USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Memoirs of Milwaukee County : from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County, Volume I > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67
35
INDIANS.
"The Sakis [Sacs] have always been neighbors of the Pouteou- temis, and have even built a Village with them. They separated from each other some years ago, as neither tribe could endure to be subordi- nate ; this feeling is general among all the Savages, and each man is mas- ter of his own actions, no one daring to contradict him. These Peoples [the Sacs] are not intelligent, and are of brutal nature and unruly dis- position ; but they have a good physique, and are quite good-looking for savages ; they are thieves and liars, great chatterers, good Hunters, and very poor Canoemen."
La Potherie also gives an account of Perrot's visit to the Wiscon- consin tribes, and of his success in inducing them to become allies of the French. Of Perrot's relations with the Pottawattomies we quote :
"On one occasion, among the Pouteouatemis, he was regarded as, a God. Curiosity induced him to form the acquaintance of this Nation, who dwelt at the foot of the Bay of Puans [Green Bay]. They had heard of the French, and their desire to become acquainted with them in order to secure the trade with them had induced these savages to go down to Montreal, under the guidance of a wandering Outaouak who was glad to conduct them thither. The French had been described to them as covered with hair (the Savages have no beards), and they be- lieved that we were of a different species from other men. They were astonished to see that we were made like themselves, and regarded it as a present that the Sky and the Spirits had made them in permitting one of the celestial beings to enter their land. The Old Men solemnly smoked a Calumet and came into his presence, offering it as a homage that they rendered to him. After he had smoked the Calumet, it was presented by the Chief to his tribesmen, who all offered it in turn to one another, blowing from their mouths the tobacco-smoke over him as if it were incense. They said to him: 'Thou art one of the chief spirits, since thou usest iron ; it is for thee to rule and protect all men. Praised be the Sun, which has instructed thee and sent thee to our country.' They adored him as a God, they took his knives and hatches and in- censed them with the tobacco-smoke from their mouths; and they pre- sented to him so many kinds of food that he could not taste them all. 'It is a spirit,' they said, 'these provisions that he has not tasted are not worthy of his lips.' When he left the room, they insisted on carrying him upon their shoulders ; the way over which he passed was made clear ; they did not dare look in his face, and the women and children watched him from a distance. 'He is a Spirit,' they said; 'let us show our affec- tion for him, and he will have pity on us.' The Savage who had intro- duced him to this tribe was, in acknowledgement thereof, treated as a Captain. Perot was careful not to receive all these acts of adoration, al-
36
MEMOIRS OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY.
though he accepted these honors so far as the interests of Religion were not concerned. He told them that he was not what they thought, but only a Frenchman; that the real Spirit who had made all had given to the French the knowledge of iron, and the Ability to handle it as if it were paste. He said that that Spirit, desiring to show his pity for his Creatures, had permitted the French Nation to settle in their country in order to remove them from the blindness in which they had dwelt, as they had not known the true God, the author of Nature, whom the French adored; that, when they had established a friendship with the French, they would receive from the latter all possible assistance; and that he had come to facilitate acquaintance between them by the dis- coveries of the various tribes which he was making. And, as the Beaver was valued by his people, he wished to ascertain whether there were not a good opportunity for them to carry on Trade therein.
"At that time, there was war between that Tribe and their neigh- bors, the Malhominis. The latter, while hunting with the Outagamis, had by mistake slain a Pouteouatemi, who was on his way to the Outa- gamis. The Pouteouatemis, incensed at this affront, deliberately broke the head of a Malhomini who was among the Puans. In the Poute- ouatemi Village there were only women and old men, as the Young Men had gone for the first time to trade at Montreal, and there was reason to fear that the Malhominis would profit by that mischance. Perot, who was desirous of making their acquaintance, offered to medi- ate a Peace between them. When he had arrived within half a league of the Village, he sent a man to tell them that a Frenchman was coming to visit them; this news caused universal joy. All the youths came at once to meet him, bearing their weapons and their warlike adornments, all marching in file, with frightful contortions and yells; this was the most honorable reception that they thought it was possible to give him. He was not uneasy, but fired a gun in the air as far away as he could see them; this noise, which seemed to them so extraordinary, caused them to halt suddenly, gazing at the Sun in most ludicrous attitudes. After he had made them understand that he had come not to disturb their repose, but to form an alliance with them, they approached him with many gesticulations. The Calumet was presented to him; and, when he was ready to proceed to the Village, one of the savages stooped down in order to carry Perot upon his shoulders ; but his Interpreter assured them that he had refused such honors among many other Na- tions. He was escorted with assiduous attentions ; they vied with one another in clearing the path, and in breaking off the branches of trees which hung in the way. The women and children, who had heard 'the Spirit' ( for thus they called a gun), had fled into the woods. The men
37
INDIANS.
assembled in the cabin of the leading war Chief, where they danced the Calumet to the sound of the drum. He had them all assemble next day, and made them a speech in nearly these words: % *
The Father of the Malhomini who had been murdered by the Pouteouatemis arose and took the collar that Perot had given him ; he lighted his Calumet, and presented it to him, and then gave it to the Chief and all who were present, who smoked it in turn ; then he began to sing, holding the Calumet in one hand, and the collar in the other. He went out of the cabin while he sang, and, presenting the Calumet and collar toward the Sun, he walked sometimes backwards, sometimes for- wards ; he made a circuit of his own cabin, went past a great number of those in the Village, and finally returned to that of the Chief. There he declared that he attached himself wholly to the French ; that he believed the living Spirit, who had, in behalf of all the Spirits, domination over all other men, who were inferior to him; that all his Nation had the same sentiments ; and that they asked only the protection of the French, from whom they hoped for life and for obtaining all that is necessary to man."
Perrot, accompanied by some Pottawattomies, made a voyage along the west shore of Lake Michigan in 1670, passing from Green Bay to Chicago. Two years later a similar voyage was undertaken by Allouez and Dublon, and as a result of these voyages an extensive fur-trade was established with the Indians. There is no data from which to estimate the quantities of furs purchased by the French at this early period, and sent to Europe, but this constituted almost the sole motive for "locating" in this wild, and till then unknown region. The French possessed the peculiar faculty of making themselves "at home" with the Indians, and lived without that dread of their tomahawks which was so keenly felt by the pioneers of English settlements. Wisconsin remained in pos- session of the French, and constituted a portion of "New France," until 1763, when it was surrendered to Great Britain and became subject to her government. British authority was then exercised until the north- western country was transferred to the American government in 1794. But during this period and until a number of years later little change took place in the region of which the city of Milwaukee is the metrop- olis. The Indian continued to hunt the deer and to trap the beaver unmolested, and bartered his furs at Green Bay or other convenient trad- ing points, for the trifles or the "fire-water" of the trader.
CHAPTER III.
PRE-TERRITORIAL ERA.
FIRST VOYAGES ALONG THE LAKE SHORE-NICHOLAS PERROT-FATHER JOHN B. DE ST. COSME-MARQUETTE AND JOLIET-LA SALLE-EARLY JURISDICTION-COMPACT OF 1787-INDIAN TREATIES-COUNTY FOR- MATIONS-THE PUBLIC DOMAIN-PROVISIONS FOR FREE SCHOOLS.
It was not until many years after the close of the American Revolution that the Anglo-Saxon race undertook the project of colonization in the region now known as Wisconsin, of which Mil- waukee county forms so important a division. It should not be in- ferred, however, that the territory contained within the limits of the county remained unvisited by white men and unknown to them until after the epoch mentioned above. While this portion of North America was under the dominion of the French govern- ment, as has been stated in the previous chapter, an extensive trade with the Indians was carried on, and in pursuit of the returns that came from the traffic with the red men the wily and skillful French traders traveled extensively over this portion of their mother-coun- try's possessions. They continued their relations with the natives, notwithstanding that the result of the French and Indian war trans- ferred the right of dominion to the English government, and even for years following the American Revolution they followed their vocation, undisturbed and without competition, save the rivalry existing among themselves. So it is fair to presume that during their many excursions in quest of trade the limits of Milwaukee county were frequently invaded, and as their much traveled route, connecting Green Bay with the trading post on the present site of the city of Chicago, was through this region and along the lake shore, it can easily be inferred that the natives who then inhabited this section were the beneficiaries or victims, as the case might be, of commercial intercourse with the early French traders.
39
PRE-TERRITORIAL ERA.
The first authentic account we have of a voyage along the west shore of Lake Michigan (or Illinois lake, as it was then called ) was by Nicholas Perrot, who, accompanied by some Pottawattomies, passed from Green Bay to Chicago in 1670. In 1669 Perrot was dis- patched to the west as the agent of the Intendant Talon to pre- pare a congress of the Indian nations at St. Mary's, and by his visit to the Miamis at Chicago became the generally accepted pioneer of European explorers to the southern part of Lake Michigan. By other authorities, however, it is stated that on Oct. 7, 1699, a priest named Father John B. de St. Cosme (also given in manuscript as "Comeze") arrived at Milwaukee in light canoes and remained at that place two days during a heavy storm. He was on his way from Mackinaw to "Chicagu." He called Lake Michigan "the Mie- sit-gan" and Milwaukee "the Melwarik." Of the place he wrote to the Bishop of Quebec: "This is a river where there is a village which has been considerable. We remained there two days, partly to refresh our people (probably Indians), as duck and teal shoot- ing was very plenty, and partly on account of the high wind." Father de St. Cosme described other places visited, the river and the surrounding country, in such a manner as to leave no doubt in the minds of some authorities that he visited Milwaukee at the time mentioned. In 1671 the cross was borne by Allouez and Dab- lon through eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, among the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos on the Milwaukee, and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan, as well as the Foxes on the river which bear their name, and which, in their language, was the Wau-ke-sha. In 1673, or four years after the establishment at the Bay of Puans, now Green Bay, Marquette, with the Sieur Joliet (the latter having been appointed by the French government to "discover" the Mississippi) explored the Fox and Wisconsin rivers and descended the Mississippi below the entrance of the Arkansas, and then, returning, ascended the Illinois, and making a portage to the Chicago river, descended it to Lake Michigan and returned by that lake to Green Bay. Joliet returned to Quebec and Marquette spent the winter and the following summer at the mission of Green Bay, suffering from illness. In October, 1674, he left Green Bay, intent upon establishing a mission on the Illinois river, and in November he reached the present site of Chicago, again passing down the west shore of Lake Michigan.
It was six years after the discovery of the Mississippi by Joliet that La Salle made his voyage up the lakes in the first vessel (the Griffin) built above the Falls of Niagara. An interesting account
40
MEMOIRS OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY.
of this voyage was published by Louis Hennepin, in Paris, and is preserved in the "Transactions of the American Antiquarian So- ciety." "Mr. La Salle," says Hennepin, "without taking anybody's advice, resolved to send back the ship to Niagara laden with furs and skins, to discharge his debts. Our pilot, and five men with him, were therefore sent back. They sailed on the 18th (of September, 1679) with a westerly wind. It was never known what course they steered, nor how they perished, but it is supposed the ship struck upon the sand and was there buried. This was a great loss to Mr. La Salle and other adventurers, for that ship, with its cargo, cost about 60,000 livres." The adventurers continued their voyage in four canoes along the coast of the lake by Milwaukee, to "the mouth of the river Miamis" (Chicago), where a fort was erected. During this voyage they experienced one of those severe storms which are still so much dreaded on Lake Michigan. "The violence of the wind obliged us to drag our canoes sometimes to the top of the ricks, to prevent their being dashed to pieces. The stormy weather lasted four days, during which we suffered very much, and our provisions failed us. We had no other subsistence but a handful of Indian corn, once in twenty-four hours, which we roasted or else boiled in water, and yet rowed almost every day from morning till night. Being in this dismal stress, we saw upon the coast a great many ravens and eagles, from whence we con- jectured there was some prey, and having landed upon that place, we found about the half of a fat wild goat which the wolves had strangled. This provision was very acceptable to us, and the rudest of our men could not but praise the Divine Providence who took such particular care of us."
Other explorations followed, but generally in the tracks of previous ones, and, except at "the bay," there was not, so long as the French had dominion over the northwest, a single post occupied for any length of time by regular soldiers. At the ending of the French and Indian war, in 1763, there was not a single vestige of civilization within what are now the bounds of Wisconsin, in the way of posts or settlements. The vagrant fur-trader represented all that there was of civilization west of Lake Michigan. These commercial adventurers were not pioneers in the true sense of the word, and it is doubtful if they could properly be called advance agents of civilization. Their mission in these parts was neither to civilize the denizens of the forest nor to carve out homes in the western wilderness. "The white man's burden" rested lightly on their shoulders and gave them little or no concern, the only motive
41
PRE-TERRITORIAL ERA.
that fetched them hither being a desire to possess, at as little cost as possible, the wares which the Indians had for sale. This object being attained, they wended their way homeward, and the locali- ties which had known them knew them no more. So it remained for the forerunners of Anglo-Saxon civilization, as they led the "march of empire" in a westerly direction, to open this section of country for actual settlement, and win from hostile nature-and at times a more hostile foe in human form-homes for themselves and posterity.
Before proceeding with an account of the organization and settlement of Milwaukee county, a brief review of the question of title to the lands will be necessary, the word title as here used hav- ing special reference to racial dominion and civil jurisdiction. As is well known, and as heretofore stated, the French were the first civilized people who laid claim to the territory now embraced within the state of Wisconsin, and France exercised nominal lord- ship over the region until the treaty of Paris, in 1763, which ended the French and Indian war. Prior to this date the French actually occupied isolated places in the vast extent of territory claimed by them, but no such occupancy existed in Wisconsin, unless we ex- cept Green Bay, where Augustin Langlade had settled a few years previous and was with his family and a few others, the only per- sons of European blood permanently located in the present boun- daries of the state. And in no place was there the semblance of courts or magistrates for the trial of civil or criminal issues, and hence the chief function of civil government was lacking. Even for some years after the country passed under the control of the of- ficials of the British government, affairs were managed by army officers, commandants of posts on the frontier.
Immediately after the peace of 1763 with the French, the Province of Canada was extended, by act of Parliament, southerly to the Alleghany and Ohio rivers. This, of course, included all of the present state of Wisconsin, notwithstanding the claims of the colony of Virginia that it had the title to all the land northwest of the Ohio river, and also those of New York and Connecticut, who asserted authority over territory stretching away to an unbounded extent westward, but not so far to the south as Virginia. This conflict of authority was at its height during the Revolutionary war, and in 1778, soon after the conquest of the British forts on the Mississippi and the Wabash by Gen. George Rogers Clark, Vir- ginia erected the county of Illinois, with the county seat at Kas- kaskia. It practically embraced all the territory in the present
42
MEMOIRS OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY.
states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. But the British held possession of all the lake region, and in the same year (1778) Lord Dorchester, Governor-General of Canada, divided Upper Canada into four districts for civil purposes, one of which included Detroit and the lake territory. The Northwest remained in a comparative degree of quiet during the progress of the Revolu- tionary war, except the predatory excursions of the Indians from this region, on the frontiers of the old states. It exhibits few events worthy of attention, in regard to organized government, produc- tion or commerce, and a total barrenness in relation to settlement and growth of population.
Great Britain had promised the Indian tribes that the whites should not settle north of the Ohio river, and the government of this almost unlimited region was, during English control, ex- clusively military, with Detroit as the central post. This was the condition during the Revolutionary war, and even after the treaty of peace, in 1783, the same state of affairs continued until after the second, or Jay treaty, in 1795. Early in 1792 the Upper Canadian parliament authorized Governor Simcoe to lay off nineteen counties to embrace that province, and it is presumed that the county of Essex, on the east bank of the Detroit river, included Michigan and Wisconsin. While this supposition is not conclusive, it is certain that some form of British civil authority existed at their forts and settlements until Detroit and all its dependencies were given up in August, 1796.
The treaty of 1783, which terminated the War of the Revolu- tion, included Wisconsin within the boundaries of the United States, and the seventh article of that treaty stated that the King of Great Britain would, "with all convenient speed, withdraw all his forces, garrisons and fleets from the United States, and from every post, place and harbor within the same." Military posts were garrisoned, however, by British troops, and continued under the dominion of Great Britain for many years after that date. Pre- paratory to taking possession of it, and in order to avoid collision with the Indian tribes, who owned the soil, treaties were made with them from time to time (of which more is said on other pages), in which they ceded to the United States their title to their lands. But the territory thus secured by treaties with Great Britain, and with the Indian tribes-and concerning which we had thus established an amicable understanding-was for many years sequestered from our possession. The British government urged as an excuse the failure of Americans to fulfill that part of the
43
PRE-TERRITORIAL ERA.
treaty protecting the claims of British subjects against citizens of the United States, but, from the "aid and comfort" rendered the Indians in the campaigns of Harmar, St Clair, and Wayne, the apparent prime cause was to defeat the efforts of the United States to extend their power over the country and tribes north of the Ohio, and continue to the British the advantage of the fur trade, which, from their relations with these tribes, they pos- sessed. The ultimate results of this international difficulty were the campaigns of 1790-91-94, ostensibly against the Indians, but substantially against them and their British allies, which bear so intimate a relation to the formal surrender of the country to Ameri- can control that they perform an essential part of history.
Virginia, however, still adhering to her claim of sovereignty over the northwestern country, on March I. 1784, ceded the territory to the United States, and immediately Congress entered seriously upon the consideration of the problem of providing a government for the vast domain. Its deliberations resulted in the famous "Compact of 1787." It might not be out of place here to call attention to the fact that this compact, in two provisions which were inspired by Thomas Jefferson, guaranteed to all the right of religious free- dom and prohibited slavery in the territory. Hence the citizens of Milwaukee county, in common with the citizens of Wisconsin and those of the sister states that were carved from Virginia's grant, can feel a pardonable pride that never, under any American juris- diction of this domain, has a witch been burned at the stake or a slave been sold on the auction block. It cannot be said, however, that slavery was not practiced in Wisconsin to some extent, as "involuntary servitude," notwithstanding the 6th article of this ordinance, continued to exist at Green Bay. During the constant wars of the Indians, the Wisconsin tribes made captives of the Pawnees and members of other distant tribes and consigned them to servitude. Augustin Grignon says in his "Recollections," that he personally knew fourteen of these slaves, and that his grand- father, Charles De Langdale, had two Indian slaves. It also ap- pears quite certain that negroes were held as slaves at Green Bay, one of whom, Mr. Grignon says, was a boy purchased by Baptist Brunett from a St. Louis Indian trader, and that the negro boy was taken away from Brunett as late as 1807, by Mr. Campbell, the Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, in consequence of the cruel treat- ment inflicted upon him.
All the pretensions of sovereignty and conflictions of authority heretofore mentioned were aside from the claims of the real in-
44
MEMOIRS OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY.
habitants of the country. The Iroquois Indians. or Six Nations, laid claim to the entire extent of territory bordering on the Ohio river and northward, basing their contention upon the assumption that they had conquered it and held it by right of conquest. In 1722 a treaty had been made at Albany, New York, between the Iroquois and English, by which the lands west of the Alleghany mountains were acknowledged to belong to the Iroquois by reason of the conquests from the Eries, Conoys, Tongarias, etc., but this claim was extinguished by the terms of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, concluded Oct. 22. 1784. The Indian war in the west, which fol- lowed the Revolution, was brought to an end by the victorious arms of Gen. Anthony Wayne. upon the banks of the Maumee river. in what is now the state of Ohio, in the year 1794. The treaty of Greenville was entered into the next year with twelve western tribes of Indians, none of whom resided in Wisconsin. Neverthe- less, one of the provisions of the treaty was that, in consideration of the peace then established and the cessations and relinquishments of lands made by the Indian tribes there represented, and to manifest the liberality of the United States, claims to all Indian lands northward of the Ohio, eastward of the Mississippi, and west- ward and southward of the great lakes and the waters uniting them. were relinquished by the general government to the Indians having a right thereto. This included all the lands within the present boundaries of Wisconsin. and a further stipulation in the treaty was that when the Indians should sell lands it should be to the United States alone, whose protection the Indians acknowledged, and that of no other power whatever.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.