The history of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Part 3

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 1082

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" Upon the borders of Green bay," wrote the Jesuit, Paul le Jeune, in 1640, " are the Meno- monees; still farther on, the Winnebagoes, a sedentary people, and very numerous. Some Frenchmen," he continues, "call them the 'Nation of the Stinkards,' because the Algonquin word Winipeg signifies 'stinking water.' Now they thus call the water of the sea ; therefore, these people call themselves ' Winnebagoes,' because they came from the shores of a sea of which we have no knowledge ; consequently we must not call them the 'Nation of Stinkards,' but the ' Nation of the Sea.'" From these Men of the Sea, Nicolet passed westward, ascended Fox river of Green Bay, until nigh the portage to the Wisconsin, down which stream he could have floated easily to the Mississippi, the "great water" of his guides, which he mistook for the sea. This adventurous Frenchman, when so near re-discovering the river which has given immortality to De Soto, turned his face to the eastward ; retraced his steps to Green bay, and finally returned in safety to Quebec. This was the first exploration of what is now Wisconsin- only fourteen years after the landing of the Pilgrims upon the wild shores of New England.

Wisconsin, for twenty-four years after its discovery, was left to its savage inhabitants. At length, in 1658, two daring fur traders penetrated to Lake Superior, and wintered there. They probably set foot upon what is now Wisconsin soil, as they made several trips among the sur- rounding tribes. They saw, among other things, at six days' journey beyond the lake, toward the southwest, Indians that the Iroquois had driven from their homes upon the eastern shores of Lake Huron. These Frenchmen heard of the ferocious Sioux, and of a great river-not the sea, as Nicolet had supposed-on which they dwelt. This was the Mississippi; and to these traders is the world indebted for a knowledge of its existence; as De Soto's discovery was never used, and soon became well-nigh, if not entirely, forgotten. From these upper countries, in the Sum- mer of 1660, the two returned to Quebec, with three hundred Indians in sixty canoes, laden with peltry. This was, indeed, the dawn-though exceedingly faint-of what is now the commerce of the great Northwest. Nineteen years after flashed a more brilliant light; for, in 1679, the "Griffin," laden with furs, left one of the islands at the mouth of Green bay, on its return- spreading her sails for Niagara, but never more to be heard of.

Following in the footsteps of the fur traders came the Jesuit missionaries to Lake Superior ; one of them, Father Menard, as early as 1660, reaching its southern shore as far to the westward, probably, as Kewenaw, in the present State of Michigan. There is no positive evidence, however, that he or his French companions, visited any portion of what is now Wisconsin; although the next year, 1661, some of his associates probably passed down the Menomonee river to Green bay. Following Menard came Father Claude Allouez, arriving on the first day of October, 1665, at "Chagowamigong," or "Chegoimegon," now Chequamegon, or Ashland Bay, " at the bottom of which," wrote the missionary, " is situated the great villages of the savages, who there plant their fields of Indian corn, and lead a stationary life." Near by he erected a small chapel of bark-the

PRE-TERRITORIAL ANNALS OF WISCONSIN.

first structure erected by civilized man in Wisconsin. At La Pointe, in the present Ashland county, he established the mission of the Holy Ghost.

The next Catholic mission in what is now Wisconsin was that of St. Francis Xavier, founded also by Allouez. Upon the second of December, 1669, he first attended to his priestly devotions upon the waters of Green bay. This mission, for the first two years of its existence, was a migratory one. The surrounding tribes were all visited, including the Pottawattamies, Menom- onees, Winnebagoes, and Sacs and Foxes. However, in 1671, one hundred and five years before the Declaration of Independence, there was erected, at what is now Depere, Brown county, a chapel for the mission of St. Francis Xavier. Thus early did the Jesuit Fathers, in their plain garbs and unarmed, carry the cross to many of the benighted heathen occupying the country circumscribed by Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior, and the "great river "-the Mississippi.

French domination in Wisconsin dates from the year 1671, the very year in which it seems the indomitable LaSalle, upon his first expedition, passed the mouth of Green bay, but did not enter it. France then took formal possession of the whole of the country of the upper lakes. By this time, the commerce with the western tribes had so attached them to her interests that she determined to extend her power to the utmost limits-vague and indeterminate as they were-of Canada. An agent-Daumont de St. Lusson-was dispatched to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of Ste. Mary, between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The invitation was extended far and near. The principal chiefs of Wisconsin tribes, gathered by Nicolas Perrot in Green bay, were present at the meeting. Then and there, with due ceremony, it was announced that the great Northwest was placed under the protection of the French government. And why not? She had discovered it- had to a certain extent explored it-had to a limited extent established commerce with it-and her missionaries had proclaimed the faith to the wondering savages. But none of her agents-none of the fur- traders-none of the missionaries-had yet reached the Mississippi, the " great river," concerning which so many marvels had been heard, although it is claimed that, in 1669, it had been seen by the intrepid La Salle. But the time for its discovery, or properly re-discovery, was at hand, if, indeed, it can be called, with propriety, a re-discovery, since its existence to the westward was already known to every white man particularly interested in matters appertaining to the North- west. Now, however, for the first time, its upper half was to be, to a certain extent, explored. For the first time, a white man was to behold its vast tribute, above the Illinois river, rolling onward toward the Mexican gulf. Who was that man ? His name was Louis Joliet; with him was Father James Marquette.

Born at Quebec, in 1645, educated by the Jesuits, and first resolving to be a priest, then turning fur-trader, Joliet had, finally, been sent with an associate to explore the copper mines of Lake Superior. He was a man of close and intelligent observation, and possessed considerable mathematical acquirements. At this time, 1673, he was a merchant, courageous, hardy, enter- prising. He was appointed by French authorities at Quebec to " discover " the Mississippi. He passed up the lakes to Mackinaw, and found at Point St. Ignace, on the north side of the strait, Father James Marquette, who readily agreed to accompany him. Their outfit was very simple: two birch-bark canoes and a supply of smoked meat and Indian corn. They had a company of five men with them, beginning their voyage on the seventeenth of May, 1673. Passing the straits, they coasted the northern shores of Lake Michigan, moved up Green bay and Fox river to the portage. They crossed to the Wisconsin, down which they paddled their frail canoes, until, on the seventeenth of June, they entered-" discovered "-the Mississippi. So the northern, the eastern and the western boundary of what is now Wisconsin had been reached at this date ; therefore, it may be said that its territory had been explored sufficiently for the forming of a

HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.

pretty correct idea of its general features as well as of its savage inhabitants. After dropping down the Mississippi many miles, Joliet and Marquette returned to Green bay, where the latter remained to recruit his exhausted strength, while Joliet descended to Quebec, to report his "discoveries" to his superiors.

Then followed the expedition of LaSalle to the west, from the St. Lawrence, when, in 1679, he and Father Louis Hennepin coasted along the western shore of Lake Michigan, frequently landing ; then, the return of Henri de Tonty, one of LaSalle's party down the same coast to Green bay, in 1680, from the Illinois; the return, also, the same year, of Hennepin, from up the Mis- sissippi, whither he had made his way from the Illinois, across what is now Wisconsin, by the Wisconsin and Fox rivers to Green bay, in company with DuLhut, or DuLuth, who, on his way down the " great river " from Lake Superior, had met the friar ; and then, the voyage, in 1683, from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi river, by the same route, of LeSueur, and his subsequent establishment at La Pointe, in what is now Ashland county, Wisconsin, followed several years after by a trip up the Mississippi. The act of Daumont de St. Lusson, at the Sault Sainte Mary, in 1671, in taking possession of the country beyond Lake Michigan, not being regarded as suffi- ciently definite, Nicolas Perrot, in 1689, at Green bay, again took possession of that territory, as well as of the valleys of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and extending the dominion of New France over the country on the Upper Mississippi, and "to other places more remote." The voyage of St. Cosme, in 1699, when he and his companions frequently landed on the west coast of Lake Michigan, upon what is now territory of Wisconsin, completed the explorations in the west for the seventeenth century.

Following in the footsteps of early explorations, of self sacrificing attempts of the Jesuits to carry the cross to the wild tribes of the West, of the first visits of the lawless coureurs de bois, was the military occupation-if such it can be called-of what is now Wisconsin by the French. The ninety years of domination by France in this region were years of only nominal possession. The record of this occupation is made up of facts concerning the Indian policy of the French rulers; their contests with the Sacs and Foxes; their treaties, at various times, with different tribes ; their interest in, and protection of, the fur trade, and kindred subjects. The Indian tribes were, at most, only the allies of France. Posts-mere stockades without cannon, more for protection to fur-traders than for any other purpose-were erected upon the Mississippi at two points at least, upon what is now territory of Wisconsin. On the west side of Fox river of Green bay, "half a league from its mouth," was a French post, as early as 1721, where resided, besides the commandant and an uncouth squad of soldiers, a Jesuit missionary ; and near by were collected Indians of different tribes. Of course, the omnipresent fur-trader helped to augment the sum-total of its occupants. This post was, not long after, destroyed, but another was established there. When, however, France yielded her inchoate rights in the West to Great Britain-when, in 1761, the latter took possession of the country-there was not a French post within what is now Wisconsin. The " fort " near the head of Green bay, had been vacated for some years; it was found " rotten, the stockade ready to fall, and the houses without cover;" emblematic of the decay-the fast-crumbling and perishing state-of French supremacy, at that date, in America. Wisconsin, when England's control began, was little better than a howling wilderness. There was not within the broad limits of what is now the State, a single bona fide settler, at the time the French Government yielded up its possession to the English ; that is to say, there were none according to the present acceptation of the term "settler."

The military occupation of Wisconsin by the British, after the Seven Years' War, was a brief one. La Bay-as the post at what is now the city of Fort Howard. Brown county, was called- was, on the twelfth of October, 1761, taken possession of by English troops, under Captain Belfour, of the Eightieth regiment. Two days after, that officer departed, leaving Lieutenant

PRE-TERRITORIAL ANNALS OF WISCONSIN.

James Gorrell, in command, with one sergeant, one corporal and fifteen privates. There also remained at the post a French interpreter and two English traders. The name of the fortifica- tion was changed to Fort Edward Augustus. This post was abandoned by the commandant on the twenty-first of June, 1763, on account of the breaking out of Pontiac's War and the capture of the fort at Mackinaw by the savages. The cause of this war was this: The Indian tribes saw the danger which the downfall of the French interests in Canada was sure to bring to them. They banded together under Pontiac to avert their ruin. The struggle was short but fierce -- full of " scenes of tragic interest, with marvels of suffering and vicissitude, of heroism and endur- ance; " but the white man conquered. The moving incidents in this bloody drama were enacted to the eastward of what is now Wisconsin, coming no nearer than Mackinaw, which, as just mentioned, the savages captured; but it resulted in the evacuation of its territory by British troops, who never after took possession of it, though they continued until 1796 a nominal military rule over it, after Mackinaw was again occupied by them.

An early French Canadian trading station at the head of Green bay assumed finally the form of a permanent settlement-the first one in Wisconsin. To claim, however that any French Canadian is entitled to the honor of being the first permanent white settler is assuming for him more than the facts seem to warrant. The title of "The Father and Founder of Wis- consin " belongs to no man.

After Pontiac's War, one of the noted events in this region was the journey of Jonathan Carver, who, in 1766, passed up Fox river to the portage, and descended the Wisconsin to the Mississippi. He noticed the tumbling-down post at what is now Green Bay, Brown county. He saw a few families living in the fort, and some French settlers, who cultivated the land opposite, and appeared to live very comfortably. That was the whole extent of improvements in what is now Wisconsin. The organization of the Northwest Fur Company ; the passage of an act by the British Parliament by which the whole Northwest was included in the Province of Quebec; the joining of the Indians in this region with the British, against the Americans, in the War of the Revolution; the exploration of the lead region of the Upper Mississippi by Julian Dubuque ; the passage of the ordinance of 1787; the first settlement of the territory northwest of the River Ohio; and the Indian war which followed, are all incidents, during British occu- pation, of more or less interest for the student of Wisconsin history. He will find that, by the treaty of 1783 and of 1795, with Great Britain, all the inhabitants residing in this region were to be protected by the United States in the full and peaceable possession of their property, with the right to remain in, or to withdraw from it, with their effects, within one year. All who did not leave were to be deemed American citizens, allowed to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship, and to be under the protection of the General Government. He will also find that less than two years was the whole time of actual military occupation of what is now Wisconsin by British soldiers, and that English domination, which should have ended at the close of the Revolu- tion, was arbitrarily continued until the Summer of 1796, when the western posts, none of which were upon territory circumscribed by Lakes Michigan and Superior and the Mississippi river, were delivered into the keeping of the United States. Thus the supremacy of Great Britain over the Northwest was, after an actual continuance of thirty-five years, at an end.

Although the General Government did not get possession of the region northwest of the Ohio, throughout its full extent, for thirteen years subsequent to its acquirement by the treaty of peace of 1783 with Great Britain, nevertheless, steps were taken, very soon, to obtain concessions from such of the colonies as had declared an ownership in any portion of it. None of the claimants, seemingly, had better rights than Virginia, who, by virtue of conquests, largely her own, of the Illinois settlements and posts, extended her jurisdiction over that country, erecting into a county

HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.

so much of the region northwest of the Ohio, as had been settled hy Virginians or might after- ward be settled by them. But as, previous to her yielding all rights to territory beyond that river, she had not carried her arms into the region north of the Illinois or made settlements upon what is now the soil of Wisconsin, nor included any portion of it within the bounds of an organ- ized county, it follows that her dominion was not actually extended over any part of the area included within the present boundaries of this State; nor did she then claim jurisdiction north of the Illinois river, but on the other hand expressly disclaimed it.

Virginia and all the other claimants finally ceded to the United States their rights, such as they were, beyond the Ohio, except two reservations of limited extent ; and the General Govern- ment became the undisputed owner of the "Great West," without any internal claims to posses- sion save those of the Indians. Meanwhile, the United States took measures to extend its juris- diction over the whole country by the passage of the famous ordinance of 1787, which established a government over "the territory of the United States, northwest of the River Ohio." But this organic law was, of course, nugatory over that portion of the region occupied by the British, until their yielding possession in 1796, when, for the first time, Anglo-American rule commenced, though nominally, in what is now Wisconsin. By the ordinance just mentioned, "the United States, in congress assembled," declared that the territory northwest of the Ohio should, for the purposes of temporary government, be one district, subject, however, to be divided into districts, as future circumstances might, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient. It was ordained that a governor, secretary and three judges should be appointed for the Territory ; a general assembly was also provided for ; and it was declared that religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged. It was also ordained that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, "otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Thus was established the first Magna Charta for the five great States since that time formed out of "the territory northwest of the River Ohio," and the first rules and regulations for their government.

Under this act of Congress, Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor of the Northwestern Territory, as it was called, and Samuel H. Parsons, James M. Varnum, and John Armstrong, judges,-the latter not accepting the office, John Cleves Symmes was appointed in his place. Winthrop Sargeant was appointed secretary. At different periods, counties were erected to include various portions of the Territory. By the governor's proclamation of the 15th of August, 1796, one was formed to include the whole of the present area of Northern Ohio, west of Cleveland ; also, all of what is now the State of Indiana, north of a line drawn from Fort Wayne " west-northerly to the southern part of Lake Michigan ;" the whole of the present State of Michigan, except its extreme northwest corner on Lake Superior ; a small corner in the north- east, part of what is now Illinois, including Chicago; and so much of the present State of Wis- consin as is watered by the streams flowing into Lake Michigan, which of course included an extensive portion, taking in many of its eastern and interior counties as now constituted. This vast county was named Wayne. So the few settlers then at the head of Green bay had their local habitations, constructively at least, in "Wayne county, Northwestern Territory." It was just at that date that Great Britain vacated the western posts, and the United States took quiet possession of them. But the western portion of what is now Wisconsin, including all its territory watered by streams flowing northward into Lake Superior, and westward and southwestward into the Mississippi, was as yet without any county organization ; as the county of St. Clair, including the Illinois country to the southward, reached no farther north than the mouth of Little Macki- naw creek, where it empties into the River Illinois, in what is now the State of Illinois. The

Edward Pier

( DECEASED ) FOND DU LAC.

PRE-TERRITORIAL ANNALS OF WISCONSIN.

"law of Paris," which was in force under French domination in Canada, and which by the British Parliament in 1774, had been continued in force under English supremacy, was still " the law of the land " west of Lake Michigan, practically at least.

From and after the fourth day of July, 1800, all that part of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio river, which lay to the westward of a line beginning upon that stream opposite to the mouth of Kentucky river and running thence to what is now Fort Recovery in Mercer county, Ohio ; thence north until it intersected the territorial line between the United States and Canada, was, for the purposes of temporary government, constituted a separate territory called INDIANA. It included not only the whole of the present State of Illinois and nearly all of what is now Indiana, but more than half of the State of Michigan as now defined, also a considerable part of the present Minnesota, and the whole of what is now Wis- consin.

The seat of government was established at "Saint Vincennes on the Wabash," now the city of Vincennes, Indiana. To this extensive area was added "from and after" the admission of Ohio into the Union, all the territory west of that State, and east of the eastern boundary line of the Territory of Indiana as originally established ; so that now all "the territory of the United States, northwest of the River Ohio," was, excepting the State of Ohio, included in Indiana Ter- ritory. On the thirtieth day of June, 1805, so much of Indiana Territory as lay to the north of a line drawn east from the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan to Lake Erie, and east of a line drawn from the same bend through the middle of the first mentioned lake to its north- ern extremity, and thence due north to the northern boundary of the United States, was, for the purpose of temporary government, constituted a separate Territory called MICHIGAN. Of course no part of the present State of Wisconsin was included therein ; but the whole remained in the Territory of Indiana until the second day of March, 1809, when all that part of the last men- tioned Territory which lay west of the Wabash river, and a direct line drawn from that stream and " Post Vincennes," due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada, was, by an act approved on the third of February previous, constituted a separate Territory, called ILLINOIS. Meanwhile jurisdiction had been extended by the authorities of Indiana Territory over the country lying west of Lake Michigan, to the extent, at least, of appointing a justice of the peace for each of the settlements of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. All of what is now Wisconsin was transferred to the Territory of Illinois, upon the organization of the latter, except a small portion lying east of the meridian line drawn through Vincennes, which remained a part of Indiana Territory. This fraction included nearly the whole area between Green bay and Lake Michigan.

When, in 1816, Indiana became a State, "the territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio," contained, besides Ohio and Indiana, the Territories of Illinois and Michigan, only ; so the narrow strip, formerly a part of Indiana Territory, lying east of a line drawn due north from Vincennes, and west of the western boundary line of Michigan Territory, belonged to nei- ther, and was left without any organization. However, upon the admission of Illinois into the Union, in 1818, all "the territory of the United States, northwest of the River Ohio," lying west of Michigan Territory and north of the States of Indiana and Illinois, was attached to and made a part of Michigan Territory ; by which act the whole of the present State of Wisconsin came under the jurisdiction of the latter. During the existence of the Territory of Illinois, a kind of jurisdiction was had over the two settlements in what is now Wisconsin - rather more ideal than real, however.

In 1834, Congress greatly increased the limits of the Territory of Michigan, by adding to it. for judicial purposes, a large extent of country west of the Mississippi- reaching south as far as

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The history of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Part 3

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company Number of Pages: 1082

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 1082