USA > Wisconsin > History of northern Wisconsin, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development, and resources; an extensive sketch of its counties, cities, towns and villages, their improvements, industries, manufactories; biographical sketches, portraits of prominent men and early settlers; views of county seats, etc. > Part 2
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JOHN C. GINTY was born in Toronto, Feb. 14, 1840. En- tered a printing office in 1852, and has been connected with that branch of industry ever since. Has been publishing a paper for twenty-one years, and is now editor of the Chippewa Herald. In 1861, was an Al- derman ; and in 1863, a member of the Legislature; and has been President of the Board of Education for several years. During the war, served as assistant provost marshal for over a year. Was then appointed major of infantry, then colonel, and breveted brigadier-general at the close. (For portrait see page 209.)
8. Elbilar
DAVID E. MILES, dealer in pine lands, Chippewa Falls, came to Wisconsin in the Fall of 1863. Located at Chippewa Falls ; worked first two or three years in the woods, and then was engaged in mercan- tile business for about five years, here and in New York City, also inter- ested in lumbering during this period. In the Summer of 1869 he built the first brick store in the place (which was the first brick structure of any kind erected here). One year afterwards it was destroyed by fire and he went to New York City, where he remained until 1875, when he returned to Chippewa Falls, since then dealing in real estate, pine lands principally, having bought and sold over 500,000 acres in the last two years. He was born near Galesburg, Ill., March 27, 1848. Lived there until December, 1861, when he enlisted in Co. E, 57th Ill. V. I., being then under fourteen years of age, but weighed at that time 168 pounds, and succeeded in passing muster. In March, 1863, he was discharged or. account of disability, caused by wounds received at the battle of Corinth, Oct. 4, 1862. He was married in the city of New York, June 8, 1875, to Ella Palmer, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, but reared in New York City. She died April 26, 1881, leaving one child, James Palmer, who was born Oct. 31, 1880.
WILLIAM CARSON, president and treasurer of the Valley Lum- ber Co., was born in Inverness, Canada. In his youth, went to Massa- chusetts; lived there until 1837, when he removed to Southern Illinois, and remained there and in St. Louis until June, 1838, when he came to Wisconsin, locating at Badger Mills, a few miles from the present city of Eau Claire. When he came, there was no house between this point and Prairie du Chien. He made claim to the ground where North Eau Claire is now located, which he sold to Stephen McCann the following year. For about two years after coming here, he worked by the month, doing some lumbering for himself, soon after coming to this region. He spent one Summer in Dubuque, Iowa, and in 1840 went to Eau Galle, thirty miles from Eau Claire, where he commenced the manufacture of shingles, etc., and running the same to market. In 1844, he purchased an interest in the mill at Eau Galle, and is still one of the proprietors of it. He continued to reside there until the Fall of 1874, when he became one of the principal owners of the Valley Lumber Co. He then came to Eau Claire. Mr. Carson is also one of the proprietors of the Rand Lumber Co. and Keokuk Lumber Co., and is also one of the owners of several lumber yards in Iowa. He was married by Rev. Mr. Thomas, a Methodist clergyman, at Prairie du Chien, Wis., in 1847, to Mary E. Smith, a native of Rutland, Vt. They have six children-Jessie, Mary, Belle, Kate, William, Jr., and Fannie. (For portrait see page 318.)
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HISTORY OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN.
GENERAL HISTORY.
THE MOUND BUILDERS.
There are singular remains of antiquity throughout America, universally conceded to be the work of a pre- historic race, commonly called the Mound Builders. That these works owe their origin to a people more intimately acquainted with the arts of life than the aboriginal tribes which inhabited this continent upon its discovery, is abundantly proved by these records which are found scattered throughout the entire length and breadth of our land. The attention of archaeolo- gists is being more and more directed to a study of these peculiar evidences of a vanished half-civilization, but as yet neither their origin nor the date of their inhab- itance has been determined. Such traces as are left, though abundant in quantity, are vague as to charac- ter, no written memoranda having come to light, nor hieroglyph whose key can unlock the mystery. The remains consist chiefly of mounds of earth, which not- withstanding the leveling and wearing action of the elements, have kept the form into which those mythical hands molded them. Hence the name of Mound Build- ers. In these mounds are found the traces of such use- ful arts as place beyond peradventure the users of them higher in the scale of progression than the savages who succeeded them. These mounds and enclosures are various in form, and it is supposed that they were dedi- cated to uses as various. Some are believed to have been fortifications; others, places of sepulcher and of sacrifice ; while some were the sites of temples, and others observatories. The ground selected for their erection seems generally to have heen an elevated plateau on the banks of either lake or river, and the builders were apparently influenced by the same con- siderations as govern men in modern times in the choice of places for settlement. It is a fact that many of our most opulent cities are built upon the sites of these ancient works, proving that those by -gone races availed themselves of the same natural advantages as we do of to-day. These earth-works are by no means of uniform shape or size. Some are regularly arranged, forming squares, circles, octagons; others are like walls or for- tifications ; while others (and these are more numer- ous in Wisconsin than elsewhere, and first noticed in this State) are in imitation of the shapes of animals- birds, beasts and fishes- and in the forms of trees, war-clubs, tobacco-pipes, and other significant imple- ments of race. It is not an improbable supposition that these curious figures were intended to represent a badge of tribe -a sort of gigantic armorial device on a scale
commensurate with the vastness of the territory inhab- ited. In all existing nations symbols are employed as an expression of national individuality, and are deeply cherished by the people. England has her lion, France her eagles and her fleur-de-lis, Scotland her thistle, and amongst our present North American tribes we have such titles as Sitting Bull, Driving Cloud and Black Hawk. So these mounds may have been shaped to represent tribal or family insignia, and were possibly dedicated to the burial of members of the special clans who reared them. These animal-shaped mounds, equally with the round tumuli, contain human bones. These bones are in a very brittle and decomposed state, having roots and fibers growing through them, and are distributed equally through all parts of the mounds. In the construction of these monuments it is evident that the bodies were laid upon the surface of the ground and the earth heaped upon them. No appear- ances are to be found of graves having been dug below the surface. In many cases later burials have been made upon these mounds, where possibly some nomadic tribe made a grave for its dead above the long-buried and almost forgotten race. This surface burial, in which earth was brought and heaped above the dead, was not the custom among the North American Indians. their mode being a shallow grave, or suspension on plat- forms, or in trees, and this is counted another proof of the non-identity of the Mound Builders with the people that followed them.
In some parts of the State are found earth-works of a different character from the mound proper, which from their supposed use, are styled "garden beds." These beds are methodically arranged in parallel rows. much as a gardener would lay out his ground for flower culture, and are of a variety of sizes and shapes, some- times occupying acres in extent.
These mounds are not the only traces of the lost inhabitants. The copper mines of Northern Michigan afford ample proofs of their having been worked at some previous period, and as implements of this metal are abundant among other vestiges of the Mound Builders, they were, without doubt, the pre-historic miners. Prof. Irving believes that, as the Michigan copper belt extends across Wisconsin to Minnesota, copper must have also been mined in this State. The Jesuit fathers frequently mention the existence of cop- per, and even use the term mines, though there is no evidence that they either saw or heard of actual min- ing in the technical sense of that word. As early as 1636, which was prior to the time when they them-
3
34
HISTORY OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN.
selves had visited the Great Lake, they speak of the presence of native copper, and of its having been taken from the mines. In the " Relations" for 1659-60, after missions had been established in this region, they re- ported it to be " enriched in all its borders by mines of lead, almost pure, and of copper all refined in pieces as large as the fist, and great rocks which have whole veins of turquoise." Prof. Whittlesey says, in a paper to the Smithsonian Institute, that there are evidences that these ancient mines were abandoned several hun- dred years before the advent of the French into that region, and their acquaintance with the Northern tribes. As there is no legend among the Indians of their an- cestors having worked the mines, nor any implements in their possession that could have been used for that purpose, it is highly improbable that they could have been the original workers. In ancient mining pits have been found wooden shovels, fragments of wooden bowls and broken stone mauls. The effects of blows from these stone mauls are visible upon the rocks. In other places are the distinct marks of picks and drills, as fresh and perfect as if they had been recently made. Coals and ashes are also found in the old excavations, along with the remnants of tools used, and in some cases the scales of fishes, evidently the remains of miners' meals.
It appears that these people were supplied only with very simple mechanical contrivances, and that they penetrated the earth only to a short distance, their deepest works being only about the same as those of the old tin mines of Cornwall, England, which were wrought before the conquest of Britain by the Romans.
Dr. Hoy, President of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, finds upon examination of the implements made out of copper by these people. that they were beaten or hammered into the required shape, not melted and molded. In a large majority of cases he found specks of pure silver scattered over their surfaces, which he counted as evidence positive that the specimen was never melted. Their fibrous texture was another proof that they were hammered or beaten out. Prof. James D. Butler, however, ap- peals from this conclusion, and believes the people knew the art of smelting, "though the manner may be past finding out." He claims that as a rule the articles they manufactured were of utility rather than of ornament, and that he has found evidences of melted metal in their construction. The discussion is of in- terest only as going to prove a greater or less degree of advancement among these workers in the appliances of labor. If smelting was practiced, more complicated ingenuity was evinced than if only the rude hammer was used.
We have scarcely learned the alphabet of this strange language written all over the surface of our country. Thus far in the study of the subject of the Mound Builders little more seems demonstrated than the ancient occupation of the territory by a semi-sav- age race. No trace of high art, or of refined civiliza- tion piques the antiquarian or stimulates the imagina- tion of the student with visions of valuable discoveries yet to be made. The chief interest lies in solving the mystery of the utter disappearance of a race, which has so entirely dropped out of human annals as scarcely
to live even in legend. We only know that a people lived, were numerous, industrious and widely-estab- lished, but from whence they came or whither they vanished is mere conjecture. Their names were not " writ in water," but in the earth. The turf of the prairie, the margin of the river, the cleft in the rock testify to their having been. But whether definite history can be written from such memoranda, must rest with the skill of the future archaeologist.
THE INDIAN TRIBES OF WISCONSIN.
The obscurity which enshrouds the history of the aborigines of the Northwest prior to 1634, continues the gradation of human occupation of the soil, from the impenetrable mystery of the Mound Builders to the era of letters. But little is known of the lives and habits of the savage nations inhabiting what is now Wisconsin, before their discovery by civilized man. The sparse knowledge which has come down to us, of those years of warfare, during which the untutored brave contested with his brother for the right of ex- istence, or of the milder and infrequent periods of peace, wherein were enjoyed rude arts and tender pas- sions, have but a basis of tradition on which to stand ; and as a subject invested with romantic hues, because so far removed from the stern glade of historic fact, form a gracious topic for the pen of fiction rather than the pen of history.
It is the purpose of this work to treat but briefly of those divisions of the Indian nations which fill merely an auxiliary or preliminary station in the record of Wisconsin tribes.
The country bounded on the north by Lake Supe- rior, on the east by Lake Michigan, on the south by wide-spreading prairies, and on the west by the Mis- sissippi, was first seen by an European in the year 1634. Jean Nicolet then discovered that upon this wide area met and, with measurable peacefulness, mingled two far-branching families -the Algonquins and Dakotas. The exception to the rule of hostility was the Winnebago tribe, which, although belonging to the Dakotas or Sioux, were peaceful towards the Algonquins. Parkman says: "A detached branch of the Dakota stock, the Winnebago, was established south of Green Bay, on Lake Michigan, in the midst of the Algonquins." Tradition points to the former as having, at some distant period of the past, migrated from the East-and this has been confirmed by a study of their language; to the latter as coming from the West or Southwest, fighting their way as they came. As yet there were no representatives of the Huron-Iroquois seen west of Lake Michigan, that great family then dwelling northward and southward of Erie and Ontario lakes.
Of the Algonquins, the principal branches were the Chippeways, Menomonees, Pottawatomies, Mascoutins, Miamis, Kickapoos and Illinois (the latter to the southward) ; of the Dakotas, but two divisions were in Wisconsin, the Winnebagoes and a few bands of chance Sioux.
Already had the French secured a foothold in the valley of the St. Lawrence ; and, naturally enough, the broad expanse of water to the westward offered an irresistible inducement to the explorer. Thus it was
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HISTORY OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN.
that the shores of Green Bay were visited in 1634, by Jean Nicolet, who beheld, upon the right in ascending the bay, a tribe of Indians, lighter in complexion than their neighbors, remarkably well formed and active. These were what are now known as the Menomonees. Although of the Algonquin stock, their dialect dif- fered so much from the surrounding tribes that for a long time they were accredited with a distinct lan- guage. Their homes and hunting grounds were on the Menomonee River, though within the period of a cen- tury they shifted somewhat, and without infringing upon the territory of other tribes, spread out to the westward and southward, their principal village at that time being at the head of Green Bay. In 1634, they took part in a treaty with some representatives of the French, who at this time were intent upon the occupation of this wild region. After this, twenty years elapsed before there is any record that they were again visited by white men.
Early in December, 1669, Father Claudius Alloüez visited the mouth of Green Bay. and on the third of that month celebrated Holy Mass for the first time in his new field of labor. In May of the following year, he reached the Menomonees, who were then a feeble tribe, suffering from disasters in war, and nearly ex- terminated. He did not remain long with them, and was succeeded by Father Louis Andre, who built a cabin upon the Menomonee River. This hut the savages burned, and he was afterwards obliged to live in his canoe. He was not wholly unsuccessful in his missionary work, for, in 1673, Father Marquette found good Christians among this tribe. By degrees they extended their intercourse with the white fur traders, and gradually were drawn under the banner of France. They joined that government in its war with the Iro- quois, and subsequently in its conflict with the En- glish.
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