.V '>'^a^ "^^ v^' ,\v •/>. \> . s ' ' ' ^^^ V^' "^^ v^ /\. .■v= ".X ■«• v. vO o. '^, .^^ .^:^ -n.. M " v^ ,0 .-v^ A ^^ -^ 0- V ^ ^T^ '^ '^ * ^ , V -* /\ .v^ 5t. '■ <■ ^0^^ ■\ 'p ^ -^^^^i\^ ■\ '^■i. ..■■■ ^ IX UNNAMED WISCONSIN STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE REGION BETWEEN LAKE MICHIGAN AND THE MISSISSIPPI J. N. DAVIDSON. A. M. TO WHICH IS APPENDED A OCT 3 ]im MEMOIR OF \Q^ MRS. HARRIET WOOD WHEELER Mll.WAI KKK, \V(S('().NSI.\ I'l'lU.ISlll.l) ItY SII.AS CHAI'M.VN IS!).". Copyright 1894 by J. N. DAVIDSON, f s^^ r)^^ PREFATORY NOTE. If, ill the pages that follow, sons and daughters of Wisconsin Hnd reason for deeper interest in the history of their own state, and for increase of honor- able civic pride, I shall be glad. But if any reader look for the indifference, real or affected, that treats of men and causes, good and bad, as if all were alike merely curious, he will surely count what I have written as most unphilos- ophical, if indeed he take the trouble to think about it. Most of my story is of a time when there was no Wisconsin ; when this region was only an undefined portion, first of New France and in part, perhaps, of Louisiana ; then of the province of Quebec ; next of Virginia, when she was passing from the condition of a colony to that of a state; then of the old Northwest Territory and, afterward, successively of Indiana. Illinois and Michigan. In the course of my study one thing has been made clear to me: They who first settled on this soil were not the founders of Wisconsin. There was a wide difference between those who would have had this region remain a part of Canada,- — whether under France or under Britain, — and those who established here the institutions of an American state. One thing I hope, — that good done by humble and unpretending men and women may, by these pages, become a little more widely known and that they who did it may receive somewhat more of honor. Their cheeks will not flush now, if we speak their praise. For one of them filial love has prepared a me- morial that is fittingly appended to the record herein given of her own and of others' faithful service. The knowledge that this work was in progress brought to the writer, even after the first few chapters had been sent to the press, certain material which, had it been found earlier, might have been better used. Hence, notwithstand- ing the awkwardness of so doing, there was reason to add some closing ])ara- graphs containing statements that properly belong in the narrative itself. Among those who, in Wisconsin's early days, came hither from a land that we can scarcely call foreign, was one who, by precept and by life, gave me a faith from which I have found no reason to depart; who taught me that "man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever;" who, without effort and almost unconsciously, showed me that the eternal things are as real as those that perish with the using; who, through all my life, has upheld me with a strong tenderness. They who read thus far will say "his mother," and to her, witliout permission, this book is dedicated with a son's reverent love. Two RiVKKs, Wisconsin, July, 1895. ILLUSTRATIONS AND FACSIMILES. RLV. CUTTING MARSH facing page 116. REV. .LEONARD HEMENWAY WHEELER facir|g page 165 MRS, HARRIET WOOD WHEELER facing page 229. FAG-SIMILE pages of Muh-hie-ka-ne-ev/ booklets. See end of volun^e. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION. Settlement of the Northwest Territory — Discovery of the Wisconsin region — Death of Jean Nicolet — Radisson and Groseillers — Their Discovery of the Upper Mississippi — Voyage on Lake Superior — Their "Foi"t" on Chequamegon Bay — Their Explorations in what is now Minnesota — Return to the French Settlements and Escape thence to Boston — They enter English .Service ..... 1_() CHAPTER II. EARLY MISSIONS. Renaliis Menard — His labors with the Ottawas — His death — Claude AUouez — Jacques Marquette — Mission at t)eY)ere — Proces-verbal at Sault Ste. Marie — Nicholas Perrot — Accusations against the Jesuits — Louis Hen- nepin — Coureurs de Bois — The Outagamies - - 7-lG CHAPTER III. THE OUTAGAMIE WAR. Plundering the Traders — "Siege of Detroit" — Attempted Destruction of the Outagamies — Building of Forts St. Francis and Beauharnois — A Sum- mer of Horrors — Effect of the Outagamie War - - 17-23 CHAPTER IV. END OF FRENCH DOMINION. Perriere Marin — Massacre of Outagamies — Treaty of Paris — The British take Possession of Green Bay — French Kings who ruled in the Wiscon- sin Region - - - - - - 24-27 CHAPTER V. RRITISH DOMINION. Keeping the Western Posts — The "'Quebec Act" — Carver's Travels — Lan- glade — Events of the Time of the Revolution- — Dr. Manasseh Cutler — Ordinance of 1787 — Settlement at Marrietta — Witchcraft — Slavery — Events of the War of 1812 — Amei-icans take Possession of the Wiscon- sin Region - - - - - - 28-44 CHAPTER VI. THE ION A OK OUR INLAND SEAS. Michilimackinac — David Bacon and his Mission Work — The American Fur Company — Expedition to the Pacific — Dr. Moi-se at Mackinaw — Mis- sion Re-established there — Appeal for a Mission among the Ojibways — Robert Stuart ...... 45-51 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. DR. MORSE AND HIS ERRAND IN THE WEST. First Protestant Service in what is now Wisconsin — Projected Indian Terri- tory — The "New York Indians" — John Metoxen - - 52-61 CHAPTER VIII. ONEIDAS AND THE BROTHERTOWNS. Samuel Kirkland — Eleazar Williams — John Clark — First Methodist Church- Building in Wisconsin — Samson Occoni ... 62-72 CHAPTER IX. THE MUH-HE-KA-NK-OK. Their Legendary History -^ Their Language — Settlement at Stockbridge, Mas- sachusetts — John Sei"geant — A Total Abstinence Movement — David Brainerd — Specimens of the Mohegan Language — British Gifts to the Stockbridge Mission — Wars with the French — Jonathan Edwards — Dr. Stephen West — John Sergeant, the Younger — Muh-he-ka-ne-ew Service in the Revolution — Removal to New York — Council in Indiana — Tate- pahqsect — Removal to Indiana - - - 73-108 CHAPTER X. STATESBURG AND STOCK I RIDGE. Removal from Indiana and New York to Fox river — The first Congregational Church in Wisconsin — Rev. Jesse Miner — First Protestant Church-Build- ing in Wisconsin — First School-Mistress here — Rev. Cutting Marsh — Commissioner McCall — The "Orchard party" of Oneidas — A Booklet and a Psalm in the Mohegan Language — Letter to Jefferson Davis — Mission Work Begun among the Sioux — An Indian Temperance Conven- tion — Letter by Chauncey Hall — Mission Trip beyond the Mississippi — Stockbridge (Wisconsin) Built — Capital Punishment by Indian Tribal Authority — The Muh-he-ka-ne-ok are made Citizens — Divisive Religious Movements — Removal to Shawano County — Present Condition of the Tribe 109-145 CHAPTER XI. AMONG THE OJIBWAYS. Legendary History — Trading-Station at La Pointe — Alexander Henry — The Cadottes and the Warrens — Alvin Coe and J. D. Stevens "Manner of Traveling on the Upper Waters of the Great Lakes " — Mission begun at La Pointe — Jeremiah Porter and W. T. Boutwell — Naming of Lake Itasca — First Book written here — First Organization of a COjOgregational Church in Wisconsin — Meeting-Houses at La Pointe, Congregational and Roman Catholic — Missions in Minnesota — Fight at Pokeguma — Mur- der of Benjamin Terry and Mrs. Spencer — Ojibway New Testament — Rev. L. H. Wheeler — Odanah founded — Mission Work by the Metho- dists — Rev. Alfred Brunson — Attempt to remove the Ojibways — Ef- fect of the War — Rev. Frederic Baraga — Death of Mr. Wheeler — Covenant of the Ojibway Churches - - - 146-174 CHAPTER XII. — BY THE MIZI SIBI. Louisiana — Religious Intolerance — Prairie du Cbien — Fort Crawford — Mr. Lockwood's Narrative — First Sunday-School in Wisconsin — Rev. Aratus rOXTENTS. vii Kent David Lowrey — Abolitionists from the South - 175-186 CHAPTER XIII. — AMONG THE MINES. An "Island in a Sea of Drift "— Discovery of Lead — The Winnebago War — Surrender of Red Bird — Dr. Newhall's Letter — Father Kent comes to Galena — Black Hawk and his "British Band "—War— Henry Dodge becomes Governor - - . - - - 187-200 CHAPTER XIV. — Wisconsin's open door. Permanent Settlement at Green Bay — British leave the place— Fort Howard — A.G. Ellis and other Early Teachers — First Methodist Services in the Green Bay. Region — Rev. R. F. Cadle - Episcopal Mission — Organiza- tion of the First Presbyterian Church of Green Bay - 201-20C CHAPTER XV. — FORT WINNEBAGO. Topography- "Wau-bun"— Rev. A. L. Barber — " Portage of the Siskoin- sin"— Transportation there - - - " 207-210 CHAPTER XVI. BY THE LAKE AND ON THE PRAIRIE. A Sloop of War at "Millwakey "—Threat by Robert Dickson— Joliet and Marquette — The Brothers La Framboise — Jacques Vieau — Juneau — Samuel Brown — Reports from the "Home Missionary "— Protestant Epis- copal Service at Milwaukee — J. F. Ostrander — Organization of the First Presbyterian Clmrch— First Protestant House of Worship for Whites in Wisconsin — Rev. Gilbert Crawford — Settlement of Racine — Scarcity of Food — Jesse Walker and Cyrus Nichols — Settlements formed at Kenosha and Beloit— Madison — Rev. -S. A. Dwinnell — His Account of Chicago and Wisconsin in 1836 211-226 APPENDIX. Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Wood Wheeler — Ancestry — Education — Marriage- Arrival at La Pointe — Work there — Guests — Covenant — Visit to Fond du Lac — Education of Children — Mr. Wheeler Founds Odanah— Mrs. Wheeler as Teacher- Anniversary Days — Winter at the Lowell Home- Small-pox at La Pointe and Odanah — Medical Service — Odanah Train- ing School — Reservations Saved for the Indians — Removal to Beloit— In- vention of Wind-Mill— Death of Mr. Wheeler and a Daughter — Mrs. Wheeler's Last Years— Her Injury and Death - 227-261 TRIBUTES. Memories of Home — Tribute of Mrs. Kennedy -Letter and Poem of Rev. H. C. Mc Arthur -Letter of Mrs. Mary Warren English -Of Mrs. M. E. Vaughn -Of Professor Whitney -Of Mrs. Anna S. Rogers — Of Dr. Roy _ Of Mrs. Mary H. Hull — A Neighbor's Message — From a Friend of Mrs. Wheeler's Last Years - - - 262 274 Biographical Sketches of Rev. Frederic Ayer and Rev. Cutting Marsh — Chauncey Hall -Additional Paragraphs -Corrections - 275 280 CHAPTEI\ I. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION. Not Ohio alone but the entire Northwest Territory received Christian civ- ilization when, 1788, April 7th, i the historic company of the second Mayflower landed at the mouth of the Muskingum. Marietta is a second Plymouth as, in some respects, Ohio is a second Massachusetts. For the possession of the great empire, part of which was thus entered upon, a series of wars lasting almost a century had been fought. We may call this the second War of a Hundred Years. Its beginning properly dates from the time when a great-grandson of William the Silent, representing the principles of his murdered ancestor, was crowned king in Westminster in 1689. The first Hundred Years' War, not- withstanding the brilliant victories of Edward the Black Prince, saw the Briton driven from the mainland of Europe ; in the second, the armies of the Fi^ench were driven from North America. The descendants of the men who conquered at Crecy and Poitiers were themselves victorious at Louisburg and Quebec. Then the struggle took a new aspect, and it was settled that those living in America should rule it. Britons and Protestants had founded a new nation of which Wisconsin is a part. Hence it comes to pass that we who dwell in Wis- consin are American, not Canadian ; Saxon, not French ; a fact that seems to be lost sight of in some academic discussions on the early history of our state. But the first whites who saw the western shores of Lake Michigan and the southern shores of Lake Superior, the first to row up the Fox and to float down the Wisconsin, were Frenchmen from Canada, then New France. To their settlements on the St. L iwrence rumors came of the "Men of the Sea." For the purpose of making a treaty with these people, whom imagination pict- ured as Orientals rather than Indians, Jean Nicolet, "interpreter and clerk of the gentlemen of the company of New France," left Quebec 1634, July Ist,^ and came to the Green Bay region, having made, it is said, a voyage of one thousand one hundred miles in a l)irch-bark canoe. To meet with suitable cer- emony the people whom he had come so far to see on such important business, he clothed himself "in a large garment of China damask strewn with flowers and birds of various colors," and went forward carrying a pistol in each hand. » The day of the week was Monday as was that of the landing at Plymouth. Of course both parties were led by men who honored the Sabbath. 2 A date more easily remembered is the 4th of July, the time when he left Three Rivers, then almost the outward post of civilization. Nicolet probably went up the Ottawa. - IX rXXAMEI) WlSf'ONSIX. The -Men of the Sea" were the Oiiinipigou. or, as they are coramonly called, the TVinnebagoes. The sight of these naked savages must have been a rude shock to Nicolet's fancies. However, he made a treatj' with them, and went farther up the Fos to a village of the Mascoutins probably in what i.^ now Green Lake county. Here he heard of the -'Great Water." by which he un- derstood the sea, but which is probably the Mississippi. There is reason tn think that from the ^lascoutin countiy he went southward t:> the region inha]>- ited by the Illinois. In the autiimn of 1635 he returned to Qaebec. In De- cember of that same year, occurred the death of the governor of New France, the iUustrious Samuel de Champlain, the founder, in 1608. of the French colo- ny that has since grown into the Dominion of Canada. His death seem* to have put an end for the time to further explorations. Nicolet. still in the company's service, was stationed at Three Rivers. Seven years after his return from the West, while at Qaebec. he was sent for to come to his homa to save, if possible, the life of a New England Indian wham captors that lived near Three Rivers were threatening with death by toi-ture. Nicolet started promptly, but on his way up the St. La^vi-ence was accidentally drowned. 1642. November 1st. The Indian was afterward sent home in safety. Nicolet's discovery, wliich he does not seem to have regarded as of any special importance, seems to have been soon forgotten. Only the patient labor of historians of our own time has rescued from oblivion the name of the first ('i^^lized man who saw any part of what is now Wisconsin. We honor him as a man who came hither on an errand of peace and died on one of mercy. He was deeply religious. For many years the French were kept from farther exi^loration. Cham- plain, dying, left to the colony the heritage of war with the Iro;|iiois, often called the Five Nations, to whom the Dutch and. later, the English su^)pre I fire-arms while the French furnished their allies with -kettles and missionaries." Among those hostile to the Iro;|uois was a kindred tribe, the Hiu-ons. * wh > were utterly defeated and driven from their former homes. These were within the present limits of New York. Leaving their domain to enlarge the posses- sions of their conquerors, the Hurons fled into the interior of the continent. After the fiercest i*f the struggle was over, an expedition of thirtv'-one French- men, accompanied by a number of Hurons, started about the middle of June. 1658, to go up the Ottawa river, and thence to Lake Huron and beyond. An attack by Iroquois turned back all the whites except two, Pierre d'Esj>rit and his brother-in-law. Medart Chouart, better known by their titles a.s .Sieur Radisson and Sieur des Groseilliers (pronounced Gro-zay-yay). Tliese two had made a compact "to travel and see countrevs-*' Radisson, the first named, though the younger, seems to have baen the leader. At any rate he has the advantage of telling the story, which he did, in perplexing English and very liad ' "Qiielleshnr^x:" [word used of a boar etc. : "What heads of-hair!'T said the French when they first saw them; lience tlie word "Hiirons."— ^'harlevoix. Tliey called themselve.s Wyandots(r\'-en-ly intendeil for the use of Charles II. of Eng- land. He and his companion made almost the entire circuit of Lake Huron. On one of tlie Manitoulin islands they aided the Huvons in a fight with the Iroquois. What followed Radisson thus describes : •'The dead weare eaten and the living weare burned with a small fire to the rigour of cruelties." Invited by Pottawattomies who were then living on the islands at the mouth of Green Bay and the peninsula between the bay and the lake, our travelers spent the winter with that tribe. *'! can assure you I liked noe country as I have that wlierein we Avintered." says Radisson, "ffor whatever a man desired was to be liad in great plenty ; viz., staggs. fishes in abundance, & all sorts of meat, corn enough." The aboriginal population of the Green Bay country was very large. In the spring of the following year, 1659, they visited -'an other nation called Escotecke [Mascoutins], which signified fire."^ These people were liv- ing where Nicolet found them twenty-five years before. Here the Frenchmen heard of "a nation called Nadoneceronon- [Sioux] which is very strong." They were told also of the Christinos [Crees, now of British America]. "Their dwelling was on the side of the salt watter [Hudson's Bay] in summer time & in the land in the winter time, for it's cold in their counti-y." The account of a great discovery is thus given ; "We weare 4 moneths without doing anything but goe from river to river. We mett several sorts of people. We conversed with them, being long time in alliance Avith them By persuasion of som of them we went into the great river that divides itself in 2." Radisson calls it the '-forked river" and adds : •Tt is so called because it has 2 branches, the one toward the west, the other toward the South, which we believe runs toward Mexico by the tokens they gave us." How far south they went we do not know, but speaking of the barbarous ])unishment^ of a captive by some Indians whom they visited they remark : "So they doe with them that they take, and kill them with clubbs, & doe often eat them. They doe not burn their prisoners as those of the northern parts." The "forked river" is doubtless the Mississippi. "A beautiful river, grand, wide, deep and comparable to our own great river, the St. Lawrence," says a description made at the time from Radisson's reports. To measure the great- ness of this discovery we must remember that, with the possible exception of some wandering fur-tradex-s like themselves, there were at that time, — summer of 1659, — ;-probably, no other white men west of the Alleghany mountains. * CliarlevoiJt. a Jesuit traveler and historian, states that the true name is"Mascoutenec," signifying "an open country." Tlie Pottawattomies' word for tire was like their corruption of this name "Maseoutju." From them, it is said, the French obtained the incorrect forni and the untrue meaning. Francis S. Drake, in his great work "The North American Indians," says: " Miinhkoosl is grass or lierhage in general. Ishkado means tire. The only difference in the root-form is that hetween iif:liko and ixhko." - Nadowsie, an Algonquin expression signifying enemy. It is derived from Xadowa, an Iroquois or a Dakota : the word was originally applied to a serpent The termination in .sje is from niiidsie, an animal or creature. This term is the root, it is apprehended, of the French soubriquet Sioux.— H. R. Schoolcraft. •'' " His arms iS: leggs weare turned outside." 4 IN UNNAMED WISCONSIN. For the missions, — even those as far east as the Mohawk valley, — that the Jes- uits had established among the Hurons, were utterly broken up in the destruc- tion of the homes of that people. Before our adventurers returned to the French settlements, they coasted along the eastward part of the southern shore of Lake Superior. ^ Thus they were the discoverers not only of the upper Mississippi but probably also of our greatest North American lake. About the 1st of June, 1660, they came by way of the Ottawa to Three Rivers on the St. Lawrence. Thus ended what Radisson calls his third "voyage." ^ In August, 1661, Radisson began his next and fourth "voyage." His brother-in-law again accompanied him. They intended to go by way of Lake Superior to the "salt watter" of which they had heard two years before. They coasted along the southern shore of Lake Superior, entered Chequamegon ^ bay by a portage across Oak Point, which is on the east side of the bay, and in the autumn or early winter, built what they call "a fort of stctkes."^ This was doubtless the first structure put up by civilized men in what is now Wisconsin. "There we stayed still full 12 days without any news. The 12 day we per- ceived afarr off some 50 yong men coming toward us. with some of our for- mer compagnions. They stayed there three days." These "compagnions" were probably Hurons. Some of this tribe, driven westward by their relent- less enemies the Iroquois, had first sought refuge on an island in the Mississijjpi above Lake Pepin. Driven thence by the Sioux, they came into the country about the head waters of the Chi])pewa. To one of their villages on "a little lake some 8 leagues in circuit,"- — probably Namekagon in the southern part of ^ In the spring of 1660. ^ Radisson's first "voyage," in 1652, an individual experience, was in the character of prisoner, a party of Mohawks having captured him in the neighborhood of Three Rivers and carried liim witli them to their village, where he was adopted ; hut he ran away. October 29. 1653, went to the Dutch at Albany and from Manhattan sailed for Holland. In May, l(i54, he was hack again at Three Rivers. In July, 1657, he accompanied the Jesuit Fathers, Paul Ra- gueneau and Joseph Inbert Duperon, to their mission among the Ouondagas, which was clan- destinely abandoned on the night of March 20,1658. This constituted Radisson's .second "voyage."— Reuben Gold Thwaites. Radisson's narrative was republished in this country by the Prince Society of Boston, an organization named in honor of Rev. Thomas Prince, so long pastor of the old South churrh of that city. ^ I use tins conventional orthography, though I do not like it. In the opinion of R(^v. Elward Pay.son Wheeler, of Ashland, a native of Madelaine island, it is peculiarly unfortu- nate that we get names used by the Indians under a Gallicized disguise. What seems to mo evidence of the correctness of this opinion is found in the changing of "Ojibway" to "Cliip- peway," and al.so in the spelling of the name of the bay mentioned above. This, by William Wliipplo Warren in whose veins flowed honorably Ojibway blood, is written "Chagouami- gon " ("History of the 0.iibways" Minneiota Historical Collectiona, vol. V.). The meaning, "place of shallow water," is given by Mr. Wheeler {Shell " the," yn "of," vnth "shallow [wa- ter]," mi a particle denoting specific place, kntifj "place"). Tlie italicized syllables suggest al.so his pronunciation (;/ like oo in cool; other vowel* short). "Shah-kah-wah-mee kunk," seems to represent the name as I heard it spoken by Rev. John Clark, the native pastor lately at Odanah. The last syllable receives the primary accent. Mr. Wluieler, whose boyliood was spent among the Ojibways, in the mission that Mr. Warren's father helped to found, thinks tliat tilt! younger Warren's proiumciation of the name was like his own as given above. 4 This may have been at the mouth of Whittlesey creek, about three miles from Ashland and between that city and Washburn. See note on the place of Allouez's mission, page 11 DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION. r, what is now Bayfield county, — came the Frenchmen accompanied by friends who had visited the "fort." "The winter conies on, that warns us; the snow begins to fall, soe we must retire from the place to seeke our living in the woods. Soe away we goe, but not all to the same place. Butt let where we will, we can not escape the myghty hand of God, that disposes us as he pleases, and who chastes us a good & a common loving ffather, and not as our sins doe deserve." Among the Hurons with whom they were spending the winter there was distress for want of food. "To augment our misery we receive news of the Octanaks [Ottawas] "who weare about a hundred and fifty with their fam- ilies. They had [had] a quarrell with the hurrons in the Isle where we had come from some years before in the lake of the stairing hairs ^ [Huron]. "But lett us see if they have brouglit anything to subsist withall. But they were worse provided than we ; having no huntsmen they are reduced to famine." Oar travelers wandered westward and were the first white men to enter what is now Minnesota. Before winter was over they were in the country of the Dakotas, otherwise called Sioux, a little south-of-west from Lake Superior, in the Mille Lacs region, whose streams are tributary to the Mississippi. As to food, they were then in better condition than they had been. Yet there was still such a degree of famine that some of the company saved the snow upon which fell the blood of a half-starved dog which Radisson killed one night for food, having previously stolen the wretched creature from two Sioux as they lay asleep. More than five hundred Hurons and Ottawas died that winter of star- vation. In the late winter or early spring, they visited "the nation of the beefe" [Baeiif, or Buffalo, Sioux]. Thence they went seven days' journey, apparently northward, and visited the Christinos. The ice was still in the lakes. "Com- ing back we passed a lake hardly frozen" [frozen hard]. They came again to Oak Point which they had crossed the autumn before. "Here we built a fort." In August of the next year, 1662, they returned to Three Rivers, bringing with them furs to the value of 200,000 livres ($37,000). New France was burdened with a monopoly which sought to control the fur trade. Radisson and Groselliers, finding the governor intent upon plundering them, escaped to Boston. Thus the explorers of our Wisconsin streams and forests found ref- uge in the city of the Puritans. It would be interesting to know what they thought of the home of John Endecott^ and Increase Mather. From Boston they sailed to England. There Radisson married the daughter of a Sir John Kirk.'"^ Here, after the fashion of a romance, we might leave our adventurers. ■ Probably, liair brushed or pushed up. Compare the speech of Brutus iu Sliakespeare's "•Tulius Ca-.sar:" Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil. That mak'st my blood cold and my hair to stare? '^ Commonly spelled Endicott. ^ Sir -lolin Kirk (oi- K :',rtk) was a zealous Huguenot. The daughter probal)ly shared her father's faith. It is not unlikely that Ridisson himself, with the change in his political alle- giance, made a corresponding change in his religious connection. But I do not know that lie did. Like many another he probably lield, in a general way, the Christian faith without car- 6 IN UNNAMED WISCONSIN. But they were yet to do some of their greatest achievements. They en- tered English service and, in 1667. led an expedition to the "salt watter" men- tioned ahove. There they established trading-posts and thus became active agents in founding the Hudson's Bay company which virtually controlled for two hundred years the northern, half of our continent, and more than once has vitally affected the history of the United States. ^ Thinking themselves wronged by some officials of the company, they again entered French service, sailed in 1682 to Hudson's Bay, captured Port Nelson, which they themselves had founded, raised over it the lilies of France and changed its name to Port Bourbon. This action was of course made the subject of diplomatic correspond- ence. Lord Preston, the English ambassador at Paris, thus wrote home, under date of 1684, January 19 : '"Sent to know if the kin^ had ordered any answer concerning the attack upon Nelson's post. I find the great support of Mons de la Barre, the present governor of Canada, is from the Jesuits of this court, which order hath always had a great number of missionaries in that region, who, besides the conversion of infidels, have had the address to engross the whole castor [beaverj trade from which they draw considerable advantage." Presumably his lordship had no objection to ••the conversion of infidels." But that •'the Jesuits of this court." whose ''address" he probably somewhat exaggerated, or any other Frenchmen, should have a monopoly of the fur trade, was intolerable. To put an end to such a state of things, there were no better agents than Radisson and Groseilliers. By the persuasions of Lord Preston and their friend Sir James Hayes of the Hudson's Bay comj^any, aid- ed perhaps by the entreaties of Radisson's English wife, they again exchanged, this time for good, the land of their nativity for that of their adoption. A second time they aided in establishing English authority over the Hudson's Bay region. Thus these men who have so large a part in the history of the exj)lo- ration of North America widened therein the domain of Saxon Protestantism. ing much for dii¥erences in doctrine or ritual. ^ Tlius it is probable that but for its influence Briti.sh Col uuibia would now be one of the states of our Union. CHAPTEI\ 11. EARLY MISSIONS. In order of time, the brief, touching story of one who is often called Wisconsin's first missionary belongs between Radisson's third "voyage" and his fourtli. On the 28th of August, 1660, Renahis (conjmonly written Rene) Me- nard, who had labored among the Hurons before their utter tlefeat by the Iro- quois in 1649 and the blotting out of the missions in the same year, started from Tliree Rivers in search of the vanquished tribe, who were so broken in spirit that they hid even from their former teachers. He came on the 15th of October, St. Theresa's^ tl^J' to the most prominent cape on the southern shore of Lake Superior, Keweenaw Point, in what is now Michigan. No Hurons tliere; only Ottawas, who seem, like most other Algonquians, ^ to have been friendly to the wliites, with perhaps a partiality for the French, But these Ottawas treated Menard with a cruelty that might be expected from a tribe 1 Though not the discoverer of the adjacent bay, Menard gave it St. Theresa's name. We liave here a suggestion, first recognized by the late eminent Roman Catholic ^listorian J. G. Sh(\a, that dates of discovery can, in some cases, be determined by the names that were given by the early explorers. This principle must, of course, be applied with caution. Thus of the Arehed Rock, Lake Superior, Rxdisson writes: "I gave it the name of theportal of St. Peter, h 'causo my name is so called, and that I was th3 first Christian who ever saw it." St. Theresa is known to souil^ by the fact that an account of her vision of hell has been published under the sanction of Roman Catholic dignitaries. Many "visions" of some of the saints suggest that the sub.iects thereof would, with a slightly different religious training, have made first-class "spirit mediums.*' We shall not understand men like Menard and his conuJcers unless we remember that narratives of the sort indicated formed no small part of tlieir reading and were regarded by them as almost on a parity with divine revelation. The "Uisser devotion" paid to the saints was not only a matter of religious observance, it was a dictate of prudence as well. For their aid was almost indispensable in contests with Satan, wliosc dominion the missionaries were invading, whose sub.iects they were eiuleavoring to wrrst from liim, and vvlio might be expected to appear hi tangible presence under almost any guise, in almost any place and at almost any time. '■^ The spelling given above is that used by the Bureau of Ethnology (Smithsonian Institu- tion). For the entire Algonquian (Algonquin, Algonkin) family Schoolcraft suggy hunger to eat part of an Indian moccasin. Tiiis group of starv- EARLY MISSIONS. 9 I Iiave from him, and would you wi.sli me to let it escape ?" " Some Hurons," continues the " Relation." "who had come to traffic with the Outaouak ottered themselves to the Father to act as oruides. He gave them some lu<>: The late Secretary L. C. Drapor, of the Wisconsin Historical society, believed that Ra- (lisson's "fort" and the mission of Allouez were on or about the same site. Where was this? One sugyrestion has been given. Jlr. Wheeler believes that it was in the southwestern part of Washburn itself. These are his reasons: 1. There were two Indian villages on the Chequamegon ; one at the head (sometimes called the "bottom") of thi bay; the other probably at the mouth of Onion river, and .so a sliort distance south-west of Baytield. (A reason for supposing that this second village was at til? mouth of the river is that there is second growth timber there and not at Baytield.) Al- louez says that he set up his establishment " between two large villages." 2. The Ojihway nam? of W.ishhurn, hanljd down from the earliest times, is Gah-nu- k wash koh-dah-ding: "that which was the place of meeting" (u like oo: a in kwitsh long; oth- er vowels short). :i. Convenience of landing. 4. Policy of traders to have their posts outside of Indian villages to prevent collision of hostile bands. - This remark of Marquette's is suggestive. He and John Eliot, the Puritan apostle to the Indians, were contemporaries. After contrasting the wanderings of the Jesuits with the much shorter journeys of the Protestant missionaries, the hi.storian Parkman adds: " Yet in judging the relative merits of the Romish and Protestant missionaries, it nnist not V)e forgot ten, that while the former contented themselves with sprinkling a few drops of water on tlie forehead of the proselyte, the latter sought to wean him from his barbarism and penetrate his savage heart with the truth of Christianity." In speaking of this early work among the Massachusetts Indians, Bancroft says tliat no pains were spared to t'ach them to read and to write and that in ii short time the proportion of them who could do so was larg ;r than the corresponding number among the inhabitants of Russia at the presjnt day. And on the same subject Edward Fiske Kimball ("New England 12 IN UNNAMED WISCONSIN. clie tribe ^ (an Ottawa clan) declare loudly that the time is not yet come [to emljrace the Christian religion]. The Outaouacs (Ottawas) seem to liarden themselves against the instructions imparted to them. The Kiskakonk nation, which for three years has refused to receive the gospel announced to them l)y Father Allouez, finally resolved, in the autumn of the year 1668, to obey God. This resolution was taken in a council and declared to the Father who was to winter with them for the fourth time in order to instruct and baptize them. The Father having gone to another mission, the charge of this one was given to me."~ At this time the Illinois were living west of the Mississippi. Some of them came to the mission. Marquette gives an account of them and adds : "When the Illinois come to La Pointe, they pass a great river about a league in width. It runs from north to south and so far that the Illinois, who know not what a canoe is,^ have not heard of its mouth. It is hardly credible that this large river empties pnto the sea] at Virginia; and we rather believe that it has its mouth in California. If the Indians who have promised to make me a ca- noe do not fail in their word, we shall travel on this river as far as possiljle." As is well known, this purpose was carried out in 1673 when Joliet and Mar- quette entered the upper Mississippi by the Fox- Wisconsin route as Radisson had done fourteen years before. Marquette's stay at Chequamegon bay was a short one. The last account of the mission of the Holy Spirit is in the " Relations " for 1671 and 1672: "The quarters of the north have their Iroquois, as well as those of the south : there are certain called Nadouessi [Sioux] who make themselves dreaded by all their neighbors.-^ Our Outaouacs and Hurons had, up to the })resent time, kept up a kind of peace with them ; but affairs having become embroiled, and some nmrders having been committed on both sides, our sava;ges had reason to appre- Magazine." September, 1802) writes: "It was the missionaries as well as the soldiers who saved New Englaiul." It is evident from accounts given by the Jesuits thenisidves, that many of their "con- verts " looked upon the rites of the church as a now kind of magic which it might he worth while at least to try. Says Rev. S. S. Hehherd, author of " French Dominion in Wisconsin :" "All revered the black-robed stranger as at least a mighty magician armed with a mysterious power and possessed of more potent spells than had evorljefore been witiuissed in the wilder- ness. One day a war party (among the Fox Indians) wcsre so wrought upon by the harangues of Allou(fz that they daubed the figure of a cross upon their shields of bull-hidt; before going to battle ; they returned victorious, extolling the sacred syml)ol as the great(\st of ' war-medi- cines.' This test convinced multitudes. It is the first rocordtnl attempt to apply the .scientific method to the verifying of religious truth." ' Keinouche, the kind of fish known as pike. Of this name, a moiliticd ioi-ni is K(!nosha_ - Marquette made a fatal mistake as a minister of Christ. Hi3 allowed the Indians to r(i- tain such sacrifices to imaginary spirits as he thought weie harmless.— Rev. E. D. Neili.. •'■ "How did they cross t]w river?" is a natural imiuiry. I5ut Mar(iuette had in mind, prob- ably, the larger boats made by Iiulians who dwelt on the shores of th(> (ireat Lakes. 4 These Nadouessi having b.-en irritated by the Hurons and tlu^ OiUaouacs, war was kin- dled among them, and they liegaii it with so much fury that some prisoners which wei'c m.-ule on l)otli sides were put to death by burning them."— Relation of tlw M/sxion of S/. Ttiiiiittiix at Misfiiliiiiackiriac. We wish th.at the record aildeil that M iniuette triel to prevent Mc l)uriiing of living inen by the Indians of his own pai'ty. Hut I find no such statemiMit. KAKLY MISSIONS. 18 hend that tlie stDi-iii would burst upon them, and judged that it was safer for them to leave the place. They retired to the Lake of the Hurons. Father Marquette was obliged to follow his flock, submitting the same fatigues and en- countering the same dangers with them." The Hurons went to "• Missilimacki- nac," the mainland north of the island now called Mackinaw though the name was applied to both. The ''Outaouacs" found a home on the island of Ekaen- touton, now called Manitoulin. Not until our own Mr. Ayer came in 1830 was the gosjjel of Christ again proclaimed on the shores of Chequamegon bay. Then another Indian nation, the Ojibways, held the land. But before the mission of the Holy Spirit came to an end. another had been established. Reference has already been made to the large aboriginal population about Green bay. To the mouth of the Fox river or thereabout, came AUouez on the 2nd of December, 1669. French traders w^ere there ahead of him, ^ and on the following day, dedicated in the calendar of the church of Rome to St. Francis Xavier, eight of them attended mass. This mission, named from the day on which its first service was helcl, was main- t.iined for almost sixty years. It may be that Allouez built its first chapel somewhere between the mouth of Fox river and Sturgeon bay. In 1671 the headquarters of the mission were established where is now the village of De Pere (originally Des Peres; that is, "of the father"). Following the establishment of the mission of St. Francis Xavier came the formal act of taking possession of this continent by the deputy of the French king. This took place 1671, June 14th, at a great gathering of the Indian tribes held at Sault Ste. Marie. Nicholas Perrot gathered the Indians together. Allouez was there, and made an address to the Indians concerning the king in terms that lead us to wonder what more he could have said had he been speaking of the Lord of earth and heaven. The ceremony is spoken of in the "Jesuit Relations" as one "worthy of the eldest son of the church and of a mast Christian sovereign." These expressions are not meant for irony, though the king spoken of is no other than the infamous Louis XIV. who was so soon (1685), with the support and almost certainly at the instigation of Jesuits, to drive into exile thousands of his best subjects because they were Protestants. l!^ is a curious fact that one time the only forms of religion that would have been tolerated in what is now Wisconsin were Romanism and the various forms of heathenism that prevailed among the Indians. It is evident from the terms of the proces-verhaL set forth at Sault Ste. Marie by "Simon Francois Daumont, Esquire, Sieur de St. Lusson, connnission- er sul>delegate of my Lord the Intendant of New France " (Jean Bajrtiste Ta- lon), that he did not intend that anything should be lost because it had not been claimed. " We take possession of the said place of Ste. Mary of the Falls ' Despite Bancroft's statcMneiit, in regard to the exploration of the interior of North Amer- ica, tliat "not a cape was turned, nor a river entered, but a .Jesuit \oA the way," tlu^ traih'r, almost without exception, pr(^cede(l the missionary. Profes.sor Frederick Jackson Turner of our state university stateil, to the writer hereof, in res^ard to this entire region, that he knew of no case in which a .Jesuit leil in the work of exploration. 14 IN UNNAMED WISCONSIN. as well as of lakes Huron and Superieur, the island of Caientonton [Manitou- lin] and of all other countries, rivers, lakes and tributaries, contiguous and ad- jacent thereunto, as well discovered as to be discovered, which are bounded on the one side by the Northern and Western Seas and on the other side by the South Sea (Pacific ocean) including all its length or breadth." Nicholas Perrot, conunanding for the king at the post of the Nadouesioux (Sioux) took formal possession of the country about the Bay des Puants ^ and the upper Mississippi at Post St. Anthony, 8th of May, 1689. He called at- tention to our Wisconsin lead mines, discovered, it is believed, by a ^^revijus ex- 2)lorer Le Sueur wlio came to the Upj^er Mississippi from Green Bay, in 1683. To human sight it would have seemed, in 1671, that the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys were to be closed forever to other than French and Roman Catholic influence. ^ We honor the early missionaries though they erred both in method and teaching and were the active supporters of an abominal)le politi- cal despotism, and the agents of an ecclesiastical tyranny which has justly brought upon itself the suspicion of the world. '' The individual Jesuit might be, and often was, a hero, saint, and martyr, but the system of which he was a part; and which he was obliged to administer, is fundamentally unsound, and in contravention of inevitable laws of nature, so that his noblest toils were forever doomed to failure, save in so far as they tended to ennoble and perfect himself, and offered a model for others to imitate."-^ The courage and devotion of men like Menard, Allouez and Marquette are the clean pages upon the blood-stained history of French rule in the region of the Great Lakes andtlie Upper Mlsjiss- ippi. But the Jesuit missions there were failures. To be sure there were many baptisms. Marquette who returned to the mission of St. Francis Xav- ier late in September, 1673, and spent there possibly the following winter and certainly the next summer puts the number at two thousand. In 1676, a chap- el was built at De Pere. This with the mission house was burned eleven years later, by hostile Foxes, Kickapoos and Mascoutins. There was no school house to burn. "No evidence can be found that the Jesuits ever opened a mission- ary school in Wisconsin before the American troops took possession of Fort Howard ."4 No doubt there was oral religious instruction. It is said, how- ' "Bay dcs Piiants,"— Bay of the Bad Smell,— was the unpleasant name given to Green hay hy the French who first came tliithcr. They sometimes, also, applied the name to Lake Michigan. The reference, however, is to the Winnehago Indians, and to them not on account of their hahits as might well be the case, but because of the tradition that they originally came fi-om the "ill-smelling," that is the salt, water. " The Bay," says Marquette, " hears a name that has not so had a meaning in the Indian languag.-. as they call it Salt Bay rather than Fetid Bay, although amongthem it is about the same." 2 On the western side of the Mississippi the profession of any form of Christian faith save Romanism was illegal until (1800, October 1st) Spain receded the provhice of Louisiana to France. In practice, however, there was tolerau.ce to the American settlers who even at that early day had found homes beyond the Mississippi. An inquisitor who came to New Orleans to exercise the functions of his " Holy Office,"— which a son of General Sherman thinks .so beneficient in its practical working,— was shipped back to Spain by (acting) Governor E.stavan Miro. 3 Rev. R. F. Littledale, LL. D., D. D., D. C. L. 4 Rev. W. (J. Whitford, ex superintendent of public instruction. KAllLY .MISSIONS. 15 ever, that there was a school at .Michilimackinac (Point Ste. Ignace). But the pajan Indians were not the worst foes whom the early mission- aries had to encounter. Nor was the fact that most of their " converts " con- tinued in practical heatlienisni, the only charge brought against them. '> With tlie Jesuits the conversion of souls is but a pious phrase for trading in beaver skins." These bitter words of Frontenac, governor of New France from 1672 t,> 1682, anil ag lin from 1688 until his death in November, 1698, show a feel- ing which he did not possess alone. La Salle accuses the Jesuits of plotting against his life. Yet it dulls the edge of these charges to know that they were mule by thase who were virtually business rivals, and that one of the points of ontraversy between Frontenac and the ecclesiastical authorities was in regard to the sale of liquor to Indians, which the missionaries wished to forbid. And I believe the frightful accusation made by La Salle to be wholly false. Yet we must grant that the Jesuits should not have gone into the fur trade. As it was thsir mission^ here cams tj an end under suspicion and reproach. The civil a-.itli:)rlties and rival ordersi within the church of Rome itself were alike hos- tile to them. Thus Ljuis Hennepin, — a Franciscan of the stricter sort known as R9collect3, — who, in his wanderings with La Salle in 1679, came into Green Bay 2 ignores the existence of the mission of St. Francis Xavier. This is the mare remarkable because in the following year, 1680, he enjoyed the hospital- ity of those laboring there. Besides this strife within New France there was a contest between the au- thorities of that province and those of Louisiana. A bad government at home naturally produced its like in the colonies. Corruption in administration seems to have been expected as a matter of course. Burdensome monopolies were made legal. Unchristian intolerance and exclusion were expressly commanded. " Precise orders were given by Louis XIII. that no Protestant should settle in Canada, and that no other religion than the Catholic should be tolerated." •* There was not even the thought of popular education. That the government of New France was less oppressive than that of the m )ther country was merely because men in Canada could easily find the free- dom of lake, forest, and prairie, a freedom, however, that was purely natural and not legal. Thus the fur trade monoi^olies could not prevent the existence of a large class of unlicensed traders, or coureurs de hols. Amono- these were found some of the most venturesome explorers, men like Radisson and Groseil- liers. The trader rather than the jjriest was the first who found a i)ath in the ' No true judgment of the chm-ch of Rome can be formed which ignores the denomina- tioTial divisions within her ranks. These are known as "orders," and the history of their mutual contests forms some of tlie worst cliapters of sectarian controversy. ^ Tliis was soon after his discovery (1080) of the falls at the present city of Mhuieapolis. These, called Kara by the Dakotas from irara to laugh, he named after St. Anthony of Padua (Italy). Five hundred feet M'as the hight he gave them in liis narrative as first publislicd. Later he put it at six hundred feet. 3 John Law, a eulogist of tlie -Tesuits. addressing the Young Men's Catholic Literary Insti- tute of Cincinnati. Ifi IX rXXAMED WISCOXSIX. wilderness, and it was commonly in canoes laden with goods for the Indians that the missionary found conveyance to his Western home The French, Avilling to step down ahnost to the plane of barbarism, were for the most part successful in winning allies among the Indians of the interior. But the cargoes of goods which the traders brought were of course tempting ob- jects of plunder. Soon the Indians, especially the Outagamies, or Foxes, l learned enough of the ways of civilization to mike themselves toll-gatherers. Their service was to help bring the laden canoes up the Fox river rapids, — since developed into some of the best water-powers in the United States, — and over the portage to the Wisconsin. Their charges were quite as just as those of the French colonial authorities and far more reasonable. Thus the gover- nor demanded of Radisson and Groseilliers, as the price of a license, one-half of all they might get. Refusal to pay forced them to go without legal permis- sion and so exposed them to the exactions from which, as already narrate