USA > Wisconsin > Racine County > Racine > Racine, belle city of the lakes, and Racine County, Wisconsin : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 2
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EROSION
In connection with the physical features of Racine County there is one phenomenon not to be found in the inland counties. Along the lake shore, where the banks are steep and high, and formed of clay, sand and gravel, those banks are being constantly
24
HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
undermined by the action of the waves. Just north of Racine, where "The Point" projects into the lake, this erosion or en- croachment is considerable. Dr. P. R. Hoy, who, it seems, was deeply interested in scientific research, investigated this subject and reported the erosion to be about four feet amally.
S. G. Knight, of Racine, was employed by the State Geological Survey in 1874 to measure the section lines from the nearest cor- ner or quarter post to the lake shore, and compare their length with that given in the original Government Survey of 1836. He carefully reviewed the lines and reported that the ammal erosion varied from six inches to six feet four inches, the average along the shore in the vicinity of Racine being about three feet four inches, thus bearing out the estimate of Dr. Hoy some years previous.
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY
There are but few mineral deposits in Racine County of com- mercial importance, the principal ones being the clay beds and the Niagara limestone formations. When Mr. Chamberlin made his survey of this part of the state he found the clay deposits at "The Point" were being utilized in the manufacture of brick, the two yards of Erskine & Morris and Burdick Brothers turning out from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 brick ammally. The brick were cream colored and were made from the red clay and a layer of sand from the overlying beach deposit. In recent years the manufacture of brick at Racine has proven to be unprofitable and no brick are made in or near the city at the present time.
The Niagara limestone about the month of the Root River consists of two beds - the Guelph and the Racine. The latter is distinguished as a bhie, gray or buff brittle dolomite, of uneven texture and frequently stained with iron oxide. Fossils are more abundant in the Racine than in the Guelph beds of this stone. From its purity the Niagara limestone is well adapted to the mak- ing of a fine quality of lime. This fact was discovered early throughout the eastern part of the state and kilns were established at many of the exposures. Forty years ago nearly half a million barrels of lime were made annually from the Niagara formation in Racine and some of the other eastern counties. One of the largest producers was the firm of Horlick & Son, who maintained a branch in Chicago, their annual output ranging from 60,000 to 75,000 barrels. The Vaughan kilns turned out from 600 to 1,000
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
barrels every week. and the Beswick kilns prodneed 20,000 barrels per year. With the increasing demand for concrete construction the burning of lime has been discontinued and attention turned to crushing stone for building purposes and macadamizing highways. At the Niagara exposures near Racine large stone crushers are constantly at work preparing this material, and thousands of car- loads are shipped away annually.
All the limestone formations of the state are capable of being used as building stone. This is especially true of the Mendota and the Lower Magnesian limestones of the Potsdam formation, which are quarried at a number of places in the eastern part of the state.
ALTITUDES
The following table shows the altitudes of places in different parts of Racine County. These altitudes were determined by engineers in the construction of railroads, and by surveyors em- ployed by the State Geological Survey. The figures in the first column show the elevation in feet above Lake Michigan, and in the second column above the sea level:
C. & N. W. Railroad Station, Racine
40
618
Racine Junction
43
621
State Line
90
668
Caledonia
128
706
Western Union Junction.
144
722
Eagle Lake
186
764
Wind Lake
190
768
Bonner's Lake
200
778
Burlington
203
781
Kansasville
240
818
Waterford
246
824
From these figures it will be seen that the surface of the county is either level or moderately undulating, and the soil, which is of glacial origin, is generally fertile. Probably the most pro- ductive soil for agricultural purposes is found in the Fox River Valley, in the western part of the county, but there is no portion of Racine County where crops adapted to this latitude will not thrive. Statistics regarding the principal erops will be found in another chapter.
CHAPTER II ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS
THE MOUND BUILDERS -CHARACTER OF THEIR RELICS - WHO WERE THEY? - WORK OF THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY - DISTRICTS IN THE UNITED STATES - RECENT THEORIES - MOUNDS IN RACINE COUNTY - THE INDIANS - TRIBAL DISTRIBUTION AT THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY - WISCONSIN TRIBES - CHIP- PEWA - MENOMINEE - SAC - FOX - OTTAWA - POTAWATOMI WINNEBAGO - INDIAN TREATIES - INDIAN TRAILS - REFLECTIONS.
Nearly a century and a half elapsed after the first white settle- ments were established along the Atlantic coast before attention was drawn to the fact that the interior of North America had once been peopled by a peculiar race. Says one of the reports of the United States Bureau of Ethnology: "During a period beginning some time after the close of the Ice Age and ending with the com- ing of the white man - or only a few generations before - the central part of North America was inhabited by a people who had emerged to some extent from the darkness of savagery, had acquired certain domestic arts, and practiced some well defined lines of industry. The location and boundaries inhabited by them are fairly well marked by the mounds and earthworks they erected."
The center of this ancient civilization - if such it may be called - appears to have been in what is now the State of Ohio. Towa may be regarded as its western frontier, though a few relies have been found west of the Missouri River. From the mounds and earthworks they left, the name of "Monnd Builders" has been given to this race by archeologists. Most of the mounds are of conical shape and when opened have generally been found to con- tain human skeletons, hence they have been designated as burial mounds. Others are in the form of truncated pyramids - that is, square or rectangular at the base and flat on the top. The mounds of this class are generally much higher than the ordinary conical or burial mounds and are supposed to have been used as lookouts or signal stations, a theory which is supported by the fact that charred wood and ashes have been found upon the summits of several of such mounds, indicating that signal fires had once been lighted there. Here and there are to be seen well-defined lines of
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
earthworks, apparently having been thrown up as places of de- fense against invading enemies. In a few instances, the discovery of a large mound, surrounded by an embankment, outside of which are a number of smaller mounds, has given rise to the theory that such places were centers of religious ceremony or sacrifice.
Who were the Mound Builders? The question is more easily asked than answered. Among the earliest archaeologists to study the subject were Squier and Davis, who, about the middle of the Nineteenth Century, published a work entitled "Ancient Monu- ments of the Mississippi Valley." Between the years 1845 and 1848 these two investigators opened over two hundred mounds, the description of which was published by the Smithsonian Institu- tion. They advanced the hypothesis that the Mound Builders first established their civilization in the Ohio Valley, whence they worked their way gradually southward into Mexico and Central America, where the white man found their descendants in the Aztee Indians. Other early investigators accepted this theory, but Baldwin, in his "Ancient America," published in 1874, takes a different view: Says he:
"Careful study of what is shown in the many reports on these ancient remains seems plainly to authorize the conchision that the Mound Builders entered the country at the south and began their settlements near the Gulf. Here they must have been very numerous, while their works at every point on the limit of their distribution north, east and west indicate a much less numerous border of population. Remains of their works have been traced through a great extent of country. They are found in West Vir- ginia and are spread through Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa to Nebraska. They are found all over the intermediate and more southern country, being most numerous in Ohio, Indiana, Wis- consin, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Lonis- iana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas."
WORK OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY
Prior to the establishment of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, the investigation of the Mound Builders' relies was conducted by individuals, and much of it was done in a desultory sort of way. Soon after the bureau was organized it began a sys- tematie study of the remains left by this ancient race and dis- covered many things that private investigators had overlooked.
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14
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HARBOR SCENES. BACINE
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of the bureau, divided the region inhabited by the Mound Builders into eight districts, each of which is marked by certain characteristics not common to the others. Be- ginning at the eastern part of the country, these districts are as follows:
1. The Huron-Iroquois District, which embraces the country once inhabited by the Huron and Iroquois Indians, including the lower peninsula of Michigan, a strip across Northern Ohio, the greater part of the State of New York, and extending northward into Canada. Burial mounds are numerous throughout this dis- triet. a few fortifications or earthworks have been noted, but the "hut rings," or foundations of ancient dwellings are more plen- tiful here than elsewhere and form the distinguishing feature of the district.
2. The Appalachian District, which includes the mountain- ous regions of Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, South- western Virginia, and the northern part of Georgia. Abundant evidences were found in this territory to show that it was inhab- ited by a tribe different in many respects from the people of other distriets. The mounds are of a different construction, stone graves are numerous, and among the relics discovered are a mm- ber of more or less ornamental tobacco pipes and utensils of copper.
3. The Tennessee Distriet, which includes Middle and West- ern Tennessee. Southern Illinois, nearly all of Kentucky, a strip through the central part of Georgia, and a small section of North- ern Alabama. This district is marked by fortifications with cov- ered ways leading to streams or springs, indicating that they were constructed with a view to withstanding a siege. Pottery is plen- tiful, especially the long-necked water jar, and several stone images, believed to have been worshiped as idols, have been found in the mounds of this district.
4. The Ohio District, which takes in all of the State of Ohio, except the strip across the northern part that is included in the Huron-Iroquois District, the eastern half of Indiana, and the south- western part of West Virginia. In this distriet both the burial mounds and fortifications are numerous. The former are larger than the burial mounds found elsewhere, frequently having a diameter of one hundred feet or more and rising in a few instances to a height of eighty feet. The Grave Creek Mound, in West
30
HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
Virginia, is one of the greatest lookont or signal station mounds so far discovered, and the Great Serpent, a fortification in the form of a snake, situated on a bluff in Adams County, Ohio, is one of the most perfect specimens of this class of works. There are also a number of sacrificial mounds, surrounded by embankments. One of these, situated on a bluff near Anderson, Indiana, is con- neeted with the White River by a subterranean passage, the re- mains of which can still be clearly seen, though the timbers with which it was once walled have long since rotted away.
5. The Illinois District, embracing the northern and central parts of Illinois, Eastern Iowa, Northeastern Missouri, and the western half of Indiana. Abont the only relies found in the mounds of this district are decayed human bones, fragments of pottery, flint arrow and spear heads, and stone chips. The great mound near Cahokia, Illinois, is a fine example of the truncated pyramid variety and is one of the largest of that class known.
6. The Wisconsin District, which includes the state from which it takes its name, the northeastern corner of Iowa, Minne- sota, and the Dakotas. The distinguishing features of this district are the effigy mounds, which are given the form of some bird or animal. Professor Thomas, in the Twelfth Ammal Report of the Bureau of Ethnology (p. 31), says: "Effigy mounds are almost limited to the Wisconsin District, the only exceptions known being two or three in Ohio and two in Georgia." These mounds represent birds, bears, foxes, etc., though the bird effigies are by far the most nummerons. They are believed to have represented the totem of some tribe, or some living creature that was an object of veneration. Near Prairie du Chien is a bird mound that measures sixty feet from beak to tail, one hundred and two feet across the outstretched wings, and is about three or four feet high.
7. The Arkansas District, including the State of Arkansas, part of Northern Louisiana and the southeastern corner of Mis- sonri. Pottery has been found in abundance here, hut rings and village sites have been noted, though the burial mounds are com- paratively small and few in number, often containing but a single skeleton.
8. The Gulf Distriet embraces the country bordering upon the Gulf of Mexico. In this district are a number of fine truncated pyramids, some of them with terraces. The entire district is
31
HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
rich in pottery, polished stones, weapons of obsidian, etc. Skele- tons have been found in caves and others buried in bark coffins and a small mound erected over the remains. Some writers think the terraced mounds were "battle mounds," the warriors on one terrace having been able to hurl missiles over the heads of those on the terrace below into the ranks of their assailants.
RECENT THEORIES
All the early writers on the subject of the Mound Builders held to the theory that they were of a different race from the Indians found here by the white man, and that the period when they inhabited the country was more or less remote, some con- tending that they had been extinct for centuries before Columbus discovered the New World. Baldwin, who was one of the last of this early school of archaeologists, undertakes to prove great an- tiquity by the large trees found growing upon some of the mounds, the crumbling state of the bones found in them, the change in the course of the streams upon which the mounds were built in some cases, and the ignorance of the Indians regarding the earthworks. On page 60 of his work he says: "There is no trace or probability of any direct relationship whatever between the Mound Builders and the barbarous Indians found in the country."
In more recent years, especially since the exhaustive research made by the Bureau of Ethnology, archaeologists are practically a unit in the conclusion that the Mound Builder was nothing more than the ancestor of the North American Indian. Early French and Spanish explorers in the southern part of the United States found that the chief of the Natchez always dwelt in a lodge erected upon an artificial mound. Pierre Margry, one of the early French writers upon America, says: "When the chief dies they demolish his cabin and then raise a new mound, on which they build the cabin of the chief who is to replace the one deceased in this dignity, for the chief never lodges in the house of his prede- cessor."
How long this custom prevailed no one knows, but it might be the reason for the large number of small artificial mounds in the country once inhabited by the Natchez and their ancestors. The Yamasees of Georgia built mounds over those slain in battle, and Charlevoix found among the Canadian tribes some who
32
HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
erected earthworks very similar to the relics of this character found in the Huron-Iroquois District of Thomas' division.
In the early exploration of the mounds, some surprise was expressed at the presence of a large number of small mounds in which were found charcoal and burnt or baked clay. Subsequent investigations have disclosed the fact that among certain tribes, particularly those of the lower Mississippi country, the family hut was built upon an artificial mound, usually of small dimen- sions, and that the house was constructed of poles and plastered with mud. Upon the death of the head of the family, the body was buried under the center of the hut, which was then burned. This custom, practiced perhaps for many generations, would account for the great number of small mounds, each containing a single skeleton.
Another thing that tends to refute the argument in favor of a separate race and great age is that white men have found some of the southwestern tribes making pottery very similar in design and texture to that taken from some of the ancient mounds. And the traditions of these tribes are that such pottery has been made by their people farther back in the past than any one can deter- mine with certainty. In the light of these discoveries, and others along the same line, it is not surprising that the leading archeolo- gists of the country have abandoned the theory of separate race and great antiquity and have come to the conclusion that the Mound Builder was nothing more than the ancestor, more or less remote, of the North American Indian.
MOUNDS IN RACINE COUNTY
While much of this general history and description of the Mound Builders is not directly applicable to Racine County, it is hoped that the reader will find it of interest, inasmuch as it throws some light upon the people who formerly inhabited this section of the country and enables him to understand better the character of the mounds found in Southeastern Wisconsin. Originally, Racine County offered a rich field for the archaeologist. But many of the mounds have been ruthlessly destroyed by relic hunters, most of whom could not understand or appreciate the ethnological importance of the relies they carried away. Added to this, the plow of the husbandman has done much to level some of the monu- ments of this aboriginal people.
SCENE IN MOUND CEMETERY
INDIAN MOUND AND MONUMENT, MOUND CEMETERY
33
HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
Dr. I. A. Lapham, in his "Antiquities of Wisconsin," thus describes a group of mounds and some carthworks on the high ground overlooking the Root River, about a mile and a half from Lake Michigan:
"They consist mostly of circular burial mounds, of no great size or height, with one circular enclosure and several tapering ridges. There are also two semicircles opening on the edge of the bluff towards the river. The group of very numerous and remark- able mounds represented at the lower part of the plat was sur- veved with some minuteness, with a view to determining the order of arrangement upon which they were constructed. The result shows very clearly that no order or system was adopted. Each person buried was placed where chance might lead the relatives or friends to select the spot. No three mounds could be found on the same straight line; indeed, it seems as if it were the intention of the builders to avoid all appearance of regularity. Large mounds are interposed with smaller ones, without regard to sym- metry or succession."
Dr. P. R. Hoy opened one of the mounds of this group and found several skeletons in a sitting posture, facing east. The skulls, except one, probably that of a woman, were remarkably thick and solid, but the other bones were very much decayed. The skeletons were found in a basin shaped excavation in the original soil, about eighteen inches deep, and were arranged side by side. No ornaments or utensils of any kind were found. This group is near the old plank road that led from Racine to Rochester and Burlington. Subsequently, Dr. Hoy made further investigations here and found two pottery vases in one of the mounds. They were unearthed in a gravel pit about two and a half feet below the original surface and with them were two skeletons. One vase was of cream colored clay and would hold about five quarts; the other was reddish in color and was about half as large. Upon this mound was a burr oak stump, in which Dr. Hoy counted 250 rings.
The group of mounds from which Mound Cemetery takes its name, about a mile west of the City of Racine, has been described as "the most numerous and extensive group in the county." Here Dr. Lapham and Dr. Iloy made rather extended investigations and in his report the former says: "We excavated fourteen of the mounds, some with the greatest possible care. They are sepulch- ral, of a uniform construction, and most of them contained more
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
than one skeleton. In one instance we found no less than seven. We could deteet no appearance of stratification, each mound hav- ing been built at one time and not by successive additions. During the investigations we obtained sufficient evidence to warrant me in the following conclusions: The bodies were regularly buried in a sitting or partly kneeling posture, facing the east, with the legs placed under them. They were covered with a bark or log roofing, over which the mound was built."
Here, as in the former mounds, the skeletons were found in a basin excavated in the natural soil to a depth of two or three feet, and the mound erected over them.
On the point of a bluff near the Root River, north of Mound Cemetery, was found a mound about six feet high, in connection with which was an embankment 235 feet in length, two feet high, twelve feet wide at the end nearest the mound, and tapering to a point at the west end near a spring. Farther east, on the same side of the river, is a single low mound called the "Erskine Mound," and on the opposite side of the river is a cluster bounded on the east by a lizard mound eighty feet in length. North of this, on a bluff, were found three lizard mounds, six conical mounds, an oblong or oval mound and two semicircular embankments about two feet high and ten or twelve feet broad. Three-fourths of a mile south of this group, on a sandy ridge, is the "Slausson Mounds," eight in number. Near the east end of Mound Cemetery and not far from the Root River, is the "Teegarden Group," one of the most interesting in the southeastern part of Wisconsin. Here is an embankment 235 feet long, varying from two to twelve feet in width and about two feet high, tapering to a point at one end. Another work in the same form is about thirty-five feet long and between these embankments are two conical mounds.
On the northeast quarter of Section 6, Township 22, Range 4, in the Town of Caledonia, is an old village site, and another village was located on the shore of Lake Michigan, about two and a half miles southeast of Tabor Station, on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. A little south of this is an old burying ground. Around these places have been found arrow and spear heads of flint and a number of other interesting relies.
Near the center of Raymond Township, in the northwest cor- ner of Section 15, a short distance west of the South Fork of the Root River, are two small mounds, and in the north half of Sec-
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
tion 3, near the Milwaukee County line, stone axes, flint arrow points and other implements of stone have been found in abun- dance. On this site the Potawatomi Indians onee had a cornfield.
In the Town of Norway, in Section 8, Township 20, Range 4, on the west shore of Wind Lake, were five mounds known as the "Lapham Group," but they are now almost obliterated. In See- tion 17 of the same township an old village site was discovered and a number of stone axes, arrow points, cte., collected. This was a favorite camping spot of the Potawatomi. Sentinel Mound, at the extreme southwestern extremity of Lake Wanbeesee, in Section 18, was originally fourteen feet in diameter and nearly four feet high, and in Section 19, about a mile and a half farther southwest, are the remains of the Indian Hill Mounds, two in number, each thirty feet in diameter and three feet high. In the southwest quarter of Section 8 are the Larson Mounds, and in the northwest quarter of the same section are the Bensene Mounds, both small.
On the bank of the Fox River, near the City of Burlington, was found by Dr. Lapham a series of mounds in irregular forma- tion, the largest of which was ten feet high and fifty feet in diam- eter, connected with the adjoining mound by an embankment. West of Burlington can be seen the remains of an oval enclosure around which large numbers of arrow points, stone axes and other relies have been gathered by collectors. At the junction of the Fox and White Rivers are three mounds from four to six rods apart, forming a triangle. The largest is six feet high and twenty feet in diameter, and the two smaller ones are each about three feet high and fifteen feet in diameter. In these mounds were found several implements of obsidian - a material not to be found in Wisconsin, the nearest deposits being over one thousand miles away.
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