USA > Wisconsin > Columbia County > The history of Columbia county, Wisconsin, containing an account of its settlement > Part 50
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* The epelling of the name as here given is the same as that adopted by the indomitable Canadian himself-with two I's and onet : not with one land one t (Joliet ), as is usually eeen in print .- En.
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This was in the year 1672. Said the governor, on the 2d of November: " It has been judged expedient to send Sieur Jolliet to the Maskouteins [Mascoutins], to discover the South Sea, and the great river they call the Mississippi, which is supposed to discharge itself into the Sea of California," " He is a man," continues Frontenac, " of great experience in these sorts of discoveries, and has already been almost at the great river, the mouth of which he promises to see."
Jolliet passed up the lakes, and, on the 17th of May, 1673 (having with him Father James Marquette and five others), started from the mission of St. Ignatius, a point north of the Island of Mackinaw, in the present county of that name in the State of Michigan, journeying in two bark canoes, firmly resolved to do all and to suffer all for the glory of re-discovering the Mississippi. Every possible precaution was taken that, should the undertaking prove hazardous. it should not be foolhardy; so, whatever of information could be gathered from the Indians who had frequented those parts, was laid under contribution, before paddling merrily over the waters to the westward, and up Green Bay to the mouth of Fox River. The first Indian nation met by Jolliet was the Menomonees. He was dissuaded by them from venturing so far into ulterior regions, assured that he would meet tribes which never spare strangers, but tomahawk them without provocation; that the war which had broken out among various nations on his route, exposed him and his men to another evident danger-that of being killed by the war parties constantly in the path; that the "great river" was very dangerous unless the difficult parts were known; that it was full of frightful monsters who swallowed up men and canoes together ; that there was even a demon there, who could be heard from afar, who stopped the passage and engulfed all who dared approach ; and lastly, that the heat was so excessive in those countries, that it would infallibly cause their deaths. Nevertheless, Jolliet determined to persevere; so he ascended Fox River to the portage, he and his companions being the first white men to set foot upon any portion of the territory now constituting Columbia County.
Jolliet found the Fox River very beautiful at its mouth, having a gentle current. It was full of bustards, duck, teal and other birds, attracted by wild oats which were plentiful and of which they were very fond. As the party advanced up the river a little distance, it was found to be difficult of ascent, both on account of the currents and of the sharp rocks which cut their canoes. Nevertheless, the rapids in the stream were passed in safety, when the party not long after came to the nation of the Mascoutins. In their village were also gathered two other tribes -the Miamis and Kickapoos. The Miamis were found to be civil in their deportment. They wore two long ear-locks which gave them a good appearance. They had the name of being warriors, and seldom sent out war parties in vain. They were found very docile, disposed to listen quietly to what was said to them. The Mascoutins and the Kickapoos, however, were rude and more like peasants, compared to the Miamis. Bark for cabins was found to be rare in this village, the Indians using rushes, which served them for walls and roof, but which were no great shelter against the wind and still less against the rain when it fell in torrents. The advantage of that kind of cabins was that they could be rolled up and easily carried whenever it suited these Indians in hunting-time.
The view from the Indian village was beautiful and very picturesque, for, from the emi- nence on which it was perched, the eye discovered on every side delightful prairies, spreading away beyond its reach, interspersed with thickets or groves of lofty trees. The soil was found to be very good, producing much corn. Plums, also, and grapes were gathered in the autumn in quantities by the Indians.
The arrival of Jolliet and his party at the village of the Mascoutins, was on the 7th of June; their departure was on the 10th.
"We knew," wrote Father Marquette, "that there was, three [thirty ] leagues from Mas- koutens [Mascoutins], a river entering into the Mississippi; we knew, too, that the point of the compass we were to hold to reach it was west, southwest, but the way is so cut up by marshes and little lakes that it is easy to go estray, especially as the river leading to it is so covered with wild oats that you can hardly discover the channel. Hence, we had good need of our
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two [Miami] guides who led us safely to a portage of twenty-seven hundred paces [the site now occupied by the city of Portage], and helped us to transport our canoes to enter this river [Wisconsin], after which they returned, leaving us alone in an unknown country in the hands of Providence.
"We now leave," continues Marquette, "the waters which flow to Quebec, a distance of four or five hundred leagues, to follow those which will henceforth lead us into strange lands. Before embarking, we all began together a new devotion to the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, which we practiced every day, addressing her particular prayers to put under her protection both our persons and the success of our voyage. Then after having encouraged one another. we got into our canoes. The river on which we embarked is called Meskousing [Wisconsin : ] it. is very broad, with a sandy bottom, forming many shallows, which render navigation very dif- ficult. It is full of vine-clad islets. On the banks appear fertile lands diversified with wood, prairie and hill. Here you find oaks, walnut, whitewood, and another kind of tree with branches armed with thorns. We saw no small game or fish, but deer and moose in considera- ble numbers."
On the 17th of June, with a joy that was inexpressible, Jolliet and his party entered the Mississippi. After dropping down the "great river" many miles, Jolliet returned to Green Bay, thence to Quebec, to report his discovery and explorations to the Governor of New France.
EARLY VISITS TO WHAT IS NOW COLUMBIA COUNTY.
Not many years elapsed after the visit of Jolliet and his companions to the portage, before the narrow neck of land connecting the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, in what is now Columbia County, was again crossed by civilized man. Louis Hennepin, a Recollet friar, and his party, as a detail from La Salle's expedition to the Illinois, reached the portage in 1680, on his way from the Upper Mississippi to the great lakes, passing up the Wisconsin and down the Fox River to Green Bay. He says:
" After we had rowed about seventy leagues upon the river Ouisconsin [Wisconsin], we came to the place where we were forced to carry our canoe for half a league. We lay at this place all night, and left marks of our having been there by the crosses which we cut on the barks of the trees. Next day, having carried our canoe and the rest of our little equipage over this piece of land [the portage], we entered upon a river [the Fox] which makes almost as many meanders as that of the Illinois at its rise."
Le Sueur and his party made the portage in 1683, on his way to the Mississippi.
" About forty-five leagues up this river [the Wisconsin], on the right, is a portage, of more than a league in length. The half of this portage is a bog ; at the end of this portage, there is a little river [the Fox] that falls into a bay called the Bay of the Puans [Green Bay ], inhabited by a great number of nations that carry their furs to Canada."
In 1766, Jonathan Carver made a voyage to St. Anthony's Falls, by way of the portage, from the East. Of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and the carrying place [the portage] he wrote :
" The Fox River, from the Green Bay to the carrying place, is about one hundred and eighty miles. From the Winnebago Lake to the carrying place, the current is gentle, and the depth of it considerable; notwithstanding which, in some places, it is with difficulty that canoes can pass through the obstructions they meet with from the rice-stalks, which are very large and thick, and grow here in great abundance. The country around it is very fertile, and proper in the highest degree for cultivation, excepting in some places near the river, where it is rather too low. It is in no part very woody, and yet can supply sufficient to answer the demands of any number of inhabitants. This river is the greatest resort for wild fowl of every kind that I met with in the whole course of my travels ; frequently the sun would be obscured by them for some minutes together.
" About forty miles up this river from the great town of the Winnebagoes, stands a smaller town, belonging to that nation.
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" Deer and bears are very numerous in these parts, and a great many beavers and other furs are taken on the streams that empty themselves into this river. The river I am treating of is remarkable for having been, about eighty years ago, the residence of the united bands of the Ottigaumies and the Saukies, whom the French had nicknamed, according to their wonted custom Des Sacs, and Des Reynards-the Sacs and the Foxes. About twelve miles before I reached the carrying place, I observed several small mountains, which extended quite to it. These, indeed, would only be esteemed as mole-hills when compared with those on the back of the colonies ; but as they were the first I had seen since my leaving Niagara, a track of nearly eleven hundred miles, I could not leave them unnoticed.
" The Fox River, where it enters the Winnebago Lake, is about fifty yards wide, but it gradually decreases to the carrying place, where it is no more than five yards over, except in a few places, where it widens into small lakes, though still of a considerable depth. I cannot recollect anything else that is remarkable in this river, except that it is so serpentine for five miles as only to gain in that place one-quarter of a mile.
"The carrying place, between the Fox and Quisconsin Rivers, is in breadth not more than a mile and three-quarters, though in some maps it is so delineated as to appear to be ten miles. Near one-half of the way between the rivers is a morass overgrown with a kind of long grass ; the rest of it a plain, with some few oak and pine trees growing thercon. I observed here a great number of rattlesnakes. I observed that the main body of the Fox River came from the southwest, that of the Ouisconsin from the northeast; and, also, that some of the small branches of these two rivers, in descending into them, doubled within a few feet of each other, a little to the south of the carrying place. That two such rivers should take their rise so near cach other, and, after running such different courses, empty themselves into the sea at a distance so amazing (for the former, having passed through several great lakes and run upward of two thousand miles, falls into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other, after joining the Mississippi and run an equal number of miles, disembogues itself into the Gulf of Mexico). is an instance scarcely to be met in the extensive continent of North America. I had an oppor- tunity, the year following, of making the same observations on the affinity of various head branches of the waters of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi to each other; and now bring them as a proof that the opinion of those geographers who assert that rivers taking their rise so near each other must spring from the same source, is erroneous. For I perceived a visibly distinct separation in all of them, notwithstanding, in some places, they appeared so near that I could have stepped from one to the other.
On the Sth of October, we got our canoes into the Ouisconsin River, which at this place is more than a hundred yards wide; and the next day arrived at the great town of the Saukies. This is the largest and best-built Indian town I ever saw. It contains about ninety houses. each large enough for several families. These are built of hewn plank, neatly jointed and covered with bark so compactly as to keep out the most penetrating rains. Before the doors are placed comfortable sheds, in which the inhabitants sit, when the weather will permit, and smoke their pipes. The streets are regular and spacious ; so that it appears more like a civilized town than the abode of savages. The land near the town is very good. In their plantations, which lie adjacent to their houses, and which are neatly laid out, they raise great quantities of Indian corn, beans, melons, etc., so that this place is esteemed the best market for traders to furnish themselves with provisions, of any within eight hundred miles of it.
" The Saukies can raise about three hundred warriors, who are generally employed every summer in making incursions into the territories of the Illinois and Pawnee nations, from whence they return with a great number of slaves. But those people frequently retaliate, and in their turn destroy many of the Saukies, which I judge to be the reason that they increase no faster.
" Whilst I stayed here, I took a view of some mountains that lie about fifteen miles to the southward, and abound in lead ore. I ascended one of the highest of thesc, and had an exten- sive view of the country. For many miles nothing was to be seen but lesser mountains, which appeared at a distance like hay cocks, they being free from trees. Only a few groves of hickory
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and stunted oaks covered some of the valleys. So plentiful is lead here, that I saw large quantities of it lying about the streets in the town belonging to the Saukies, and it seemed to be as good as the product of other countries.
" On the 10th of October, we proceeded down the river, and the next day reached the first town of the Ottigaumies. This town contained about fifty houses, but we found most of them deserted, on account of an epidemical disorder that had lately raged among them and carried off more than half of the inhabitants. The greater part of those who survived had retired into woods to avoid the contagion.
" On the 15th, we entered that extensive river, the Mississippi. The Ouisconsin, from the carrying place to the part where it falls into the Mississippi, flows with a smooth but a strong current ; the water of it is exceedingly clear, and through it you may perceive a fine and sandy bottom, tolerably free from rocks. In it are a few islands, the soil of which appeared to be good, though somewhat woody. The land near the river also seemed to be, in general, excellent ; but that at a distance is very full of mountains, where it is said there are many lead mines."
The Wisconsin River was visited by Maj. S. H. Long in 1817, and again in 1823. He says : "The Wisconsin River, from its magnitude and importance, deserves a high rank among the trib- utaries of the Mississippi. When swollen by a freshet, it affords an easy navigation for boats of considerable burden through a distance of more than one hundred and eighty miles. [The actual distance to the portage is but 118 miles.] Its current is rapid, and, like the Mississippi, it embosoms innumerable islands. In a low stage of water, its navigation is obstructed by numer- ous shoals and sand-banks. At the distance from its mouth above mentioned [which is too great an estimate by over sixty miles], there is a portage of one mile and a half across a flat meadow, which is occasionally subject to inundation, to a branch of Fox River of Green Bay, thus affording another navigable communication which boats have been known to pass."
In 1819, the Fifth Regiment of United States Infantry made the voyage from Fort How- ard, near Green Bay, to Prairie du Chien by the way of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, crossing the portage. Capt. Henry Whiting, of that regiment, says : "The Fox River, from Lake Winnebago to the portage, has always a strong current, and is often entirely overgrown with grass and wild rice, but presents no other impediments. It winds through a narrow prairie, bordered by oak openings and undulating lands, generally of a beautiful appearance, but prob- ably not remarkably rich in their soil, which, wherever the river washes them, seems to be a sandy, reddish loam. The portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers is about two thou- sand five hundred yards ; the road runs over a marshy prairie. There is a Frenchman [Francis Le Roy ] residing on the rising ground between the rivers. He keeps the proper transportation for boats and baggage. The limestone bluffs and highlands begin on the Wisconsin about eight miles below the portage. Just above Prairie du Sac appears to be the apex of the highland of that river, and the head of the great valley through which it winds."
THE PORTAGE FROM 1793 TO 1827.
In 1792-93, Laurent Barth and family (French Canadians) wintered on the St. Croix River, with James Portier and Charles Reaume. On his return East, in the spring of 1793, with his family, he stopped at the portage and obtained permission from the Indians to trans- port goods at the carrying-place-that is, from the Fox to the Wisconsin Rivers. On his arrival, he built a cabin at the portage, the first one ever erected by a white man within the present limits of Columbia County. Its locality was somewhere on the low land between the two rivers; the exact site is unknown ; it was probably within what are now the boundaries of the city of Portage, and southeast of the canal. Barth, finding the spot occasionally sub- merged by water from the Wisconsin, during floods in that stream, removed the next year to the high ground above.
Shortly afterward, the elder De-kau-ry, a French trader, made his appearance from Lake Puckaway, and founded an Indian settlement on the Wisconsin, two miles above the portage. Others followed, and it grew to comparative size and importance.
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HISTORY OF COLUMBIA COUNTY.
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The next white resident at the portage was John Lecuyer, a brother-in-law of De-kau-ry ; he stopped there in 1798. Competition and improvement are not things of to-day only. Lecuyer, too, gained permission of the Winnebagoes to transport goods. Barth had used but a single horse and cart ; but Lecuyer brought several teams and carts, with the addition of a wagon constructed with a long reach, to transport barges between the rivers. Augustin Grig- non spent the winters of 1801 and 1802 at this point, and James Portier early passed two cr three.
About 1803, Mr. Campbell-later the first Indian agent at Prairie du Chien-purchased Barth's right. Shortly afterward, he sold his fixtures to Lecuyer, who supposed that he was relinquishing the business. But he placed his son John, and afterward his son Duncan, at the east end of the portage. Barth removed to Prairie du Chien and died there, at the opening of the war of 1812. Campbell was killed in a duel in 1808. Lecuyer died in 1810. His widow continued the transportation business through the agency of Laurent Filly, until the British war broke out, when Francis LeRoy, a son of Joseph LeRoy, of Green Bay, became her son-in- law and carried on the business.
LeRoy was at the portage in 1817, and charged $10 for taking a boat from one river to the other. His price for carrying goods across was 50 cents per 100 pounds. After the war, Joseph Rolette was also engaged for a brief period in the transportation business, employing Peter Pauquette as manager.
During the years of which we have been writing, the portage was a point of some conse- quence as a trading-post. Barth kept no goods for sale to the Indians after he had disposed of the remnant of stock which he brought from the St. Croix, but Lecuyer always kept a consider- able variety. His widow, and, after her, LeRoy, had smaller quantities, and Campbell sold goods during one year.
In 1814, Col. McKay, of the British army, came up the Fox, from Green Bay, with a large force of whites and Indians, crossed the portage, descended the Wisconsin and captured the post at Prairie du Chien.
In 1818, William Farnsworth, who subsequently resided at Sheboygan, accompanied by twenty others, traveled from Green Bay to St. Louis by these rivers and the Mississippi.
In 1819, the Fifth Regiment of United States Infantry (as already related) crossed the portage on their way from Fort Howard to Prairie du Chien, when Francis LeRoy was still found as a resident of the carrying-place. He lived upon the high ground, northwest of what is now the canal, in the city of Portage, and was engaged in the transportation business between the two rivers. He remained there a number of years longer.
Ebenezer Childs records making the same trip in a bark canoe, in 1821. He conducted the first Durham boat that ever went up the Fox and over the portage.
In 1826, a flotilla of thirty-five boats carried the Third United States Infantry from Green Bay to St. Louis, by the same streams and crossing.
In 1827, Gen. Cass passed over this route to ascertain the feeling among the Winneba- goes toward the United States Government.
THE "WINNEBAGO WAR."
In' the carly part of the year 1827, a party of twenty-four Chippewas, being on their way to Fort Snelling, at the mouth of St. Peter's River, were surprised and attacked by a war-party of the Winnebagocs ; and eight of them were killed. The commandant of the United States troops at the fort took four of the offending Winnebagoes prisoners, and (certainly with great impru- dence) delivered them into the hands of the exasperated Chippewas, who immediately put them to death. This act was greatly resented by a chief of the Winnebagoes, named " Red Bird," and in addition to this source of enmity was to be added the daily encroachment of the whites in the lead region ; for at this time they had overrun the mining country from Galena to the Wisconsin River. In the spirit of revenge for the killing of the four Winnebagoes, Red Bird
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led a war-party against the Chippewas, by whom he was defeated, and thus, having been disap- pointed, he turned the force of his resentment against the whites, whom he considered as having not only invaded his country, but as having aided and abetted his enemies in the destruction of his people.
Some time previously, a murder by the Winnebagoes had been committed in the family of a Mr. Methode, near Prairie du Chien, in which several persons had been killed. It was appar- ent that a spirit of enmity between the Indians and the whites was effectually stirred up; and. for the first time since the war of 1812, disturbances were daily looked for by the settlers and miners.
On the 28th of June, 1827. Red Bird, We-Kaw, and three of their companions, entered the house of Registre Gagnier, about three miles from Prairie du Chien, where they remained several hours. At last, when Mr. Gagnier least expected it, Red Bird leveled his gun, and shot him dead on his hearthstone. A person in the building, by the name of Sip Cap, who was a hired man, was slain at the same time by We-Kaw. Madame Gagnier turned to fly with her infant of eighteen months. As she was about to leap through the window, the child was torn from her arms by We-Kaw, stabbed, scalped, and thrown violently on the floor as dead.
The murderer then attacked the woman, but gave way when she snatched up a gun that was leaning against the wall, and presented it to his breast. She then effected her escape. Her eldest son, a lad of ten years, also shunned the murderers ; and they both arrived in the village at the same time. The alarm was soon given ; but, when the avengers of blood arrived at Gagnier's house, they found in it nothing living but his mangled infant. It was carried to the village, and, incredible as it may seem, it recovered.
Red Bird and his companions immediately proceeded from the scene of their crime to the rendezvous of their band. During their absence, thirty-seven of the warriors who acknowl- edged the authority of Red Bird, had assembled, with their wives and children, near the moutlı of the Bad Axe River. They received the murderers with joy, and loud approbation of their exploit. A keg of liquor which they had secured was set abroach ; and the red men began to drink, and, as their spirits rose, to boast of what they had already done and intended to do. Two days did they continue to revel ; and on the third the source of their excitement gave out. They were, at abont four in the afternoon, dissipating the last fumes of their excitement in the scalp- dance, when they descried one of the keel-boats, which had a few days before passed up the river with provisions for the troops at Fort Snelling, on her return in charge of Mr. Lindsay. Forth- with a proposal to take her, and massacre the crew, was made, and carried by acclamation. They counted upon doing this without risk ; for they had examined her on the way up, and supposed there were no arms on board.
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