USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee, city and county, Volume I > Part 6
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In another month they were back at Fort Howard with return dispatches from Fort Dearborn. Regarding this experience Fonda makes his confes- sion : "The Quartermaster at Fort Howard expressed himself satisfied with my performance, and he wanted me to make another trip; Int as I had seen the country, which was all I cared for, I did not desire to repeat it. Get- ting my pay from the Department and a liberal donation from the people, a portion of which I gave to Boiseley. I left Uncle Sam's employ and took up my old profession, as a gentleman of leisure, and continued to practice as such until the spring came, when with a view to extend the field of my labors, I made ready to bid goodbye to Green Bay." Urged on by the "joy of the open road," he started forth with his little goblin of a companion towards Fort Crawford, near Prairie dn Chien, where Col. Zachary Taylor took command in 1829.
Fonda in the Black Hawk War .- During the Black Hawk war Fonda served in the army, and for his service he received at the end of the war a land warrant, wherenpon he married and settled down. From that time he lived at intervals, in Pra'rie du Chien, taking his family with him as he moved from place to place. After his last discharge from the army he was a Justice of the Peace for a number of years. In 1858, Fonda related the story of his pioneering. Ile was then about sixty years old, and for the past thirty years a resident of Prairie du Chien, having come there as a young man when it was the extreme frontier settlement in the Northwest. He is interesting rather as a personality than in any historieal connection with Milwaukee or Chicago. He was one of the brotherhood of Borrow and Stevenson, of Josiah Flynt and Richard Hovey. He felt the glory of the open air and knew the worth of a wayfaring companion. He loved adven- ture, was brave in danger, of great physical endurance and did well what- ever he set himself to do. It is characteristic of him that he fought hard against the Indians and yet could say, "No person under heaven sympathizes more sineerely with them than I do."
Copy of an old lithograph print THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE IN 1853
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CHAPTER V
INDIAN VILLAGES
When Lieutenant James Gorrell of the British army visited the western posts in October, 1761, in order to take them over from the French (Canada now having passed into the possession of the English in consequence of the surrender of Quebec two years before), he found at Green Bay, or La Bay as the French called it, but one family of Indians in the village at that place, the other Indians having gone, according to their enstom. on their annual hunt.
The English detachment under Lieutenant Gorrell consisted of twenty men. The absent hunters were not expected back at the village until the following spring when it would be in order to hold councils with them and eultivate their friendship and loyalty. There were six tribes that visited La Bay where they met with the traders, some of them having two or more villages within their limits, and each of these subdivisions would expect the indispensable wampum belts as well as various other presents. In May of the following year (1762), at a conneil with the chiefs of the Folles Avoines, the name given by the French to the Menomonees, Lieutenant Gorrell pre- sented them with belts of wampi and in addition a number of other articles both useful and ornamental.
While Lieutenant Gorrell was at La Bay holding councils with the re- turning Indians he was visited by a party of Indians from " Milwacky" mak- ing complaint of a certain trader among them, but as the trader had come to them from Mackinac the lieutenant referred the visitors to the officer in command at that point. In later years when Col. Arent de Peyster was in eommand at Maekinae, he delivered a speech to the Indians in which he spoke of "those 'runegates' of Milwakie, a horrid set of refractory Indians." In the same speech he alluded to "a sensible old chief at the head of a re- fractory tribe," probably the Milwaukee band whom he had already called "runegates," and who no doubt dwelt in a village at this place.
The Menomonee Indians .- The Menomonee Indians were an Algonquian tribe the members of which, according to Dr. William JJones, claimed to understand Sank, Fox and Kickapoo far more easily than they did Chippewa. Ottawa or Pottawatomie. "Hence it is possible," writes a contributor to Hodge's "Handbook of American Indians," "that their linguistic relation was near the former group of Algonqnians. Grignon speaks of the Nognet as a part of the Menomonee, and states that 'the earliest locality of the Menomo-
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE
nec. at the first visit of the whites, was at Bay de Noque and the Menomonee River, and those at Bay de Noque were called by the carly French Des Noques or Des Noquia.'
"The Jesuit Relation for 1671 includes the Menomonee among the tribes driven from their country, that is, 'the lands south of the Michilimackinac,' which is the locality where the Noquet lived when they first became known to the French. It is generally believed that the Noquet, who disappeared from history at a comparatively early date, were closely related to the Chip- pewa and were incorporated into their tribes: nevertheless, the name Menomonee must have been adopted after the latter reached their historie seat: it is possible they were previously known as Noquet." Charlevoix says : "I have been assured that they had the same origin and nearly the same language with the Noquet and the Indians at the Falls."
"The people of this tribe, " says the same writer, "were first encountered by the whites when Nicollet visited them, probably in 1634, at the mouth of the Menomonee River. In 1671, and henceforward until about 1852, their home was on or in the vicinity of the Menomonee River, not far from where they were found by Nicollet, their settlements extending at times to Fox River. They generally have been at peace with the whites. A succinct account of them, as well as a full description of their manners, enstoms, arts, and beliefs, by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, appears in the Report of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology for 1896. In their treaty with the United States, February 8. 1831. they claimed as their possession the land from the month of Green Bay to the mouth of the Milwaukee River, and on the west side of the bay from the height of land between it and Lake Superior to the headwaters of the Menomonee and Fox rivers, which claim was granted. They now reside on a reservation near the head of the Wolf River, Wisconsin.
Characteristics of the Tribe .- "Major Pike described the men of the tribe 'as straight and well made, about middle size ; their complexions generally fair for savages, their teeth good, their eyes large and rather languishing; they have a mild but independent expression of countenance that charms at first sight.' Although comparatively indolent, they are described as gen- erally honest, theft being less common than among other tribes. Drunken- ness was their most serious fault, but even this did not prevail to the same extent as among some other Indians. Their beliefs and rituals are substan- tially the same as those of the Chippewas. They have usually been peaceful in character, seldom coming in contact with the Sioux, but bitter enemies of the neighboring Algonquian tribes. They formerly disposed of their dead by inclosing the bodies in long pieces of birchbark, or in slats of wood, and burying them in shallow graves. In order to protect the bodies from wild beasts, three logs were placed over the grave, two directly on the grave, and the third on these, all being seeured by stakes driven on each side. Tree burial was occasionally practiced.
"The Menomonee-as their name indicates- subsisted in part on wild riee : in faet it is spoken of by early writers as their chief vegetable food. Although making such constant use of it from the earliest notices we have
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of them, and aware that it could be readily grown by sowing in proper ground, Jenks, who gives a full account of the Menomonee method of gather- ing, preserving and using the wild rice, states that they absolutely refused to sow it, evidently owing to their unwillingness to 'wound their common mother. the earth.""
There are two rivers in Wisconsin bearing the name of Menominee or Menomonee, the former being a comparatively small stream that flows into the Milwaukee River at Milwaukee, the latter forming part of the boundary line between Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Indians at Milwaukee .- "The Indians were principally Pottawatomies." says A. J. Viean, in the narrative elsewhere quoted from. "Those who were at what eame afterwards to be called Walker's Point, on the south shore of Milwaukee River, were considerably intermixed with Saes and Winnebagoes. They were lazy fellows as a rule, and preferred to hunt and fish all summer long to cultivating corn. They were noted players of the mocassin game and la crosse, were heavy gamblers and given to debauchery. In the winter time these fellows scattered through the woods, divided into small hunting parties, and often Walker's Point was practically deserted.
"But in the summer there was a large settlement here, the bark wigwams housing from a thousand to twelve hundred Ind ans of all ages and condi- tions. On the old Juneau marsh, where are now Water, Main, Milwaukee, Jefferson and Jackson streets, Indian ponies would graze in great droves in the earlier years, it being then, I am told, a quite dry meadow; but as far back as I can remember it, it was flooded and the home of countless water- fowl.
"The Spring Street flat, from the river back to the bordering highlands, the Indians had under qu.te excellent cultivation. On the lime ridge there was a big Indian settlement. Some of the Indian families there would raise as much as one hundred and fifty bushels of corn and a considerable store of potatoes; they were quite industrious and counted as honest, in striking contrast to what we used to eall 'the Walker Point rogues.' On the K nni- kinnick River, there was a small band of one hundred fifty or two hundred Pottawatomies."
The Menomonee Tribe was peaceful and friendly, and in consideration in part of benefits received of government, they ceded to the United States the lands described in the following treaty :
"The Menomonee Tribe of Indians, in consideration of the kindness and protection of the government of the United States, and for the purpose of securing to themselves and posterity a comfortable home, ceded and forever relinquished to the United States all their country on the southeast side of Winnebago Lake, Fox River and Green Bay, described in the following boundaries: Beginning at the south end of Winnebago Lake and running in a southeast direction to Milwaukey or Minnawakey River, thence down said river to its mouth, thence north along the shore of Lake Michigan to the entrance of Green Bay, thence up and along Green Bay, Fox River and Winnebago Lake to the place of beginning excluding all private land claims,
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE
which the United States has heretofore confirmed and sanctioned-and also all the islands in Fox River and Green Bay are likewise ceded, the lands ceded comprising by estimation, two million five hundred thousand acres."
This treaty and a cession from the Pottawatomies and other tribes in- eluded the lands covered by this city. The mouth of the Milwaukee River was the extent of the Menomonee's lands on the south, the lands of the Pot- tawatomies, and other tribes extending from that point south and west. The eession of the friendly Menomonee was made in 1831, the year before the Black Hawk war. The cession of the Pottawatomies and of the Saes and Foxes, which tribes were warlike, was made in 1833, the year after that war.
At Milwaukee, says A. C. Wheeler in his history, the unexplored wilder- ness of Wisconsin lay all about the early traders. "If the treacherous natives in a moment of vindictiveness eame out of their lurking places and shot down the trader they had but to fall back into the reeesses of their own forests. and pursuit or punishment was impossible." Still the red man was sus- eeptible to a certain kind of treatment which the early traders knew how to employ. Ile quickly realized that outrages and revengeful cruelty towards the whites reacted disastrously upon him in many ways for early in their relations he found that he had become dependent upon the trader for the supply of his wants, rude as they might be. Thus the wisdom of the chiefs often put a restraint upon their followers which operated as a protect on to the traders.
The Indians at Mahn-a-wauk-kie, as the Indians called this trading post. were very difficult to manage. "At one time O-nan-ge-sa, a well known chief, would seem to wink at the overbearing disposition of certain bullies of his tribe," says Wheeler, "and the violence must needs be overlooked by the sufferers from it. Treachery lurked under the guise of friendship. and the sealping knife was worn nearest the heart. Discretion was the higher law, and it required all the shrewdness of the white men to preserve their own standing in the community of traders."
The Whiskey Tribute .- O-nan-ge-sa levied a tax of several gallons of whiskey a week for himself and his followers, and if the traders refused the regular supply, or demanded money therefor, it was regarded as a cause for hostility, upon which "the scalping knife leaped from its lurking place, and the lords of the forest put on their most fiendish war paint." A copious supply of fire water pacified them but it usually brought a demand for more and that made demons of them. "When under its influence all the dark vil- lany of their natures came uppermost, and to refuse to satisfy their drunken thirst but precipitated violence. Therefore was eunning greatly exercised by these early traders in order to save their own lives as well as to preserve their goods and chattels."
These Mahn-a-waukies were incurable thieves besides being confirmed whiskey sots. "They would at all times, " says the historian, "rather steal than trade, and it is but justice to say that the fear of the white man's guns alone saved the trader's stock from rapid depletion withont equivalent returns."
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The historian invites us to gaze with him on the scene presented in 1818. "Could the reader have seen Milwaukee then, " he says, "he would have beheld the still expanse of forest and river rendered picturesque by these savages, mayhap in an encampment, or it may be gathering the wild oats in their canoes, where now commerce has piled up monuments of brick and stone. and mechanical industry thunders night and day." He would have beheld the far-flung lines of breakers on the shore of Lake Michigan, its sur- face as today stretching away blue in the distance beyond the bonnds of human vision.
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From an old lithograph print by Beck and Pauli VIEW OF THE CITY OF MILWAUKEE IN 1873
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CHAPTER VI
DAYS OF THE FUR TRADER
Wisconsin, Early Forms of Name .- In the oldest French documents the name is spelled "Miseonsing," "Quisconching." "Quiskensing," etc., but in time the name was finally crystallized into "Onisconsin," says R. G. Thwaites in a footnote on page 233 of his volume in the American Commonwealth series. "The meaning of the aboriginal word thus variously rendered," con- finnes Thwaites, "is now unknown. Popular writers declare that it signifies 'gathering of the waters,' or 'meeting of the waters', having reference pos- sibly to the occasional mingling of the divergent streams over the low-lying watershed at the Fox-Wisconsin portage; but there is no warrant for this. In order to preserve the sound in English it became necessary, on the arrival of the Americans, to modify the French spelling." Thus the official spell- ing has become "Wiseonsin."
Pioneer Traditions .- The rich variety of picturesque names applied at one time or another to the historic site upon which the City of Milwaukee now stands is constantly met with in the narratives of the explorers and missionaries, and in the traditions of the aborigines. One writer says : "Man-a-waukee (rich and beautiful land) !" said the Indian brave as the slow current carried his canoe out of the forest twilight. His gutturals christened a metropolis, and he was its first citizen; for Milwaukee stands on "'the ashes of by-gone wigwams. "
"The future heart of the city was a swamp of wild rice which his squaw beat into the bottom of the canoe as he paddled slowly along. Three rivers - the Milwaukee, the Menomonee and the Kinnickinnie-brought the beaver, the muskrat, the mink and the otter to his traps among the alders.
"After the first Indian found 'Man-a-waukee' it wasn't many moons be- fore other Indians followed him to the 'rich and beautiful land.' They came with the war-paint washed from their faces to set up their tepees when white winter covered river and lake. Some of the later arrivals, in a different dialect, named the attractive spot 'Mahn-a-waukee Seepe'-'gathering place by the river.'
"On the open glades in the forest the sqnaws planted and harvested the golden corn while the braves stalked wild game in the woods and took fish and furs from the streams. A warm welcome awaited the pale-face when he journeyed hither from the land of the sunrise."
"Near Thanksgiving time in 1674, fifty-four years after the Pilgrim
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE
Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, " says the writer of the historical leaf- Jets for the First Wisconsin National Bank, "Father Marquette, the Jesnit missionary, saw the beautiful Milwaukee harbor and its sheltering bluffs. It is possible that he stopped here, where many years later a great university was named in his honor. He was on his way, with a party of Indians, from Green Bay to 'Chicagon.' During the next decade other missionaries fol- lowed him, and they left record of .Millioki,' 'Melwarik.' and . Mie-sit-gan. "Indian legends tell of a great battle on the Milwaukee between the Menomonee and the Sioux tribes for the mastery of this rich territory." continues the account printed in the bank leaflet already quoted from. piping of the blue-bird mingled thenceforth with the lapping of the waters "But never after that was the war-whoop heard in . Man-a-waukee,' and the where the wild daisies held watch over the braves whose spirits roamed the Happy Hunting Grounds.' "
Early Mention of Milwaukee .- Among the early notices of Milwaukee in which the name of that city appears in one or another of the various forms of spelling met with in the records is found a mention by St. Cosme in his letter to the Bishop of Quebre printed in John G. Shea's " Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi." The letter states that St. Cosme and his party set out from Michilimaekinae on September 14, 1698, and reached Melwarik on the 7th of October, where they remained two days, "partly on account of the wind and partly to refresh our people a little, as duck and teal shoot- ing was very plenty on the river."
In Lieutenant James Gorrell's Journal, printed in the Collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Volume I, it is stated that he visited Detroit in 1762, and there met "a party of Indians from Milwacky, " as he writes the name in his journal. A note by the editor of the reprinted collections. Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, says that at the time it was "quite an Indian town," and adds that there was "an English trader residing there." In llodge's "Handbook of American Indians," other modes of spelling are given,-Meliwarik and Melwarik (St. Cosme), Mellioki (Shea), and Milwau- kie (in a Congressional document in 1824).
Origin of Name .- In Schoolcraft's " Mississippi, " the author gives the fol- lowing account of the origin of the name, Milwaukee, or Mitwankie.
"The name of Milwaukie exhibits an instance of which there are many others in which the French have substituted the sound of the letter / in place of n in Indian words. Min, in the Algonquin languages signifies good. Waukic is a derivative from aukic, earth or land, the fertility of the soil along the banks of that stream being the characteristic trait which is described in the Indian compound."
In William George Bruce's "Century of Progress" it is stated that the name is of Pottawatomie origin, first spelled Mil-wah-kie, derived from Man- na-wah-kie, meaning "good land." But Milwaukee cannot compare with Chieago in the variety of its forms of spelling as found in the early records. giving occasion for President John Quincy Adams' remark that "during his administration no two government officers, writing from Chicago, ever spelled the name the same way:" and Doetor Stennett. the historian of the Chicago
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& Northwestern railway, gives examples in his book of a score or more of the uneonth combinations that served to indicate the name of Cheago.
The early Tur traders made extensive use of the streams and lakes for the transportation of their furs to the great centers of the trade, principally at Mackinac Island. The aecunndations of their winter's trading with the Indians were made up into bales and transported along the smaller channels and trails, eventually passing into the great routes as they neared their destination. Canoes and barges in charge of voyageurs, usually Canadian French, were employed in great numbers. The share of the Indians in this trade was that of trapper and hunter with whom the traders exchanged various articles of merchandise for their furs.
Each year the fur traders assembled in great monbers at Mackinac Island which although only a village of some five hundred permanent inhabitants was swelled to a transient population of several thousands,-traders, voy- ageurs and Indians, who remained during the summer, until as fall approached they gradually left the island and returned to their winter hunt- ing grounds and trading posts scattered throughout the vast region of the western country.
Gurdon S. Hubbard .- About the time that Solomon Juneau was becoming established at Milwaukee in 1818, Gurdon S. Hubbard, then a young man under twenty years of age, was in the employ of the American Fur Company which made its headquarters at Mackinac Island, or Michilimackinac as the traders of those days seemed to prefer to call it. During the winter of 1818-19 young Hubbard was learning the details of the fur trade at Mackinac, and in the spring he accompanied Antoine Deschamps on a trip to the Illinois country with a stock of supplies suitable for the trade with the Indians.
In later years Hubbard wrote a book of reminiscences in which is de- tailed many adventures in the life of the fur traders of those days, a book which is of great value to the historian in later times. Hubbard made many trips to and from Mackinac in succeeding years and became well known to the traders and Indian tribes throughout the country among the latter of whom he was known by an Indian name which meant "Swift Walker," by reason of his speed when traversing the trails of the region. He was in- trusted by the American Fur Company with the conduet of many expedi- tions in later years.
Navigation of Lakes and Rivers .- The boats which in the spring had brought the furs to Mackinac and had deposited them in the warehouses of the American Fur Company were in due time loaded with merchandise of every description for the Indian trade, and dispatched in fleets on their return journeys in the fall, not to appear again until the following spring or early summer. These fleets were called "brigades," and one of them described by Hubbard was in charge of a commander (in this case Antoine Deschamps) with himself as clerk, and a full complement of voyageurs to act as paddlers on the twelve boats of the brigade. There were also passen- gers to be accommodated who found this the speediest method of reaching various points on the distant frontiers. In fact these passengers were con- sidered a very desirable addition to the expedition as they paid well for
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their subsistence and transportation. The Fur Company at Mackinac bore the necessary expenses of these expeditions and provided ample supplies besides the merchandise designed for bartering with the Indians.
The boats in use by the fur traders were called "hatteanx." They very much resembled the boats used in later days by fishermen on the lake. Each of them was manned by a crew of five men besides a clerk, called "the bour- geois." "Four of the men rowed while the fifth steered." contimes Hub- bard. "Each boat carried about three tons of merchandise, together with the elothing of the men and rations of corn and tallow. No shelter was provided for the voyageurs, and their Inggage was limited to twenty pounds in weight for each man, carried in a bag provided for that purpose. The commander of the brigade took for his own use the best boat, and with him an extra man who aeted in the capacity of orderly to the expedition. The will of the commander was the only law known. The clerks were fur- nished with salt pork, a bag of flour, tea and coffee, and a tent for shelter. and messed with the commander." The men had only such shelter as was provided by the boat tarpaulins, and no other covering than a single blanket for each of them. Their rations consisted of one quart of "lyed corn" and two ounces of tallow daily, or "its equivalent in whatever sort of food is to be found in the Indian country."
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