, the wolves and the trees were l:is only companions. A week elapsed, and he had not been seen at the Prairie. One of his friends, thinking that he might have been taken ill, and was unable to come for his supplies, re- solved to visit his camp.

On reaching the mouth of Yellow river, the man shouted aloud, that Methode or his dog might answer, and thereby indicate in what exact spot in the woods his cabin stood. Nc answer was returned. After searching upwards of an hour, and calling till he was hoarse, he fell upon a little path which soon brought him to the ruins of a hut that appeared to have been recently burned. All was still as it might have been at the birth of time. Concluding that Methode had burned his camp, and gone higher up the river, the honest Canadian turned home- ward. Hle had not gone ten steps when he saw something that made him quicken his pace. It was the body of Methode's dog. The animal had been shot with half a score of balls, and yet held in his dead jaws a mouthful of scarlet cloth, which, apparently, he had torn from the calf of Indian's leg. The man ran at full speed to the bank of the river, threw himself into his canoe, and paddled with all his might till he was out of gun-shot from the shore.

Having made known what he had seen a party was soon assembled, all good men and true, and well armed. They soon gained the spot, and began to explore the ruins of the hut. The bodies of the whole family were there, and it was evident that accidental fire had not occasioned their death. They were shockingly mangled-Madame Methode in par- ticular. Her husband's hand grasped a bloody knife, from which it was inferred that he had not fallen unavenged. Yet the stains might have come from his own person.

When the coroner's inquest sat, it appeared that a party of Winnebagoes liad been out, not- withstanding the treaty, against the the Chip- pewas, and had returned unsuccessful. Fifteen of them had been seen near the Yellow river two days after Methode's departure from the prairie. It was ascertained that two Winneba- goes had been buried that night. The white party returned to the village; and the next day,an Indian boy of fourteen admitted that he had seen Methode's camp while hunting, and had commu- nicated his discovery to his companions. To make assurance doubly sure, Wa-man-doos-ga-ra-ha, an Indian of very bad reputation, made his appear- ance in the village in a pair of red leggins, one of which had been torn behind. Hle came to tell the agent, Mr. Boilvin how much he loved the Americans, and that he strongly suspected the Sacs of the murder that had been commit- ted. He demanded a blanket and a bottle of whisky as a reward for his zealous friendship. Mr. Boilvin caused the friendly Indian to be arrested, and examined him closely. Then the murderer called up his Indian spirit, confessed his guilt, and implicated several others.

A party of militia forthwith started for the nearest Winnebago camp. We are able to state- and we love to be correct in important particu- lars, that the captain wore neither plume nor sash, nor anything else that might have made him conspicuous; that the men did not march in the style most approved on Boston common;that they beat no drum before them, and that none

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

of them had ever seen a sham fight. No, each marched "on his own hook," each carried a good rifle or Northwest gun, and each kept his person as much out of sight as possible. The consequence was, that the Indian camp was surprised and completely surrounded, and the savages saw that their best and, indeed, only course, was to surrender quietly. However, the whites found only one of those they sought in camp, and took him away with them. The eel- ebrated chief De-kau-ray followed them.

"Father," said he to Mr. Bolivin, "you know that there are foolish young men among every people. Those who have done this thing were foolish young men, over whom I and the other wise men had no control. Besides, when they went to Yellow river, they had just drank the last of a keg you gave them yourself. It was the whisky, and not they, that killed Methode, and abused his wife. Father, I think you should excuse their folly this time, and they will never do the like again. Father, their families are very poor, and if you will give them clothing and something to eat, you may be sure that they will never kill another white man."

"I shall give them nothing," said the agent, "and will be sure that they will never kill an- other man; they will assuredly be hanged."

"Your heart is very hard, father," replied De-kau-ray. "Your heart is very hard, but I cannot think that it will be as you say. You know that if you take our young men's lives we cannot prevent others from avenging them. Our warriors have always taken two lives for one. Our Great Father, the President, is not so hard hearted as you are. Our young men have killed a great many of your people, and he has always forgiven them."

At that time Prairie du Chien had no great reason to boast of her administration of justice. A soldier, indeed, had been scourged at the public whipping post; a man of ninety had been fined for lewdness; an Indian had been kicked out of a wheat field, on which he was samp-

ling, and the magistraey prided themselves not a little on these energetic aets of duty. A jail there was, but it was of wood, and stood so far from the village, that a prisoner might earve the logs at noonday without much danger of de- teetion. Seandal says, that the jailor of it used to bolt the door with a boiled carrot. In this stronghold the criminals were put at night -the place did not own a set of fet- ters-and in the morning they were mis- sing. Had they been left to their own de- vices, there is little doubt that they would have remained to brave their fate, but it is thought that some white man informed them what their exaet legal responsibilities were, and advised them to eseape.

Col. Willoughby Morgan commanded the military at Prairie du Chien. IIe immediately caused two Winnebago chiefs to be seized, and informed the tribe that they would not be lib- erated till the murderers were delivered up. They were soon brought in, and as the civil authority had proved unable to keep them, they were committed to the garrison guard-house. Shortly after the garrison was broken up by order of the secretary of war, and the troops were removed to St. Peters, 200 miles farther up. There was no appearance of the distriet judge to try the prisoners, and they were there- fore transported to St. Peters, there to await his coming.

BY JOHN II. FONDA.

I was born in Albany Co., N. Y., and of a good family. My father kept me at school, until I had obtained what was then called a good English education, and it being my parents desire that I should follow a profession, he placed me in the office of a prominent lawyer, in my native town, where I studied law, with the assistance of the lawyer and his large law library. But, after remaining in the lawyer's office about two years, I caught the emigration fever, a disease that prevailed pretty generally at that time, and a company being about to start for Texas, I took advantage of the circum-

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

stance to satisfy my desire for travel, and east my lot with them. Bidding my folks a long farewell-(long, for I've never seen them sinee) we departed to seek adventure in the far west. And we got our share, I tell you ! This was more than forty years ago, and the country west of the Alleghany mountains was new. Few and far between were the white settlements, while the country was filled with tribes of In- dians, who hunted the deer, bear, elk and other game that afforded food or fur.

Our course lead through the State to Buffalo, where we took a boat to Cleveland, thence south through the State of Ohio, to Cincinnati, where we embarked on flat-boats and floated down the Ohio river into the Mississippi, which we went down as far as Natchez. At Natchez we stopped to sell the flat-boats. The inhabitants were French, Spaniards and Creoles. The boats were sold to an old half-breed trader, named Le Blane, for some horses, a covered wagon and a team of mules. Before leaving Natchez, one of our party was seized with yellow fever and died. After burying our comrade, and completing our outfit, we were ferried over to the west side of the Mississippi into Louisiana, by the old trader, who charged an exhorbitant price for his service-so much so, that I remen ber the company went on without paying him.

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History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin, Part 63

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company Number of Pages: 1298

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1298