{■Jass Book COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT Essays in Western History GEORGE ROGERS CLARK From a copy by Edzvards of J arris's portrait; the copy being in possesion of the Wisconsin Historical Society How George Rogers Clark Won the Northwest And Other Essays in Western History By Reuben Gold Thwaites Author of **Down Historic Waterways/' "On the Storied Ohio," "Daniel Boone," etc.; Editor of "The Jesuit Relations," " Hennepin's Travels," etc. Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co, 1903 THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Tv«o Cowce Redsved }rr ;9 1903 CownwowT wnrr I0LAS9 flL, XXa No. CO •PY 8. Copyright By a. C. McClurg & Co. A.D. 1903 F47(> .T5'4 Published October 3, 1903 •X-''- UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TO MY COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS THE STAFF OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL LIBRARY Preface THE majority of the eight papers contained in this volume were first delivered as lectures ; and later, in a modified form, were printed either in popular magazines or in the Wiscojtsin Historical Collections. For the present publication they have been radically revised and brought down to date — indeed, some of them, especially the opening article, have been entirely rewritten and bear small resemblance to the originals. Owing to the different occasions for which they were pre- pared, there is lacking a uniformity of treat- ment; it is hoped, however, that this variety of form, as well as the somewhat wide range of topics, may be found acceptable. There is more cohesion in this collection than may at first appear. The stories of Mackinac and La Pointe and the account of Early Lead Mining give us glimpses of the old French regime, the idyllic period in the history of what we now know as the Middle vili Preface West. Upon Braddock's Road, we witness an incident in the march of the British in their fateful onslaught upon French possessions in the continental interior. In their turn the British army were ousted by American col- onists through the Winning of the Northwest by George Rogers Clark. The Division of the Northwest into States of the Republic followed in due course, the story of their re- spective boundaries being a curious chapter in our history. The Black Hawk War was the last serious Indian uprising in the Middle West ; and its close marked the beginning of extensive immigration into both Illinois and Wisconsin. Some account of that gentle scholar, Lyman Copeland Draper, and the now famous Draper Manuscripts — the richest collection extant of original sources for the study of Western history — would seem fitting conclusion for a series like the present. R. G. Thwaites. Madison, Wis., September i, 1903. Contents I How George Rogers Clark won the North- west Page A vast hunting-ground 3 The king's pleasure ignored 5 The inrush of settlers 6 Lord Dunmore's War 6 Kentucky settled 7 Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton 8 "The hair-buying general" 9 Kentucky raided 10 ) George Rogers Clark 10 ^' French hamlets 12 Frontier forts 13 Creole militiamen 14 Life among the Creoles 14 Centres of British influence - 17 Clark's project 18 Raising volunteers 19 The backwoodsmen 20 The flotilla 22 At the Falls of the Ohio 23 Desertion 24 A picked company 24 X Contents How George Rogers Clark won the North- west {continued') Page The march to Kaskaskia 25 A picturesque Hero Tale 28 The capture of Kaskaskia 30 " An excess of joy " 32 Father Gibault 33 Cahokia 34 A new difficulty 35 Drilling recruits 36 " Our friends the Spanyards " 37 The tribesmen confused . 38 Savage friends 39 Hamilton's war-party 40 Vincennes taken by Hamilton 40 A scare at Kaskaskia 42 Clark uneasy 44 Vigo's information 45 Forestalling the enemy . 46 "Inward assurance of success" 47 A difficult march 48 The " drowned lands " 48 -s^ Fatigue and hunger 49 Wallowing through the bog 50 " Hard fortune ! " 51 V The man of iron 52 A frightful crossing ^t, Hamilton still unconscious 54 Clark's letter to the villagers 54 A ruse 56 The attack on Vincennes 57 Clark's warning 59 Terrorizing the enemy 59 Contents xi How George Rogers Clark won the North- west {continued^ Page Clark demands unconditional surrender . . 60 The surrender 61 An heroic achievement ^^ . Illinois a Virginian county 64 Belated reinforcements 64 Results achieved ds The Detroit project 66 Clark's power wanes 67 Jefferson's interesting proposition .... 67 Clark and Genet 69 Clark's later years 70 x Importance of the conquest T^ iX y Effect on the treaty of peace 71 X II The Division of the Northwest into States Washington's suggestion 75 Jefferson's plan 77 Ordinance of 1787 79 The famous boundary article 80 Erection of Indiana Territory 82 Admission of Ohio 84 Erection of Michigan Territory ^^ Michigan-Ohio boundary 89 Erection of Illinois Territory 93 No Man's Land 94 Illinois's northern boundary 95 Michigan spreads westward 9^ Dissatisfaction west of Lake Michigan . . 97 Protracted agitation 99 xii Contents The Division of the Northwest into States {contmued) Page Erection of Wisconsin Territory .... 102 105 108 108 no Wisconsin's southern boundary Iowa detached from Wisconsin Wisconsin's northwest boundary An international dispute . . . Ill The Black Hawk War Partisan misrepresentations 115 Treaty of 1804 116 The old Sauk village 118 Black Hawk 119 Aids Tecumseh 122 Bitterness against Americans 123 Encroachment of squatters 123 Black Hawk stubborn J25 White Cloud, the Prophet 127 The whites threatened 129 The Hawk coerced 130 The Menominee massacre 131 Bad advice 132 British Band recruited 134 Early trails 134 Frontier settlements 136 Character of settlers 137 Ready for an Indian war 138 Illinois invaded 139 Shaubena's services 140 Troops called out 141 Stockade forts 142 Co7itents xiii The Black Hawk War {continued^ Page Atkinson organizes the army 143 Volunteers mobilized 144 The army sets out 145 Stillman's scouts 147 Tribesmen in council 148 Stillman's defeat 151 The Hawk at Koshkonong 153 A reign of terror 154 The army disbanded 156 A fresh levy 158 Irregular hostilities 159 Notable skirmishes 160 The lead-mine district 162 Dodge's Rough Riders 164 The new army 165 The advance to Koshkonong 165 Fruitless scouting 167 Black Hawk's camp 169 Illinois men discouraged 170 At Fort Winnebago 171 Mutinous conduct 173 A hot trail 174 The pursuit 175 At Madison 177 Battle of Wisconsin Heights 179 An unsuccessful appeal 181 Preparing for the pursuit 183 A forbidding path 185 The Mississippi, at last 186 The battle of the Bad Axe 187 A dishonorable chapter 192 The cost 193 XIV Contents The Black Hawk War {continued) page Black Hawk a prisoner ........ 193 Death of the Hawk 195 His character 196 What was accomplished 198 IV The Story of Mackinac A struggle for mastery 203 Three Mackinacs 204 Champlain hears of Lake Superior .... 205 Jean Nicolet 206 The earliest French 207 Flight of the Hurons 208 At Chequamegon Bay 209 Hurons return to Mackinac 210 Removal to St. Ignace 211 JoUiet and Marquette 212 Marquette's Journal 213 A French outpost 214 Establishment of Detroit 216 "Old Mackinaw" 217 The English 218 The island reoccupied 219 Arrival of Americans 220 English capture the island 221 Americans regain their footing 223 Centre of the fur-trade 224 The Creoles 226 Modern life 227 Contents xv The Story of La Pointe Page Jean Nicolet 231 Topographical significance of Wisconsin . . 232 Radisson and Groseilliers on the Fox . . . ^y^ At Chequamegon Bay 235 First habitation of white men 238 A gloomy winter 239 Ingratitude 241 Father Menard 242 Father Allouez 243 Father Marquette 245 Lords of the fur-trade 247 The Indian and the trader 250 Fur-trade stockades 252 A copper nugget 254 The first bark 254 Allies of the French 256 A tragic tale 257 Alexander Henry 258 John Johnston 259 The Cadottes 260 The Warrens 263 First Protestant missionaries 265 A denominational controversy 267 An early Western book 269 Father Baraga 270 Changes in location 273 XVI Co7itents VI A Day on Braddock's Road Page Brownsville 277 Redstone Old Fort 278 Nemacolin's Path . 279 Redstone Creek 280 The National Road 281 A coaching tavern 284 Where Braddock fell 284 Great Meadows 286 The first shot 288 Siege of Fort Necessity 288 Remains of the fort 290 Jumonville's Camp 293 Dunbar's Camp 294 The meaning of it 295 VII Early Lead Mining on the Ufper Mississippi Aboriginal use of lead 299 Taught by whites 300 Early traffic in ore 300 Perrot's mines 302 Le Sueur's operations 303 Crozat's monopoly 305 De Renault's discoveries 306 Primitive methods 308 France and Spain 309 A considerable industry 310 Contents xvii Early Lead Mining on the Upper Mississippi {continued) Page Duralde's grant '. ... 311 A notable market 312 Dubuque's mines 313 Aboriginal smelting 315 Aboriginal mining 317 Dubuque's Indian prospectors 318 "The Mines of Spain" 319 Dubuque's statement 320 Opening of American rdgime 320 A shot tower 322 The Buck lead 322 French-Canadians ousted 324 Lead a currency 324 A general movement 326 An enormous nugget 327 The lease system 328 A horde of squatters 329 The great " boom " 330 Spanish claimants ejected 331 VIII The Draper Manuscripts The collector 335 A youthful passion 336 A patron of learning 338 At college 33^ Doctors disagree 339 Notable correspondents 340 An itinerant interviewer 341 Pioneer hospitality 34^ xviii Contents The Draper Manuscripts {continued) page Important interviews 342 A rich harvest 344 A Mississippi episode 347 In a haven of refuge 348 Alone in his specialty 349 Co-partnership with Lossing 350 Fearing to " go to press " 351 Practically founds the Wisconsin Historical Society 352 King's Mountain 354 Material beyond his control 355 The end 35^ The man himself 35^ An eminently useful career 357 An enduring monument 35^ INDEX 361 List of Illustrations FULL PAGE Page George Rogers Clark Frontispiece A Kentucky Fort 14 Clark's Route 26 Clark's Letter to Hamilton 60 Black Hawk 120 Fort Winnebago in 1834 172 Scene of the Battle of the Bad Axe . . Lahontan's Map of Mackinac Strait, 1741 Village of La Pointe, Madelaine Island . 186 214 262 TEXT Division of the Northwest, I TJ 79 IL in. IV. V. VI. VII. 83 87 88 92 94 XX List of Illustrations Page Division of the Northwest, VIII 98 »» » » IX 100 » » ») X 103 j» „ >» XI 109 Seat of Black Hawk War 117 Chequamegon Bay 237 Plan of Battle at Fort Necessity 287 I HOW GEORGE ROGERS CLARK WON THE NORTHWEST ESSAYS IN WESTERN HISTORY HOW GEORGE ROGERS CLARK WON THE NORTHWEST UPON the eve of the Revolutionary War, the vast stretch of country northwest of the river Ohio — later divided into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin — was a part of the British A vast ^ , A ii. r hunting. Province of Quebec. As a result ot ground Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abra- ham, Great Britain had acquired it from France by the treaty of 1763. Like the French, the British ministry designed keeping the region as an enormous hunting-ground for the benefit of the Indians and the fur-traders. In adopt- ing this policy, the government were influenced by three considerations: first, the enormous profits reaped by English merchants from the 4 Essays in Western History commerce of the forest; again, the apprehen- sion that should colonial settlement spread beyond the Alleghanies, these merchants could not supply the people as easily as before, and colonial trade would be correspondingly ham- pered ; third, the fear that if allowed to intrench themselves behind the mountain wall, American borderers might become bolder and more im- pudent than ever. Selfish and short-sighted, they endeavored arbitrarily to hem in their colonists to the Atlantic Slope, thus adding a fresh cause for colonial uneasiness, already assuming ominous proportions. A proclamation issued (October 7, 1763) in the name of King George III., declared ^ " it to be our royal will and pleasure ... to reserve under our sovereignty, protection, and do- minion, for the use of the said Indians, ... all the lands and territories lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea from the West and North West. . . . And we do hereby strictly forbid, on pain of our displeasure, all our loving subjects from making any purchases or settlements whatever, or tak- ing possession of any of the lands above re- served, without our especial leave and license." 1 Full text in Gentleman'' s Magazine, xxxiii., pp. 477-479; reprinted in Wisconsin Historical Collections, xi., pp. 46-52. -// George Rogers Clark But King George's proclamation could no more keep American frontiersmen from cross- ing the AUeghanies and taking possession of the fertile valleys and plains drained by the west-flowing waters, than Mrs. Partington with her broom could sweep the Atlantic Ocean from her door-sill. Despite this attempt to obstruct the tide 'of Western settlement, the Northwest came soon to be conquered and held by Americans, until the happy result of the Revolution made it the national domain of the young Republic. Apparently, the royal proclamation was as completely ignored by the colonists and offi- Thekin V ^^^^^ ^^ Virginia and Pennsylvania, pleasure as though ncvcr penned. Under the ignored ^.^^^^ ^^^.^^ ^^ ^j^^j^. charters, both these colonies claimed the country north of the Ohio. Virginia held the advantage, for Fort Pitt, at the '' Forks of the Ohio," — our modern Pittsburg, — was governed by her militia, and Pennsylvania protested in vain. By this time, settlers were flocking into the Alleghany and Monongahela valleys, divided in loyalty according to the district whence they came; but the majority of them, espe- cially upon the Monongahela, were of Vir- ginia origin. 6 Essays in Westerri History After a few years of comparative peace upon the border, the Indians were becoming alarmed at these formidable inroads on their hunting- The inrush grounds. The settlers were cutting of settlers ^qwu the forcsts, destroying the game, opening up farms, and giving every evidence of an intention to monopolize the country. Streams of borderers were also pouring into Kentucky overland, by way of Boone's road through Cumberland Gap ; or down the Ohio in all manner of curious craft, laden with their families, flocks, tools, and weapons, ready to take armed possession of that bountiful land. The white army of Western occupation was not over-nice in its methods of overriding whatever lay in its path. Aside from the loss of soil, the tribesmen had much to suffer at the hands of the borderers. Small wonder, then, that in 1774 they combined to contest this wholesale invasion, and after the manner of their kind harried the entire length of the border from Lake Erie to Cumberland Gap, with fire, rapine, and human slaughter. Lord Dunmore, Governor of Virginia, led an army against them. As usual, the Indians Lord Dun- wcrc defeated ; although their leader, move's Cornstalk, a Shawnee chief, in whom '^'^^ there was much to admire, fought George Rogers Clark 7 with rare valor in the decisive battle of Point Pleasant, at the junction of the Great Kanawha and the Ohio. In this campaign, called in history Lord Dunmore's War, were, engaged George Rogers Clark and many other Vir- ginia frontiersmen who either were, or were soon destined to become, famous among the Western pioneers. Peace was soon after declared in a great council on the Pickaway Plains in Ohio, wherein the Northern Indians surrendered to the whites what slender interests they held in the neutral hunting-grounds of Kentucky. This concession, empty though it was, com- bined with the discreet neutrality observed by the vanquished tribes during the first two years of the Revolutionary struggle, rendered possible the settlement of Kentucky ; thus forging the first link in the chain of events on which the colonists based their claim to the country beyond the Alleghanies. Although the Revolution, which soon fol- lowed Dunmore's War, hampered progress upon Kentucky the Atlantic Slope, trans-AUeghany settled development progressed apace. For a time practically unhindered by the savages, settlers in goodly number came straggling into the Western country. Numerous small 8 Essays in Western History communities sprang up along the Ohio and many of its feeders, and in Kentucky there soon were several log forts, around each of which were grouped the rude cabins of fron- tiersmen, who were half farmers, half hunters, — tall, stalwart fellows, as courageous as lions, and ever on the watch for the crouching Indian foe, who, although now absent, might appear when least expected. This quasi-peace on the Western border — it was well towards the close of the century Lientenant- ^cforc there was securcd absolute Governor frccdom from Indian forays — was soon broken. Naturally, the sympa- thies of the Indians were stronger for the British fur-traders than for the Americans, who were turning the hunting-grounds into farms, and took small pains to ingratiate them- selves with the aborigines. The British post of Detroit was commanded by Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Henry Hamilton — a bold, brave, untir- ing man, but unscrupulous. During the winter of lyyO-yj, acting under orders from his supe- riors, he gathered there the Northwest Indians in large numbers. Among his strange guests were long-haired Sioux from Northwest Wis- consin and the Minnesota plains; sharp-faced Chippewas, from the south shore of Lake Supe- George Rogers Clark 9 rior ; sleek and oily Sauks and Foxes from the Mississippi, below Prairie du Chien; broad- visaged, flat-nosed, swarthy Winnebagoes from the Rock River, the Wisconsin, and the Green Bay country; Potawatomis, with open counte- nance and feminine cast of features, from Mil- waukee River and all along the west shore of Lake Michigan ; and Menominees or wild-rice eaters, from west of Green Bay and around Lake Shawano. With the various bands, repugnant in their filth, squalor, and savagery, this cultured Eng- ,, „, , . lishman held council after council, " The hatr- ' buying himsclf joining in their wild songs and genera ' ^anccs ; and, amid yelps of applause, with skilful throw planting the hatchet in the war-post, which was smeared with blood and hung with the scalps of American borderers. It is not certain to what extent Hamilton de- served the opprobrious epithet, *' the hair-buy- ing general," which the backwoodsmen fastened upon him ; but we know that in the warfare which he induced the savages to undertake against the Americans, those warriors who, as evidence of their prowess, brought most scalps to Detroit, received the largest rewards. Ham- ilton always claimed that he made endeavors to curb the ferocity of his savage aUies, but he lO Essays in Western History must have known how impossible was this feat. In judging him, however, we must rem.ember that the ethics of warfare were not in that day as humane as in ours. In the early spring of 1777, Hamilton's Indians began crossing the Ohio to raid the Kentucky Kentucky settlements. Militiamen raided were ambushed, several of the block- house forts were burned, prisoners were sub- mitted to nameless horrors; it seemed as if pandemonium had suddenly broken loose upon the border. In the numerous sieges which en- sued, there were performed feats of individual prowess on the part of the backwoodsmen and their wives, that are unsurpassed in the records of heroism. By the close of the year, so gen- eral had been the rush of settlers back to their old homes east of the mountains, but five or six hundred remained in all Kentucky. These were liable, on call, to garrison duty in the four remaining stations of Boonesborough, Harrods- burg, Price's, and Logan's. Prominent among the defenders of Kentucky during this fateful year, was George Rogers ^ Clark. He had come from a good George ^ Rogers family in Virginia, was but twenty-five years of age, and, for his day, had acquired a fair education, but from childhood George Rogers Clark 1 1 had been a rover of the woods. Full six feet in height, stout of frame, possessed of " red hair, and a black, penetrating, sparkling eye," he was courageous even to audacity, and ex- hibited strong, often unbridled passions. Clark early became a backwoods surveyor, such as Washington was, and many another young colonial gentleman of superior antecedents and training. With chain and compass, axe and rifle, he had in the employ of land speculators wandered far and wide through the border region, learning its trails, its fords, its mountain passes, and its aborigines, better than his books. In many ways Clark was a marked character in a community of strongly accent- uated types — heroes and desperadoes, saints and sinners. At the age of twenty-one he had served in the Dunmore War, and then settled as a Kentucky farmer at the mouth of Fish Creek, only again to be called out by an Indian uprising and obliged thereafter to take a lead- ing part in the protracted defence of the " Dark and Bloody Ground." Almost from the first, Clark ranked with Boone, Benjamin Logan, and others of his associates whose names are promi- nent in the bead-roll of American border heroes ; he was soon to surpass them all. When France surrendered her American 12 Essays in Western History possessions to England, the French Creoles for the most part remained in their old haunts, French and simply transferred their politi- hamiets ^^| allegiance to King George. In the year 1777, of which we have spoken, there were several little French hamlets in the country to the north of the Ohio River, the outgrowth either of early Jesuit missions or the needs of the fur-trade, or of both combined. Detroit, commanding the straits between Lakes Erie and Huron, was the largest of these. The im- portant post of Mackinac guarded the gateway between Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Supe- rior. Vincennes, on the Wabash, was another strategic point occupied by the French Cana- dians. Over on the Mississippi, Kaskaskia and Cahokia were centres of PVench commerce in the West. At Green Bay were a few fur- traders' cabins, chief among them the estab- lishment of Charles Langlade, first permanent settler of Wisconsin. At Prairie du Chien there was as yet no village, although several traders frequently made their headquarters there. In the records of the time, we have hints of trading stations near Ashland, on Lakes Chetek, Flambeau, Courte Oreille, and on the eastern edge of the Wisconsin forest, at Milwaukee Bay and the port of Two Rivers. George Rogers Clark 1 3 At Detroit, Mackinac, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia, were small forts built of logs. Frontier Thcse structures had originally been forts erected by the French fur-traders to protect their stocks of goods, and in times of danger served as rallying-points. When the English took possession they were consider- ably strengthened, and under this remodelling some of them came to be formidable fastnesses in a wilderness where besiegers were chiefly savages, without artillery. As a rule, the cur- tains were guarded at the four corners by solidly built blockhouses, serving as bastions, these houses being generally two stories in height and pierced for rifles and cannon. One or more of the curta,ins were formed by the rear walls of a row of log-cabins, the others being composed of palisades, great logs stand- ing on end, the bottoms well buried in the ground and the tops sharp-pointed ; around the inner edge of these wooden ramparts, the roofs of the cabins formed a gallery, on which crouched those of the defenders who were not already engaged in the blockhouses. The heavy-timbered gate, with its massive forged hinges and bolts, was guarded with particular tenacity. In the event of the enemy forcing this, or making a breach in the curtains by 14 Essays in Western History burning or scaling the palisades, the block- houses were the last towers of refuge, around which the contest was waged to the bitter end. At the time of which we are speaking, these frontier forts were generally commanded by Creole British captains, with a few regular mthtiamen officers and privates to form the nucleus of the garrison, the remainder of the force being composed of French-Canadian vol- unteers ; although we shall find in charge at Kaskaskia a French officer in the English service. At Detroit and Mackinac, throughout the Revolutionary War, these Creole militia- men remained firm to the British cause ; but farther south, — at Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia, — the English were to discover in them but fair-weather allies. Sometimes the fort, as at Kaskaskia, was the centre of the little French village which had grown up around it; in other cases, as at Vincennes, it commanded the cluster of cabins from some neighboring eminence. The people of these French-Canadian river- side hamlets took life easily. Among them Life among wcrc many engaged in the fur-trade at the Creoles certain seasons of the year — bour- geois, or masters, for the most part, serving as George Rogers Clark 1 5 the agents or clerks of Montreal merchants ; voyageurs, or boatmen, men-of-all-work who propelled the canoes when afloat, carried them and their cargoes over portages, transported packs of goods and furs through the forest inlands, cared for the camps, and acted as guards for the persons and property of their employers; coureurs de bois, or wood-rangers, men devoted to a life in the woods through the very love of adventure, sometimes conducting a far-reaching fur-trade on their own account, — the widest travellers and most daring spirits in all the great Northwest. The habitants, or permanent villagers, were for the most part farmers in a small way. Down by the river stood their little log cabins, with well-sweeps and orchards, back of which stretched narrow, ribbon-like fields, remnants of which one may see to-day at Quebec and Montreal, or indeed at any of our old French towns in the West — for instance. Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. The French habitant was a social animal. He loved the little village wineshop, where, undisturbed by his sharp- eyed, sharp-visaged, prim and gossipy, white- aproned spouse, he could enjoy his pipe, his bowl, and his " fiddlers three." For they were famous fiddlers, these French-Canadians. On 1 6 Essays in Western History social occasions the fiddle was indispensable. No American wilderness was so far away that the little French fiddle had not been there. The Indians recognized it as a part of the furni- ture of every fur-trader's camp. At night, as the wanderers lounged around the blazing heap of logs, the sepulchral arches of the forest re- sounded with the piercing strains of the violin, accompanying the gayly sashed and turbaned voyageurs, as in metallic tones they chanted melodies of the river, the chase, love, and the wassail. In the village, no christening or wed- ding was complete without the fiddler ; at the almost nightly social gatherings, in each other's puncheon-floored cabins, this cross-legged king of the feast was enthroned on a plank table. The river was their highway. From earliest youth, they understood the handling of a canoe. Just as in the Far West the cowboy mounts his horse to cross the street, and refuses work that cannot be done on the back of a broncho, the French-Canadian went in his boat to visit his next-door neighbor. It made small difference to these people who were in political control. All they sought was socially to be left alone, to enjoy life in their own simple fashion. On general principles, the attitude of King George, who wished the George Rogers Clark 1 7 Western hunting-grounds left unimpaired, was more to their Hking than the aggressive, land-winning temper of the American settlers. Then again, over half of these French-Canadians had Indian wives, and in the veins of many flowed Indian blood. They were drawn to the savage tribes through relationship and sympa- thy. The men of New France were always cheek by jowl with the tribesmen, an amal- gamation surprising to men of Anglo-Saxon parentage, who seem never to be able to sympathize with barbarians. Yet despite these ties, the French of the Illinois posts, having already found it easy to change masters, were willing enough to fraternize with the American backwoodsmen when once brought into com- munication with them. Clark was well aware of this condition of affairs north of the Ohio. The French villages Centres of ^^^^ ceutrcs of British influence, where British in- the natural hostility of the savages to the American frontier settlements was being persistently excited by bribes and by appeals t-o their passions. Clark realized that so long as the Northwest was suffered to remain a safe rallying-point for war-parties, Kentucky would continue to sufl"er from forays and very likely the settlers be wholly exter- 1 8 Essays in Wester^i History minated or at best driven from the field. He resolved, therefore, to *' carry the war into Africa," to establish a military frontier in the enemy's country. Spies were accordingly sent to Kaskaskia and Vincennes. They soon re- turned, reporting that the British were keeping but loose guard, and that while the French had conceived the notion, from British reports, that the Kentucky backwoodsmen were barbarians more cruel than the Indians about them, they were not more than lukewarm in their attach- ment to the king. In August, 1777, Clark started overland to Virginia, where he consulted with Patrick Clark's Henry, then governor of that colony, project as ^eii as with other prominent men, regarding his plan for capturing the British posts north of the Ohio. These gentlemen at once fell in with the audacious project; but as the success of the undertaking depended on secrecy, the aid given him by the governor was obtained from the legislature on the gen- eral plea that it was designed for the protection of Kentucky.^ Clark was made lieutenant- 1 The public and private instructions given to Clark by Governor Henry are in the Appendix to Clark's letter to George Mason, of Virginia (dated Louisville, November 19, 1779), as edited by Pirtle, in Ohio Valley Historical Series, No. 3 (Cincinnati, 1869). George Rogers Clark 19 colonel (January 2, 1778), was given the equiva- lent of six thousand dollars in sadly depreciated currency, and was authorized to enlist in his cause three hundred and fifty Virginians wher- ever he might find them. The jealousy between Virginia and Pennsyl- vania, and the impossibility of revealing his Raising purpose, made it difficult for Clark volunteers ^q j-^jge voluutccrs ; indeed, he met with considerable opposition from those who apparently suspected this Western movement, on political grounds, or were jealous of an at- tempt to sequester men whose services were needed in the defence of the mountain valleys. It was May (1778) before he could collect about a hundred and fifty borderers from the clearings and hunters' camps of the Alle- ghany foot-hills, both east and west of the range. ^ 1 Clark says in his letter to Mason : " Many leading Men in the fronteers, . . . had like to have put an end to the enterprise, not knowing my Destination, and through a spirit of obstinacy they combined and did every thing that lay in their power to stop the Men that had Enlisted, and set the whole Fronteers in an uproar, even condescended to harbour and protect those that Deserted ; I found my case desperate, the longer I remained the worse it was. ... I plainly saw that my Principal Design [an attack on Detroit] was bafHed. ... I was resolved to push to Kentucky with what men I 20 Essays in Western History They were a rough, and for the most part unlettered folk, these Virginia backwoodsmen The back- who formed Clark's little army of con- woodsmen qyest. There was of course no at- tempt among them at military uniform, officers in no wise being distinguished from men. The conventional dress of eighteenth-century bor- derers was an adaptation to local conditions, being in part borrowed from the Indians. Their feet were encased in moccasins. Per- haps the majority of the corps had loose, thin trousers of homespun or buckskin, with a fringe of leather thongs down each outer seam of the legs ; but many wore only leggings of leather, and were as bare of knee and thigh as a Highland clansman; indeed, many of the pioneers were Scotch-Irish, some of whom had been accustomed to this airy costume in the mother-land. Common to all were fringed hunting shirts or smocks, generally of buck- skin — a picturesque, flowing garment reaching from neck to knees, and girded about the waist by a leathern belt, from which dangled the could gather in West Augusta; being Joined by Capt'' Bow- man and Helms who had raised a Compy for the Expedition, but two thirds of them was stopt by the undesign'd Enemies to the Country that I have before mentioned : In the whole I had about one hundred & fifty Men Collected and set sail for the Falls [of the Ohio, now Louisville]." George Rogers Clark 2 1 tomahawk and scalping-knife. On one hip hung the carefully scraped powder-horn ; on the other, a leather sack, serving both as game- bag and provision-pouch, although often the folds of the shirt, full and ample above the belt, were the depository for food and ammuni- tion. A broad-brimmed felt hat, or a cap of fox-skin or squirrel-skin, with the tail dangling behind, crowned the often tall and always sinewy frontiersman. His constant companion was his home-made flint-lock rifle — a clumsy, heavy weapon, so long that it reached to the chin of the tallest man, but unerring in the hands of an expert marksman, such as was each of these backwoodsmen. /They were rough in manners and in speech. Among them, we must confess, were men who had fled from the coast settlements because no longer to be tolerated in a law-abiding com- munity. There were not lacking mean, brutal fellows, whose innate badness had on the un- trammelled frontier developed into wickedness. Many joined Clark for mere adventure, for plunder, and deviltry. The majority, however, were men of good parts, who sought to pro- tect their homes at whatever peril — sincere men, as large of heart as they were of frame, many of them in later years developing into 22 Essays m Western History citizens of a high type of effectiveness in a frontier commonwealth. As a matter of his- tory, most of them proved upon this expedition to be heroes worthy of the fame they won and the leader whom they followed. On the border, military discipline was as slight as in an Indian war-party. The officers, elected by open vote, exercised little authority over the wild, daring spirits whom they nomi- nally led. The only enduring tie between them was that of personal regard ; the only cohesion in the force, reliance on the prowess and judg- ment of the commander. Clark had the full confidence of his men, holding them by a per- sonal influence which was as strong as it was remarkable. Probably no other man on the border could have done what he was about to do. " I set out from Redstone [Brownsville, Pa.] the 1 2th of May," writes Clark in his famous The letter to Mason, " leaving the Country flotilla jj^ great confusion, miuch distressed by Indians." His little fleet consisted of the usual flatboats then used by immigrants and traders to the West. Stopping at Pittsburg and Wheeling to take on the simple supplies for which Governor Henry had given him requi- sitions upon the military officers of the upper George Rogers Clark 23 Ohio country,^ he cautiously floated down the Ohio. Indian attacks were imminent, for the river was frequently being crossed by war-parties ; but fortunately the flotilla met with no opposition from this source. An ex- ploring party bound for the Ozark joined them at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and together the two expeditions " had a very pleasant voyage to the falls of the Ohio." Early in June they arrived at the " Falls of the Ohio." Here, at the present Louisville, the river is broken by falls, which Falls of both m ascenduig and descendmg the Ohio necessitated the unloading of boats and the use of the portage path around the obstruction. In primitive days, a portage was of great importance strategically, for it controlled the waterway. For this reason, Clark tactfully chose as his base of operations the island in the centre of the falls, which commanded the portage path, and upon it 1 " For the Transportation of the Troops, provisions, &c., d )vvn the Ohio, you are to apply to the Commanding Officer at Fort Pitt for Boats, &c. . . . You are to apply to General Hand for powder & Lead necessary for this Expedition. If he can't supply it the person who has that which Cap^ Lynn bro^, from Orleans can. Lead was sent to Hampshire by my orders & that may be delivered you." — Henry's private instructions to Clark. 24 Essays in Western History built a blockhouse fort and planted a crop of Indian corn.^ Another reason for the island camp was, that dissatisfaction had by this time become mani- fest among his men. Few knew of Desertion , . . , 1.1 his purpose, and tne mystery which necessarily hung around the expedition was doubtless preying on the minds of the weak- hearted. The commander found it essential to keep a strict guard on the boats and to institute a discipline which was irksome to all. One Heutenant, heading a small party, con- trived to escape, but the following day some of his men were captured, and the proper subordination was soon secured. On the twenty-sixth of June, having been joined by a few volunteers from Kentucky and A picked the Holston valley, Clark's flotilla was company again on the move, the goal being Kaskaskia, the principal post in the Illinois country. It was a picked company, the weak- lings having been left at the island to guard the blockhouse and cultivate the cornfield.^ Some of the bravest men on the frontier were 1 Hence the present name, Corn Island. 2 •' About twenty families that had followed me much against my Inclination, I found now to be of service to me in guarding a Block-house that I had erected on the Island to secure my Provisions." — Clark's letter to Mason. George Rogers Clark 25 the captains of the four companies, and the equipment was as Hght as that carried by Indians on a foray. The falls were "shot" during a total solar eclipse, an omen variously interpreted by the superstitious backwoodsmen. Henceforth the Ohio was followed to the now abandoned French stronghold. Fort Massac, some ten miles below the mouth of the Tennessee.^ Just before leaving the island, Clark had re- ceived news of the alliance between the United States and France '^ in the prosecution of the Revolutionary War, and hoped that this would make it easier for him to win over the French in the Illinois and Wabash country. The American commander feared to descend the Ohio to its mouth and then ascend the Mississippi, the ordinary route to The march ^ ^ ^ , . . 111 ui. to Kashas- Kaskaskia, for his spies had brought '^'^ word that that path was being pa- trolled by French and Indian scouts. He 1 Built by the French in 1758, on their retreat from Fort Duquesne. The site is now a public park in the environs of Moundsville, 111. 2 See John Campbell's letter to Clark, dated Pittsburg, June 8, 1778, in American Historical Review, viii., p. 497- The original of this and most other manuscript material ex- tant, relative to Clark, is in the Draper MSS., Wisconsin Historical Society. 26 Essays in Western History therefore struck across country some hundred and twenty miles, being guided by an Ameri- can hunter who had recently been in the French settlements. The poor fellow lost his way when not far out upon the path. This incident, Clark relates, '' put the whole Troops in the greatest Confusion," and caused the leader, suspecting treachery, to threaten *' to put the guide to Death if he did not find his way that Evening." Fortunately for all con- cerned, the sadly frightened pilot " in two hours got within his knowledge." With great caution, Clark toilsomely pushed through the forest and over *' those level Plains that is frequent throughout this extensive Coun- try . . . much afraid of being discovered in these Meadows as we might be seen in many places for several miles." On the evening of the fourth of July his *' little Army " of less than two hundred riflemen reached the east bank of the Kaskaskia River, on the opposite side from and above the town, which was about three miles away.^ 1 In a letter by Clark, apparently to Governor Henry, and doubtless written in the summer or autumn of 1777, the former describes Kaskaskia from reports made to him by spies : " It is situated 30 leagues above the mouth of the Ohio, on a river of its own name, live miles from its mouth and two miles east of the Mississippi. . . . The town of Kus- Clarks route George Rogers Clark 27 Remaining under cover of the woods until dusk, the Americans moved forward alomi the bank, downstream, to a farmhouse a mile from the village. They took the family pris- oners, and learned from them that Philippe de Rocheblave, the French commandant of the English fort, had " had some suspicean of being attacted and had some preparations, keeping out Spies, but they making no dis- coveries, had got off their guard." Roche- blave had frequently appealed to Detroit for assistance, but without avail. The captured habitants reported that the French militia were fairly well organized, and greatly feared kuskies contains about one hundred families of French and English, and carry on an extensive trade with the Indians ; and they have a considepable number of negroes that bear arms and are chiefly employed in managing their farms that lay around the town, and send a considerable quantity of flour and other commodities to New Orleans. . . . The fort, which stands a small distance below the town is built of stockading about ten feet high, with blockhouses at each corner, with several pieces of cannon mounted, powder, ball, and all other necessary .stores without guard or a single soldier. . . . The principal inhabitants are entirely against the American cause, and look on us as notorious rebels that ought to be subdued at any rate, but I don't doubt but after being acquainted with the cause they would become good friends to it." There is only a transcript of this letter in existence, and this is in the Draper MSS. ; it is published in full, edited by Professor F. J. Turner, in Amcr. Hist. Rev., April, 1903, pp. 491-494. 28 Essays in Western History the Americans, while the Indians of the dis- trict bitterly hated the " Big Knives," ^ as they called the frontiersmen. There were four or five hundred men in the place, and it could only be taken by surprise. A few days before there had been an alarm in the fort, but a sense of security was now felt. Clark was as quick in action as in thought. Having at the farm " found plenty of Boats to Cross in," his men were in two hours' time silently ferried across the Kaskaskia River. They were divided into two parties, one sur- rounding the town, which was above, although adjoining the fort, the other accompanying their leader and a French guide from the farm- house under the brow of the river-bank to the postern gate, near the water's edge. The myth-maker is of every age and every land. He has not spared American frontier Apidu- history. We see his handiwork in resque Hero the Pocahontas story ; in popular tales concerning Jesuit mission-sites in the Old Northwest ; in the apocryphal incidents of the siege of Wheeling; in the hero-tales of Boone in Kentucky, of the scouts Brady and 1 The Indians thus styled the borderers, probably because whites first introduced among North American savages the use of knives. George Rogers Clark 29 Wetzel, of Brant, the Iroquois chieftain — to mention but a few. He has also befooled some of the chroniclers of the doings of George Rogers Clark. We have been told that, as Clark and his men lay there by the postern gate, they could hear the sounds of French fiddles squeaking a quadrille, and now and then gay shouts and laughter. The officers of the post were, it is related, giving a ball to the habitants, in the large assembly room with its puncheon floor. The outlying houses were deserted. Men and women, villagers and garrison, Indians and coureurs de bois, v/ere without regard to rank or race crowded into the hall, heeding nothing save the dance. Even the sentinels had de- serted their posts to join in the festivities, and Kaskaskia, a victim to the irrepressible gayety of the French, was wholly unguarded, ^^^^^^^eaving his men at the gate, says the story- teller, Clark, alone with his guide, strode across the parade and, leaning against the door-post, with folded arms watched the gay scene — a patch of light and color in the heart of the gloomy wilderness. As he calmly stood there, an unbidden guest, an Indian lying curled in his blanket on the entry floor, started and gazed intently upon him. Another moment, 30 Essays in Western History the savage sprang to his feet and sounded the war-whoop. In the midst of the general consternation, Rocheblave and his brother officers hurried to the door; but Clark, unmoved, bade them go on with the dance, but be pleased to remember that they were now holding revelry under the banner of Virmnia and not that of Great •'V Britain// Instantly Clark's detail, left at the gate, 'v(^arned by the war-whoop rushed in and secured the garrison. It is a picturesque hero tale. One fastidious might say it smacked over- much of melodrama ; but I almost wish it were true, for our often sombre Western history seems now and then to need a lurid touch like this.i While Clark's letter to Mason gives but the principal incidents in outline, we have the y,^^^ credible statement of one of his men ^ capture of that Clark's party of about a dozen, Kaskaskia ^^ ^y^^^ j^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ rivcr-bauk, were ** saluted merrily" by keen-scented dogs, 1 The tale appears to have first been published in Denny's " Memoir of Major Ebenezer Denny," Penn. Histor. Soc. Publications (i860), vii., pp. 217, 218. The scene has been represented by an artist in Lodge's Story of the Revolu- tion (N. Y., 1898), ii., p. 20. ^ Statement of Daniel Henry to L. C. Draper, in 1844, in the Draper MSS. George Rogers Clark 31 but this did not disturb the Httle garrison. Finding the fort gate open, they pushed on in the dark to Rocheblave's house, pointed out by the guide, found and captured the unsuspecting governor in an upper room, brought him below, and then gave ** a loud huzza, answered by the other" party, which had now divided into squads of four or five men each. Yelling like mad, the now united Virginians easily over- awed the puny garrison of Creoles, and, to re- sume our quotations from Clark, "in 15 minutes" were masters of the place without the firing of a gun. Every street was guarded, and runners were sent out, " ordering the People on pane of Death to keep close to their Houses, which they observ'd." At daylight, the soldiers and the people were disarmed. By this stern promptness Clark had succeeded in thoroughly cowing the villagers — "nothing could excell the Confusion these People seemed to be in, being taught to expect nothing but Savage treatment from the Americans. Giving all for lost their Lives were all they could dare beg for, which they did with the greatest fervancy, they were willing to be Slaves to save their families. I told them it did not suit me to give them an answer at that time, they re- 32 Essays in Western History pared to their houses, trembling as if they were led to Execution ; my principal would not suffer me to distress such a number of People, except, through policy it was necessary." Their mercurial spirits soon rose, however, when they learned during the day that instead of being made the slaves of the bloodthirsty Virginians, they were, upon taking the oath of allegiance to the Republic, to be allowed to come and go at their pleasure, and meet in their little Catholic church as of old. Clark ex- plained to a deputation of the people the American view of the war, and added that the Republic meant to free, not enslave, the people of the Illinois country, and would be a better friend to them than the British king. " No sooner had they [a deputation of vil- lagers who waited on him] heard this," pictur- '' An excess ^^^^^y writcs Clark, *^ than joy of joy'' sparkled in their Eyes and [they] fell into Transports of Joy that really surprised me. . . . They returned to their families, and in a few minutes the scean of mourning and distress, was turned into an excess of Joy, nothing else seen nor heard. Addorn- ing the streets with flowers Pavilians of dif- George Rogers Clark 33 ferent colours, compleating their happiness by singing, &c." To a man, the Creoles took the oath of loy- alty to the United States. Commander Roche- blave, however, had been violent and insulting in temper, and Clark, to teach the people a lesson, sent him on to Virginia as a prisoner and appropriated his black slaves, which were soon after sold for the equivalent of $2,500. This prize-money was divided among the rifle- men, who were well pleased at the financial outcome of the expedition. As for Father Pierre Gibault,^ the Kaskas- kia priest, he was a zealous Clark man from Father the time the generous conqueror gave Gibauit j^-j^^ ^Q understand that an American officer had '' nothing to do with Churches more than to defend them from Insult. That by the laws of the State [Virginia] hts Religion had as great Previledges as any other : This seem'd to compleat their happiness." The good father assured his new friend that although as a priest he had '' nothing to do with temporal business, that he would give them such hints in the Spiritual way, that would be very conducive to the business." ^ Whom Clark, singularly perverse in the spelling of foreign proper names, calls *' Mr. Jcboth." 3 34 Essays in Western History A small party of Americans, with some French volunteers now eager to serve the cause of Virginia, went rapidly on Cahokia /^ i i • horseback to Cahokia, " about sixty miles up the Country," where the people promptly fraternized with the invaders, and accepted Captain Joseph Bowman as local superintendent. At the same time, Gibault, on his own motion, in company with Dr. Le Font, principal of the Jesuit seminary at Kaskaskia, and a few others, went overland to Vincennes, "a Town about the size of Williams- burg." On the first of August they returned with the news that through the father's influ- ence the American flag had been hoisted on the walls of the fort, from which the half- dozen British soldiers had deemed it wise to withdraw. Clark at once sent Captain Leonard Helm to take command of the French militia at Vincennes, while he remained at Kaskaskia. Successful in his immediate designs, Clark's position was nevertheless perilous. *' The nu- merous Tribes of Indians attached to the French was yet to enfluence, for I was too weak to treat them in any other way . . . every Nation of Indians could raise three, or four times our Number. . . . Savages, whose minds had long been poisoned by the English." Far to the George Rogers Clark 35 north lay the British base in the Northwest. These southern towns were but the outposts of a formidable and resourceful enemy, concern- ing whose movements he could learn but little. His chief desire was to strike at Detroit, as the centre of English operations ; but for A new this he needed a far larger corps difficulty — indeed, he lacked sufficient men for his present plans, which involved several side expeditions among both French and In- dians, in order to secure his foothold. A new difficulty now beset him, and increased the hazard. The greater part of his followers, their time of service having expired, were hot for returning home. " It was," he tells us, " with Difficulty that I could support that Dignity that was necessary to give my or- ders that force that was necessary, but by great preasants and promises I got about one hundred of my Detachment Enlisted for eight months, and to colour my staying with so few Troops I made a faint of returning to the Falls, as though I had sufficient confidence in the People, hoping that the Inhabitants would remonstrate against my leaving, which they did in the warmest terms. . . . Then seemingly by their request I agreed to stay with two Companies of Troops, and that I 36 Essays in Western History hardly thought, as they alledged that so many was necessary ; but if more was wanted I could get them from the Falls, where they were made to believe there was a Considerable Garrison." Those volunteers who persisted in returning home having been sent off to the Falls, — with Rocheblave in their custody, and bearing let- ters from Clark to Henry, *' letting him know my situation and the necessity of Troops in the Country," — the commander settled down for a winter at Kaskaskia. To fill the great gap in his ranks, he enlisted young French volunteers who, being " fond of the service, the different Companies soon got Compleat." The difficulties which surrounded him, and his work of drilling the recruits, are best told DriiiUig in his own words : *' My situation recruits ^^^j wcckuess conviuccd me that more depended oia my own Behaviour and Conduct, than all the Troops that I had far removed from the Body of my Country : situ- ated among French, Spanyards, and Numerous Bands of Savages on every quarter: Watching my actions, ready to receive impressions favour- able or not so of us, which might be hard to remove, and would perhaps produce lasting good, or ill effects. . . . Strict subordination among the Troops was my first object, and George Rogers Clark 37 [I] soon effected it . . . Our Troops being all Raw and undissiplined You must [be] sensible of the pleasure I felt when harangueing them on Perade, Telling them my Resolutions, and the necessity of strict duty for our own preser- vation &c. For them to return me for Answer, that it was their Zeal for their Country that in- duced them to engage in the Service, that they were sencible of their situation and Danger; that nothing could conduce more to their safety and happiness, than good order, which they would try to adhere to, and hoped that no favour would be shewn those that would neglect it. In a short time perhaps no Garri- son could boast of better order, or a more Valuable set of Men." Another important duty consisted in obtain- ing a good understanding with the Spaniards who, from their northern capital, the *' Our . friends the neighbor hamlet of St. Louis, con- span- trolled Upper Louisiana. His ad- yards " 1 1 i i -r^ vances were well taken by Don Francisco de Leyba, the lieutenant-governor. "■ Our friends the Spanyards," Clark writes, are ** doing every thing in their power to convince me of their friendship." De Leyba, who met him at Cahokia, appears at once to have formed an attachment for the gallant Vir- men con- fused 38 Essays m Western History ginian, who on his part testifies that as he ''was never before in comp'' with any Spanish Gent I was much surprised in my expectations ; for instead of finding that reserve thought pecuHar to that Nation, I here saw not the least symp- toms of it, freedom almost to excess gave the greatest pleasure." *' Domestick afi"airs being partly well settled," Clark playfully continues, " the Indian Depart- The tribe- ^^"^^ Came ucxt the object of my attention and of the greatest import- ance." The sudden arrival in the country of the Big Knives had thrown the tribesmen in the *' greatest consternation." For a time they knew not which cause to espouse. " They were generally at War against us, but the French and the Spainyards appearing so fond of us confused them, they counciled with the French Traders, to know what was best to be done, and of course was advised to come and selicit for peace, and did not doubt but we might be good Friends." By dint of a combi- nation of threats, cajolery, and braggart talk, well suited to impress them, Clark skilfully brought the Indians to terms. His vigorous speeches, sent to Bowman at Cahokia (**Cohos" of Clark's manuscript) and Helm at Vincennes, were read by those commanders to the as- p George Rogers Clark 39 scmblcd tribes, and ''did more service than a Regiment of Men cou'd have done ; " while French and half-breed messengers carried similar overtures through a wide belt of country, going as far north as the Fox River in Wisconsin. Proceeding to Cahokia himself to meet the Indians at a great council, " it was with Savfti^e astonishment," he writes, that he friends " vicwcd the Amazcing number of Sav- "p ' ages that soon flocked into the town of Cohos ^^-^ to treat for peace, and to hear what the Big knives had to say, many of them 500 miles distant, Chipoways, Ottoways, Petawatomies, ^ Puans, Sacks, Foxes, Sayges, Tauways, Maw- <: mies ^ and a number of other Nations, all living east of the Messicippa, and many of them at War against us." Indeed, the number of his new-found savage friends that assembled at Cahokia was so great that during the five weeks of his stay there, ** such a number of Devils " gave him great anxiety and required a stern hand to repress; for they were fond, y after the manner of v/ild animals, of testing the strength of the stranger, who, however, stoutly held his own among them. 1 Chippewas, Ottovvas, Potawatomis,\Vinnebagoes, Sauks, Foxes, Osages, lowas, Miamis. ./" / ^ Essays in Western History Godefroy Linctot, the French trader at Prairie du Chien, openly espoused the Ameri- can cause and did valuable service as Clark's agent north and west of the Illinois River, purchasing horses among the Sauks, and raid- ing the country. Clark's management of the Indians was superb, and they came to have a wholesome and lasting fear of the Big Knife chief; while those of the French who fell under his influence entertained for him a loving regard. Meanwhile, General Hamilton at Detroit was greatly annoyed by the news from Vin- Hamihon's ccnncs. With characteristic energy Tvar-pariy |^g ^^^^ agcuts out through the tribes of Michigan and Wisconsin, and made preparations for a formidable war-party for the retaking of that important post. The entire month of September was spent in fitting out the expedition. The seventh of October, headed by Hamilton himself, it left for the south, numbering a hundred and seventy- seven whites, chiefly Creole volunteers, and about three hundred Indians. The heavily laden flotilla of batteaux pro- ceeded up the Maumee, over the portage of ,,. nine miles, and down a tributary of taken by the Wabash. The water was shallow ; an early winter set in, forming ice on George Rogers Clark 41 I the streams ; and before the contingent reached Vincennes it was the seventeenth of December, seventy-one days after starting. Captain Helm and his one American soldier made a show of resistance, but on the French militia deserting to the enemy, it became necessary to surren- der.^ Some of Clark's spies from Kaskaskia, who were hanging on Hamilton's flanks, were also captured. If Hamilton had at once pushed forward and attacked Clark at Kaskaskia, there is no doubt that the Americans must either have succumbed or retired beyond the Mis- sissippi into Spanish territory. But in mid- winter the way was filled with great difficulties - for the advance of an army column, hampered with baggage. Hamilton therefore remained at Vincennes, allowed all but some eighty or 1 " When Governor Hamilton entered Vincennes, there were but two Americans there, Captain Helm, the com- mandant, and one Henry. The [latter] had a cannon well charged, and placed in the open fort gate, while Helm stood by it with a lighted match in his hand. When Hamilton and his troops got within good hailing distance, the Ameri- can officer, in a loud voice, cried out, ' Halt ! ' This stopped the movement of Hamilton, who, in reply, demanded a sur- render of the garrison. Helm exclaimed with an oath, ' No man shall enter until I know the terms.' Hamilton answered, 'You shall have the honors of war;' and then the fort was surrendered, with its garrison of one officer, and one man." — Butler's Kentucky (Louisville, 1834), p. 80, note. 42 . Essays in Western History ninety whites and a hundred Indians to return home, and spent the time planning for a great spring campaign against the Illinois, in which he proposed to batter down the forts with cannon, and then turning southward make a clean sweep of the Kentucky stations. Had he succeeded in 'this bold project, all American settlement west of the Alleghanies would have been destroyed, and the United States might have lost the West forever. The news of the recapture of Vincennes was over a month in reaching Clark. Know- A scare at i^"^? ^hat the British expedition had Kaskaskia ^X Icast reached the old Indian vil- lage on the site of the present city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, but as yet uninformed of the result, Clark started early in January (1779) for Cahokia, in order to hold a conference there with the principal inhabitants of the Illinois country. On his way he and his ** Guard of about six or seven Men and a few Gentlemen in Chairs " narrowly escaped being ambushed, three miles out of Kaskaskia, by a party of ** 40 Savages headed by white Men " whom Hamilton had sent out from Vincennes to take Clark prisoner, having given them ** such Instructions for my treatment as did him no dishonour." Delayed by an accident, George Rogers Clark 43 the travellers had by evening only reached the old French village of La Prairie du Rocher, fourteen miles northwest of Kaskaskia. Here they prepared to pass the night. While being entertained at a ball, an express rider arrived with the appalling news that Hamilton was within three miles of Kaskaskia, with eight hun- dred men. " I never saw greater confusion among a small Assembly than was at that time, every Person having their eyes on me, as if my word was to determine their good or Evil fate." As usual, Clark coolly ordered his horses sad- dled for the return, and told the frightened company '* That I hoped that they would not let the news Spoil our Divirsion sooner than was necessary, that we would divirt ourselves until our horses was ready, forced them to dance, and endeavoured to appear as uncon- cerned as if no such thing was in Adjutation." On reaching Kaskaskia, the inhabitants, as yet unattacked, were found confident that the enemy was but biding his time ; and during the next few days Clark was obliged to exer- cise tact and firmness in a remarkable degree. The Creoles, confident that the Americans would lose, and that the English would treat them badly for having succored the enemy, at first affected neutrahty. But after Clark had 44 Essays iit Western History made a feint of burning the town and of hanging a villager who had circulated dis- comforting rumors of a British advance, the Kaskaskians again profusely expressed their devotion to Virginia. Whereupon the astute commander ** altered my conduct towards them and treated them with the greatest kindness, granting them every request, my influence among them in a few hours was greater than ever." The incident closed happily with the discovery that *' the great Army that gave the alarm consisted only of about forty Whites and Indians making their Retreat as fast as possible to St. Vincent, sent for no other pur- pose, as we found after than to take me." This adventure convinced Clark — although he had as yet received no news, for his spies Clark on the Wabash had been taken by uneasy ^|^^^ enemy — that Hamilton was now at Vincennes. The French in the Illinois elsewhere than at Kaskaskia where they now stoutly professed confidence in the Americans, were panic-stricken, and the neighboring tribes grew insolent in their demands. Confidently expecting an attack, the commander made careful preparations, even to the extent of planning to burn the outlying dwellings, so as to afford no cover to the enemy. He felt sure George Rogers Clark 45 of his meagre garrison, but had the gravest doubts of cooperation from the Creoles out- side. His requested reinforcements could hardly be expected at this season from Vir- ginia and Kentucky. He philosophically de- clares that he " suffered more uneasiness than when I was certain of an immediate attact, as I had more time to reflect." The end of American rule seemed near. The gloom lifted on the evening of the twenty-ninth of January, when Col. Francis Vigo's in- Vigo arrived from St. Louis with defi- formation j^j^^ information concerning the small- ness of Hamilton's winter garrison at Vincennes, and his intended inaction until spring. Vigo, a Spanish merchant who had business connec- tions with the governor of Upper Louisiana, had visited Clark upon the latter's capture of Kaskaskia, and not only promised his influence in behalf of the Virginians, but made them a substantial loan. Upon Clark's request he went to Vincennes, accompanied only by a servant, to ascertain the situation of affairs. Hamilton, suspicious of his intent, for a time held him on parole at the fort, but finally allowed him to depart on signing an agreement **not to do anything injurious to the British interests on his way to St. Louis." As promised, 46 Essays i7i Western History Vigo proceeded to St. Louis in his piroque, but thereupon promptly re-embarked and crossed to Kaskaskia, bringing, as Clark writes, "every intilligence I could wish to have." Clark was eminently a man of action. Recog- nizing that if Hamilton proceeded against him Forestall- ^ would be lost, he at once deter- ingthe mined to forestall the enemy by mak- enemy .^^ ^^ attack liimsclf. " It was at this moment," he declares, ** I would have bound myself seven years a Slave, to have had five hundred Troops." " I had a Large Boat prepared and Rigged," — a rowing galley or batteau, called the " Will- ing," — "mounting two four pounders 4 large swivels Manned with a fine Comp [of forty men] commanded by Lieut. Rogers. . . . This Vessel when compleat was much admired by the In- habitants as no such thing had been seen in the Country before. I had great Expectations from her." The galley was despatched in the evening of the fourth of February, with orders to patrol the Ohio and if possible to approach within ten leagues of Vincennes, on the Wabash, the purpose being to prevent English boats from descending upon the Kentucky settlements. " I conducted myself as though I was sure of taking Mr. Hamilton, instructed my officers George Rogers Clark 47 to observe the same Rule. In a day or two the Country seemed to beheve it, many anctious to Retrieve their Characters turned out, the Ladies, began also to be spirited and interest themselves in the Expedition, which had a great effect on the Young Men." Persuaded by the Creole girls, both at Cahokia and Vin- cennes, *' the Principal Young Men of the Illi- nois " flocked to the call of the tall Virginian. Upon the day following the departure of the " Willing," he was able to march out of Kas- kaskia at the head of a hundred and seventy^ bold fellows, American and French. " I cannot '' Inward ^ccouut for it," dcclarcs our hero, assurance " but I Still had iuward assurance of of success success, and never could when weigh- ing every Circumstance doubt it: But I had some secret check." In order to surprise Vincennes, it was of course necessary to avoid the usual river route by the Ohio and the Wabash. The expedition started off across the country, a distance of some two hundred and thirty miles.^- In sum- mer it was a delightful region of alternating 1 Clark says, "a little upwards of two hundred"; but Bowman's Journal (Pirtle's Clark's Campaign in the Illinois, p. 100), from which we obtain many details of the march, specifically gives the number as "170 men . . . [including] artillery, pack-horses," &c. 48 Essays in Western History lakes, rivers, groves, and prairiesrf- " I suppose one of the most beautiful Country in the world." In the dead of winter, it afforded fair travelling A difficult over the frozen plains and ice-bridged march streams. But now, in February, the weather had moderated and great freshets had flooded the broad area of lowland. The ground was boggy, progress was slow and difficult, there were no tents, the floods had driven away much of the game, — although ** numbers of buffaloes" were killed early in the march, — and Clark and his officers were often at their wits' ends to devise methods for keeping their hard-worked men in good spirits./ The several companies vied in hunting and cooking for each other; and at night held feasts in the Indian fashion around great camp-fires, at which there were singing and dancing, to the accom- paniment of the inevitable French fiddle. And thus the first week sped. Then came (January 13) the so-called " drowned lands " of j,j^^ the Wabash, a wide stretch of sub- '' drowned merged country extending the most of the way from the Little Wabash into Vincennes. The two branches of the Little Wa- bash, with channels a league apart, were now so high that they made a single river five miles wide, with the water in no place less than three George Rogers Clark 49 feet deep. ''This would have been enough to have stoped any set of men that was not in the same temper we was in." It was the following afternoon before a large canoe could be constructed, and on the third day this was employed in transporting the men and baggage across the deep channels, the horses swimming behind. In the shallow places, men and beasts plunged through the bush-strewn water and mud — the former " Building scaffolds at each [shallow] to lodge our Baggage on until the Horses Crossed to take them; it Rained nearly a third of our march, but we never halted for it." There was no longer any game to be had, and it was now dangerous to discharge guns, be- „ f j^^ cause of the proximity to Vincennes. and Almost wom out by fatigue and hunger hunger, the expedition reached the Embarrass River on the seventeenth, twelve days out from Kaskaskia; but it was found impracticable to cross the Embarrass, now a raging flood. The best they could do was to find a swampy little hillock on which — amid ''drizzly and dark weather " — they crowded together for the night, of course wet to the skin, shivering with cold, and with neither food nor fire. 4 50 Essays in Western History Next morning, the sound of the sunrise gun at Vincennes, but nine miles away, came Wallowing booming over the waste of waters. throitgh They were, however, still far from "^ having reached their goal. Wallow- ing through the bog, down the west bank of the Embarrass, they came at last to the Wabash, and here two days were spent in building canoes. " From the spot we now lay on [it] was about ten miles to Town, and every foot of the way put together that was not three feet and upwards under water would not have made the length of two miles and a half, and not a mouthful of Provision. ... If I was sen- sible that you [George Mason] would let no Person see this relation, I would give You a detail of our suffering for four days in crossing those waters, and the manner it was done, as I am sure that You wou'd Credit it, but it is too incredible for any Person to believe except those that are well acquainted with me as You are, or had experienced something similar to it. I hope you will excuse me until I have the pleasure of seeing you personally." Clark's energies were taxed to the utmost to keep his Frenchmen from deserting, they being greatly depressed by the miseries of the situation, but the Americans were undaunted. George Rogers Clark 5 1 Details sent on a raft and in a canoe to steal boats in the neighborhood of the town re- '' Hard turned after two days without success, fortune!'^ '' for there was," says Bowman, " not one foot of dry land to be found. . . . Col. Clark sent two men in the canoe, down to meet the batteau [the " Willing "], with orders to come on day and night; that being our last hope, and [we] starving. ... No provisions of any sort, now two days. Hard fortune ! " At noon of the twentieth, a boat was brought in with five Frenchmen from Vincennes. The villagers reported that among Hamilton and his men there was no suspicion of an attack, while ''the inhabitants were well disposed towards us." This news and the killing of a deer raised the spirits of the party. On the twenty-first it rained all day. At daybreak the invaders were ferried to the east side of the Wabash, that on which lay Vin- cennes. Through the vast swamp, — " no dry land on any side for many leagues," — the water often up to their chins, the strongest waded, the canoes carrying the weak and fam- ished. With infinite toil, but three miles had been covered when at dusk they sank ex- hausted upon another boggy island knoll, and for the seventh night — within sound of 52 Essays in Western History " the evening and morning guns from the fort " — slept hungry and in clothes sopping wet. Next day it was the same story, the brave fellows plunging on through the freezing flood, The man Indian file, the man of iron at the o/tron head now and then leading off in a favorite song, which was caught up along the column and helped lighten the weary feet of the adventurers. That night was passed on a maple-grown hillock six miles out from Vin- cennes. It was bitter cold ; in the morning (the 23d) there was ice half an inch thick on the smooth water, and the men were encased in arctic armor. The sun rose bright. Clark assured his stiftened, half-frozen, well- nigh famished crew that the next night would see them in Vincennes; then, dashing into the water at the head of the file, ordered his officers to close the rear and shoot any man who refused to march. ^ 1 Law's Colonial History of Vincennes (Louisville, 1858), p. 32, gives this story, which apparently has been somewhat heightened in color : " In one of the companies was a small boy who acted as drummer. In the same company was a seargeant, standing six feet two inches in his stockings, stout, athletic, and devoted to Clark. Finding that his eloquence had no effect upon the men, in persuading, them to continue their line of march, Clark mounted the little drummer on the shoulders of the stalwart sergeant, and gave orders to him George Rogers Clark 53 Now came the worst experience of all. The Horseshoe Plain before them had been trans- A frightful formed by the floods into a shallow crossing j^j^g fQ^j. ^liles wide. No clump of land stood above the water ; it was one smooth unbroken expanse, on the farther side of which were heavy woods shielding them from the town. About the centre, the prolonged hardships of the march began at last to tell on all save the strongest. All along the line brave fellows dropped in the ranks, and the canoe- men frantically plied between them and the land beyond, saving the helpless from drowning. The strong supported those who could still keep their feet, while Clark, with alternating gibe and stern command, exerted himself to animate his followers. The water was often to the shoulders of the tallest; and when at last the edge of the island grove was reached, there were few who did not sink to the ground exhausted, to be rallied only through great exertion. Fortunately some food was obtained to plunge into the half-frozen water. He did so, the little drummer beating the charge from his lofty perch, while Clark, sword in hand, followed them, giving the command as he threw aside the floating ice — ' Forward ! ' Elated and amused with the scene, the men promptly obeyed, holding their rifles above their heads, and in spite of all obstacles, reached the high land beyond them, safely." 54 Essays in Western History from a party of Indian women who chanced to pass in a canoe, fires were lighted, the weakest were treated to broth, and soon all were in- spired to fresh courage. Two miles away, through the woods and across another lake, they could see the town, Hamilton ^^^^ despair was followed by rejoicing. still nil- *' Laying in this Grove some time to dry our Clothes by the Sun we took another Prisoner," a Creole out shooting ducks, and from him learned that Hamilton was still unconscious of his danger. Two hundred In- dians had, however, just arrived in town. This last information was discouraging, for that made the force in Vincennes — British, French, and Indian — four times his own. '' A thou- sand Ideas," he says, *' flushed in my Head at this moment." He now thought it impolitic to surprise the place, for in the fight some of the French and Indians might be killed and this would embitter the rest; whereas his in- formant told him the French were lukewarm and would only fight if forced to it. " I resolved to appear as Daring as possible, that the Enemy might conceive by our be- ciark's haviour that we were very numer- leiterto Q^g and probably discourage them." viiiaTraiJ, .____.-. dians belonging to the said tribes shall enjoy the privilege of living or hunting upon them."^ ^ Treaties between the United States of America and the several Indian Tribes (Washington, 1837), p. 109. 1 1 8 Essays in Western History Within the limits of the cession was the chief seat of Sauk power ^ — a village lying on the north side of Rock River, three miles above The old its mouth and the same distance south Sank village q{ Rock Island, in the Mississippi. It was picturesquely situated, contained the principal cemetery of the nation, and was populated by about five hundred families, being one of the largest Indian towns on the continent. The soil was alluvial in its composition, producing large crops of corn and pumpkins, and the aboriginal villagers took great pride in a rudely cultivated tract some three thousand acres in extent, lying north of the town and parallel with the Mississippi. From the beginning of the nineteenth cen- tury the principal character in this village was Makataimeshekiakiak, or Black Sparrow Hawk — commonly styled Black Hawk. Born at the 1 The allied Sauks and Foxes had, from the middle of the eighteenth century, occupied the banks of the Mississippi, between the mouths of the Missouri and the Wisconsin. The confederation, in times of peace, was more nominal than real. There was much jealous bickering between the tribes. In general, the Foxes, who occupied the west bank, and were the smallest tribe numerically, were more concilia- tory toward the whites than were the Sauks, who dwelt chiefly along the east bank. The Black Hawk War 119 Sauk village in i 'j^'j, he was neither an heredi- tary nor an elected chief, but by common ^^^^^ consent became the leader of that Hawk community. Although not possessed of superior physical, moral, or intellectual en- dowments, the force of circumstances caused him to become a national celebrity in his day and a conspicuous figure in Western history for all time. He was a restless, ambitious savage, possessed of some of the qualities of successful leadership, but without the capacity to attain the highest honors in the Sauk and Fox con- federacy. He early became a malcontent, jealous of Keokuk, Wapello, Morgan, and the other recognized chiefs, continually sought excuses for openly differing with them on questions of policy, and in council arrayed his followers against them. He was much of a demagogue, and aroused the passions of his people by appeals to their prejudices and superstitions. It is probable that he was never, in the exer- cise of this policy, dishonest in his motives. Doubtless he was sincere in the opinions he championed. But he was easily influenced by the British military and commercial agents, — who were continually engaged, previous to the War of 1812-15, in cultivating a spirit of hos- 1 20 Essays in Western History tility between the Northwestern tribes and the Americans, — and was led by them always to consider himself under the special protection of the ** British father " (general military agent) at Maiden.^ A too-confiding disposition was ever leading his judgment astray. He was readily duped by those who, white or red, were interested in deceiving him. The effect of his daily communication with the Ameri- cans was often rudely to shock his high sense of honor, while the uniform courtesy of the treatment accorded him upon his annual beg- ging visit to Maiden contrasted strangely with the attitude of the inhabitants on the lUinois border. Black Hawk was about five feet, four or five inches in height, and rather spare as to flesh ; his somewhat pinched features exaggerated the 1 In his Autobiography (Boston, 1834), — probably au- thentic for the most part, but written in a stilted style which we doubtless owe to the editor, Patterson, — Black Hawk calls the president at Washington his "great father," and the agent at Maiden his " British father." Ford's History of Illinois (Chicago, 1854), p. 110, 7tote, questions the accuracy of the autobiography; he says that "Black Hawk knew little, if anything, about it"; that it "was written by a printer, and was never intended for anything but a catch- penny publication," and that it is a "gross perversion of facts." Later historians, not as strong Indian-haters as Ford, have taken a more favorable view of the book. BLACK HAWK From the painting by R . M. Sully, in possession of the TVisconsin Historical Society The Black Hawk War 121 prominence of the cheek-bones of his race ; he had a full mouth, inclined to be somewhat open when at rest ; a pronounced Roman nose ; fine ** piercing " eyes, often beaming with a kindly and always with a thoughtful expres- sion ; practically no eyebrows ; a high, full forehead; a head well thrown back, with a pose of quiet dignity, and his hair plucked out, with the exception of the scalp-lock, in which, on ceremonial occasions, was fastened a bunch of eagle feathers.^ The conservative braves of the confederacy, who were friendly to the Americans, appear in the main to have re- garded the Hawk with kindly compassion. He was thought by them to be misguided, to be the credulous catspaw for others, but his sincerity was not often doubted. His own fol- lowers, who, from the closeness of their inter- course with the Canadian authorities were known as the " British Band," as a rule held him in the highest regard.^ 1 An admirable original portrait of Black Hawk, by R. M. Sully, painted in 1883 while the subject was a prisoner at Fortress Monroe, hangs in the portrait gallery of the Wis- consin Historical Society ; a photographic engraving of this is herewith published. 2 See Reynolds's My Own Times (2d. ed., Chicago, 1879), p. 204, for his estimate of Black Hawk. Ford, who himself served in the Black Hawk War, says, in his History of Illinois 122 Essays in Western History At the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and the United States, in 1812, Black Hawk naturally sided with Tecumseh and the British. Accompanied by a band of two hun- ^/^j dred Sauk braves, he served under the Tecumseh great Shawuce chief until the death of the latter at the battle of the Thames, Octo- ber 5, 1813.^ Black Hawk — who had, in company with the Potawatomi chiefs, Shau- bena and Billy Caldwell, been near to Tecum- seh when he fell — at once hurried home. He would, he tells us in his Autobiography, have remained quiet thereafter, until the close of the war, but for a fatal injury which had during his absence been inflicted by a party of white ruffians upon an aged friend whom he had left behind at the village. In consequence of this outrage, it was the thirteenth of May, 18 16, — nearly eighteen months after the sign- ing of the treaty of Ghent, — before the British Band of the Sauks could be induced to (Chicago, 1854), p. 109: " Black Hawk was distinguished for courage, and for clemency to the vanquished. He was an Indian patriot, a kind husband and father, and was noted for his integrity in all his dealings with his tribe and with the Indian traders. He was firmly attached to the British, and cordially hated the Americans." 1 See Cruikshank, on Black Hawk's record in the War of 1812-15, Wis, Hist. Colls.., xii., pp. 141, 142. The Black Hawk War 123 cease their retaliatory border forays along the Upper Mississippi and sign a treaty of peace with the United States. After burying the hatchet, Black Hawk set- tled into the customary routine of savage life — Bitterness hunting in winter, loafing about his against village in summer, improvidently ex- Americans ... , , i i t isting from hand to mouth though surrounded by abundance, and occasionally varying the monotony by visits to Maiden, from whence he would return laden with provisions, arms, ammunition, and trinkets ; his stock of vanity increased by wily flattery, and his bitterness against the Americans cor- respondingly intensified. It is not surprising that he should have hated the Americans. They brought him naught but evil. He was con- tinually being disturbed by them, and a cruel and causeless beating which he received from a party of white settlers in the winter of 1822-23 was an insult treasured up against the American people as a whole. In the summer of 1823, squatters, covetous of the rich fields cultivated by the British Band, be- Encroach- §^" rudely to take possession of them. mentof The treaty of 1804 had guaranteed to sqna ers ^^ Indians the use of the ceded terri- tory so long as the lands remained the property 124 Essays hi Western History of the United States and were not sold to indi- viduals. The frontier line of homestead settle- ment was still fifty or sixty miles to the east ; the country between had not yet been surveyed, and much of it not explored ; the squatters had no rights in this territory, and it was clearly the duty of the federal government to protect the Indians within it until sales were made. The Sauks would not have complained had the squatters settled in other portions of the tract, and not sought to steal the village which was their birthplace and contained the cemetery of their tribe.^ There were physical outrages of the most flagrant nature. Indian cornfields were unblushingly included within the areas appropriated and fenced by the intruders, squaws and children were whipped for ventur- ing beyond the bounds thus set, lodges were burned over the heads of the occupants. A reign of terror ensued, in which Black Hawk's frequent remonstrances to the white authori- 1 " I had an interview with Keokuk [head chief of the confederacy], to see if this difficulty could not be settled with our Great Father, and told him to propose to give any other land that our Great Father might choose, even our lead mines, to be peaceably permitted to keep the small point of land on which our village was situated. . . . Keokuk prom- ises to make an exchange if possible." — Autobiography, pp. 8s, 86. The Black Hawk War 125 ties were in vain. The situation year by year became more unbearable. When the Indians returned each spring from their winter's hunt they found their village more of a wreck than when they had left it in the preceding au- tumn. It is surprising that they acted so peacefully while the victims of such harsh treatment. Keokuk and the United States Indian agent at Fort Armstrong — which had been built on „, , Rock Island about 18 16 — continually Black "^ Hawk advised peaceful retreat across the stubborn Mississippi. But Black Hawk was stubborn as well as romantic, and his people stood by him when he appealed to their love of home and veneration for the graves of their kindred. He now set up the claim that the Sauk and Fox representatives in the council which negotiated the treaty of 1 804 did not consent that the land on which stood Black Hawk's village should be the property of the United States.^ This was the weak point in 1 "After questioning Quashquame [one of the signers of the treaty of 1804] about the sale of the lands, he assured me that he never had consented to the sale of our village." — Autobiography,'^. 85. Yet Quashquame had signed the treaties of Portage des Sioux (September 13, 181 5) and St. Louis (September 3, 1822), wherein the treaty of 1804 was explicitly reaffirmed. 126 Essays in Western History his position. At each treaty to which he had " touched the quill " since that date he had, with the rest of his nation, solemnly reaffirmed the integrity of the compact of 1804. That he understood the nature of its provision, there is no reason to doubt. But this fact he now conveniently ignored.^ His present views were indorsed by the mischief-making British agent at Maiden, by the Winnebago Prophet, and by others of his advisers. All of these told him that were it true the government had not yet bought the site of his village, he should hold fast to it, and the United States would not venture to remove him by force.^ 1 Black Hawk signed the treaties of St. Louis (May 13, 1819), St. Louis (September 3, 1822), and Prairie du Chien (August 19, 1825), each of which reaffirmed the treaty of 1804. 2 He was easily satisfied with delphic advice : " I heard that there was a great chief on the Wabash, and sent a party to get his advice. They informed him that we had not sold our village. He assured them, then, that if we had not sold the land on which our village stood, our Great Father would not take it from us. I started early to Maiden to see the chief of my Ikitish Father, and told him my story. He gave the same reply that the chief on the Wabash had given. ... I next called on the great chief at Detroit, and made the same statement to him that I had to the chief of our British Father. He gave me the same reply. . . . This assured me that I was right, and determined me to hold out, as I had promised our people." — Autobiography, pp. 94, 95. The Black Hawk War 127 White Cloud, the Prophet, was Black Hawk's evil genius. He was a shrewd, crafty Indian, y^f^if^ half Winnebago and half Sauk, pos- cioud, the sessing much influence over both Prophet . ° . . . - nations trom his assumption of sacred talents, and was at the head of a Winnebago vil- lage some thirty-five miles up the Rock River. He possessed some traits of character similar to those of Tecumseh's brother, but in a less degree. His hatred of the whites was invet- erate ; he appears to have been devoid of humane sentiments ; he had a reckless dis- position, and sowed the seeds of native revolt apparently to gratify his passion for war. White Cloud was about forty years of age when his sinister agitation bore fruit ; nearly six feet in height, stout and athletic ; he had a large, broad face ; a short, blunt nose ; full eyes, large mouth, thick lips, a full head of shaggy hair. His general appearance in- dicated deliberate, self-contented savagery. In council, the Prophet displayed much zeal and persuasive oratory. In the matter of dress he must at times have been picturesque. An eye-witness, who was in attendance on a Potawatomi council wherein the wizard was urging the cause of Black Hawk, describes him as dressed in a faultless white buckskin 128 Essays in Western History suit, fringed at the seams ; wearing a towering head-dress of the same material, capped with a bunch of fine eagle feathers; each ankle girt with a wreath of small sleigh-bells which jingled at every step, while in his nose and ears were ponderous gold rings gently tinkling one against the other as he shook his ponder- ous head in the warmth of harangue.^ In the spring of 1830 Black Hawk and his band returned from an unsuccessful hunt to find their town almost completely shattered, many of the graves ploughed over, and the whites more abusive than ever. During the winter the squatters, who now had been seven years illegally upon the ground, formally pre- empted a few quarter-sections of lands at the mouth of the Rock, so selected as to cover the village site and the Sauk cornfields. This was clearly a trick to accord with the letter but to violate the spirit of the treaty of 1804. There was still a belt, fifty miles wide, of practically unoccupied territory to the east of the village, 1 The name of the Prophet, in the Winnebago tongue, was Waubakeeshik, meaning "white eye," having reference to the fact that one of his pupils was without color. Pioneers recently living, who remembered the Prophet, differed in opinion as to whether he was totally blind in that organ. He died among the Winnebagoes in 1840 or 1841. The Black Hawk War 129 and no necessity, for several years to come, for disturbing the Sauks in the natural progress of settlement. The indignant Black Hawk at once pro- ceeded to Maiden, to pour his sorrows into the ears of his " British father." Here he received additional assurance of the justice of his cause, and upon his return visited the Prophet, at whose village he met some of the Potawat- omis and Winnebagoes, who also gave him words of encouragement. Returning to his village in the spring of 183 1, after another gloomy and profitless winter's The whites hunt, he was fiercely warned away threatened ]^y. |.j^g vvhitcs. In a firm and digni- fied manner he notified the settlers that, if they did not themselves remove, he should use force. He informs us in his Autobiography that he did not mean bloodshed, but simply muscular eviction.^ His announcement was construed 1 "The white people brought whiskey into our village, made our people drunk, and cheated them out of their homes, guns, and traps. This fraudulent system was carried to such an extent that I apprehended serious difficulties might take place unless a stop was put to it. Consequently I visited all the whites and begged them not to sell whiskey to my people. One of them continued the practice openly. I took a party of my young men, went to his home, and took his barrel and broke in the head and turned out the whiskey. I did 9' 130 Essays in Western History by the whites, however, as a threat against their lives ; and petitions and messages were showered in by them upon Governor John Rey- nolds, of Illinois, setting forth the situation in terms that would be amusing in their exagger- ation were it not that they proved the prelude to one of the darkest tragedies in the history of the Western border. The governor fell in with the popular spirit, and at once issued a flaming proclamation calling out a mounted volunteer force to " repel the invasion of the British The Hawk Band." These volunteers, sixteen coerced hundred strong, cooperated on the twenty-fifth of June with ten companies of regulars under General Edmund P. Gaines, the commander of the Western division of the army, in a demonstration before Black Hawk's village.^ this for fear some of the whites might be killed by my people when drunk." — Autobiography, p. 89. " I now determined to put a stop to it, by clearing our country of the intruders. I went to the principal men and told them that they must and should leave our country, and gave them until the middle of the next day to remove in. The worst left within the time appointed — but the one who remained represented that his family (which was large) would be in a starving condition if he went and left his crop, and promised to behave well if I would consent to let him remain until fall in order to secure his crop. He spoke reasonably, and I consented." — Ibid.^ p. loi. 1 " It is astonishing, the war-spirit the Western people I The Black Hawk War 1 3 1 During that night the Indians, in the face of this superior force, quietly withdrew to the west bank of the Mississippi, whither they had previously been ordered. On the thirtieth they signed with General Gaines and Governor Reynolds a treaty of capitulation and peace, solemnly agreeing never to return to the east side of the river without express permission of the United States government.^ The rest of the summer was spent by the evicted savages in a state of misery. It being now too late to raise another crop of corn and beans, they suf- fered much for the actual necessaries of life. Another difficulty soon arose. The previous year (1830), a party of Menomlnees and Sioux The Me- ^^^ murdered some member of the no7ninee British Band. A inw weeks after the removal, Black Hawk and a large war-party of the Sauks ascended the Missis- sippi, and, in retahatlon, massacred, scalped, possess. As soon as I decided to march against the Indians at Rock Island, the whole country, throughout the north- west of the state, resounded with the war clamor. Every- thing was in a bustle and uproar. It was then eighteen or twenty years since the war with Great Britain and these same Indians, and the old citizens inflamed the young men to appear in the tented field against the old enemy." — Reynolds, p. 209. 1 See text of treaty. — Autobiography, pp. 218, 219. 132 Essays hi Western History and fearfully mutilated all but one of a party of twenty-eight Menominees who were en- camped on an island nearly opposite Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien. On the com- plaint of the Menominees, General Joseph Street, the Indian agent at that post, de- manded that the Sauk murderers be delivered to him for trial, under existing treaty pro- visions. As none of the Menominee murderers had been given up, his foray was, according to the ethics of savage warfare, one of just reprisal. Black Hawk therefore declined to accede ; but although this was the custom of his race, he was therein clearly rebelling against the United States government through its Indian Department. Neapope, second in command of the British Band, had, prior to the eviction, gone upon Bad a visit to Maiden. He returned to advice ]^jg cliicf in the autumn, by way of the Prophet's town, with glowing reports of proffered aid from the British and the Win- nebagoes, Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pota- watomis, in the regaining of the village.-^ 1 *' He (Neapope) informed me, privately, that the Prophet was anxious to see me, as he had much good news to tell me, and that I would hear good news in the spring from our British father. ' The Prophet requested me The Black Hawk War 133 Neapope, possessed of considerable military genius, was an ardent disciple of the Prophet, as well as a reckless mischief-maker on his own account.^ The advice of White Cloud was, that Black Hawk should proceed to the Prophet's town the following spring and raise a crop of corn, assurances being given him that by autumn the several allies, armed and equipped by the British, would be ready to join the Sauk leader in a general movement against the whites in the valley of the Rock. to inform you of all the particulars. I would much rather, however, you should see him, and learn all from himself. But I will tell you, that he has received expresses from our British father, who says that he is going to send us guns, ammunition, provisions, and clothing, early in the spring. The vessels that bring them will come by way of Mil-wa-ke [Milwaukee]. The Prophet has likewise received wampum and tobacco from the different nations on the lakes— Otta- was, Chippewas, Potawatomis; and as for the Winneba- goes, he has them all at his command. We are going to be happy once more.' "—Autobiography, p. 109. 1 Neapope (pronounced Nah-pope) means "soup." He was regarded as something of a curiosity among his fellows, because he used neither whiskey nor tobacco. Being a " medicine man," he was in demand at feasts and councils as an agency through which " talks " could be had direct with the Great Spirit. He had the reputation of being bet- ter versed in the Sauk traditions than any other member of the tribe. His history after the close of the Black Hawk War is unknown. 1 34 Essays in Western History Relying upon these rose-colored represen- tations, Black Hawk spent the winter on the then deserted site of old Fort Mad- Drtttsh Band re- ison, on the west bank of the Mis- ^^^^^"^ sissippi, near the mouth of the Des Moines, engaged in quietly recruiting his band. The urgent protests of Keokuk, who feared that the entire Sauk and Fox confederacy would become implicated in the war for which the Hawk was evidently preparing, but spurred the jealous and obstinate partisan to renewed endeavors.^ At this period the territory embraced in the Sauk and Fox cession of 1804 was an al- Eariy most unbrokcn wilderness of alternat- iraiis jj^g prairies, oak groves, rivers, and marshes. The United States government had not surveyed any portion of it, nor had it been much explored by white hunters or pioneers ; while the Indians themselves were acquainted with but narrow belts of country along their accustomed trails. In the lead regions about Galena and Mineral Point, there were a few trading posts and small mining settlements. 1 " Keokuk, who has a smooth tongue and is a great speaker, was busy in persuading my baud that I was wrong, and thereby making many of them dissatisfied with me. I had one consolation, for all the women were on my side, on account of their zoxxi^tX^^y — Autobiography, p. 98. The Black Hawk War 1 35 An Indian trail along the east bank of the Mississippi connected Galena and Fort Arm- strong, on Rock Island. A coach road known as " Kellogg's Trail," opened in 1827, connected Galena with Peoria and the settlements in southern and eastern Illinois. A daily mail coach travelled this, the only wagon road north of the Illinois River, and it was often crowded with people going to and from the mines, which were the chief source of wealth for the northern pioneers. Here and there along this road Hved a few people engaged in entertaining travellers and baiting stage horses — " Old Man " Kellogg at Kellogg's Grove ; one Win- ter, on Apple River; John Dixon at Dixon's Ferry, on Rock River; ''Dad Joe," at Dad Joe's Grove ; Henry Thomas, on West Bureau Creek ; Charles S. Boyd, at Boyd's Grove, and two or three others of less note. Indian trails crossed the country in many directions, between the villages of the several bands and their hunting and fishing grounds, and these were used as pubHc thoroughfares by whites and reds ahke.^ One of these con- nected Galena and Chicago, by the way of Big 1 See Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 230, on the evolution of highways from Indian trails ; also the several volumes in YixAh^xx:^ Historic Highways o/Ajnerica (Cleveland, 1902-03). 1 36 Essays in Western History Foot's Potawatomi village, at the head of the body of water now known as Lake Geneva. There was another, but seldom used, between Dixon's and Chicago. The mining settlements were also connected by old and new trails, and two well-travelled ways led respectively to Fort Winnebago, at the portage of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and to Fort Howard, on the lower Fox. In Illinois, the most important aboriginal highway was the great Sauk trail, extending in almost an air line across the State from Black Hawk's village to the south shore of Lake Michigan, and thence to Maiden ; over this deep-beaten path the British Band made their frequent pilgrimages to Canada. Between Galena and the Illinois River, the largest settlement was on Bureau Creek, where Frontier somc thirty families were gathered. settlements Xhej-g wcre Small aggregations of cabins at Peru, La Salle, South Ottawa, New- ark, Holderman's Grove, and a little cluster of eight or ten on Indian Creek. The lead- mining colonies in the portion of Michigan Territory afterwards set aside as Wisconsin were chiefly clustered about Mineral Point and Dodgeville.^ At the mouth of Milwaukee 1 See map of lead mines in 1829, IVis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 400. The Black Hawk War 137 River, on Lake Michigan, the fur-trader, Solo- mon Juneau, was still monarch of all he surveyed ; while at Chicago there was a popu- lation of but two or three hundred, housed in primitive abodes nestled under the shelter of Fort Dearborn. Scattered between these set- tlements were a few widely separated farms, managed in a crude, haphazard fashion ; squat- ters were more numerous than homesteaders, and at best little attention was paid to metes and bounds. The settlers were chiefly hardy backwoods- men who had graduated from the Pennsylvania, Character Ohio, Kcutucky, and Indiana clear- of settlers jngg^ g^d *' comc Wcst " to better their fortunes, or because neighbors were be- coming too numerous in the older regions. Generally they were poor, owning but little more than their cabins, their scanty clothing, a few rough tools, teams of " scrub " horses or yokes of cattle, and some barnyard stock. They were, for the most part, in the prime of life, enterprising, bold, daring, skilled marks- men, and accustomed to exposure, privations, and danger. There were no schools, and the only religious instruction received by these rude pioneers was that given by adventurous missionaries who penetrated the wilderness 138 Essays in Western History with the self-sacrificing energies of the fathers of the church, compensating with zeal for what they lacked in culture. But upon the heels of these worthies had come thieves, counterfeiters, cut-throats, social outlaws from the East. Reckless and aggres- sive, they too often gave to the community a character of lawless adventure. Such men haunt the frontiers of civilization ; and abo- rigines, from being more frequently brought into collision with these than with the more conservative majority, are apt naturally to form an opinion of our race that is far from flattering.^ Conditions in Illinois were ripe for an Indian war. Many elements in the white population „ ^ , foresaw benefits to be derived from it. Ready for an Indian Occupation would be given to the ^^^ small but noisy class of pioneer loaf- ers, and government money would circulate freely ; to the numerous and respectable body of Indian-haters — persons who had at some time suffered in person or property from the red savages, and had come to regard them as 1 Nicolay and Hay's Abraham Lincoln — A History, i., chaps, ii. and iii., gives a graphic picture of pioneer life in Illinois in 1830; but their account of the Black Hawk War, chap, v., unfortunately contains numerous errors. The Black Hawk War 139 little better than wild beasts— it offered a chance for reprisal ; to the political aspirant, a brilliant foray presented opportunities for the achievement of personal popularity, and in- deed the Black Hawk War was long the chief stock in trade of many a subsequent statesman ; while to persons fond of mere adventure, always a large element on the bor- der, the fighting of Indians presented superior attractions. On the sixth of April, 1832, Black Hawk and Neapope, with about five hundred warriors Illinois in- (chiefly Sauks), their squaws and chil- vaded dren, and all their possessions, crossed the Mississippi at the Yellow Banks, below the mouth of the Rock, and invaded the State of Illinois. During the winter, the results of the Hawk's negotiations with the Winnebagoes and Potawatomis had not been of an encour- aging nature. He now suspected that the repre- sentations of the Prophet and Neapope were exaggerated, and his advance from Fort Madi- son up the west bank of the Mississippi was accordingly made with some forebodings ; but the Prophet met him at the Yellow Banks, and gave him such positive reassurances of ultimate success, that the misguided Sauk confidently and leisurely continued his jour- 140 Essays in Western History ney.^ He proceeded up the east bank of the Rock as far as the Prophet's town — some four hundred and fifty of his braves being well mounted, while the others, with the women, children, and equipage, occupied the canoes. The intention of the invaders was, as before stated, to raise a crop with the Rock River Winnebagoes at or immediately above the Prophet's town, and prepare for the war-path in the fall, when there would be a supply of provisions. Progress was so beset by difficul- ties, heavy rains having made the stream tur- bulent and the wide river bottoms swampy, that the band was twenty days in travelling the intervening forty miles. Immediately upon crossing the Mississippi, Black Hawk had despatched messengers to SJiaiibena's the Potawatomis, asking them to services meet him in council of war on Syca- more Creek (now Stillman's Run), opposite the present site of Byron. The Potawatomis 1 "The Prophet then addressed my braves and warriors. He told them to follow us, and act like braves, and we had nothing to fear, but much to gain. That the American war chief might come, but would not, nor dare not, interfere with us so long as we acted jjeaceably. That we were not yet ready to act otherwise. We must wait until we ascend Rock River and receive our reinforcements, and we will then be able to withstand any army ! " — Autobiography, p, 113. The Black Hawk War 141 were much divided in opinion as to the proper course to pursue. Shaubena, a chief of much abiHty, who since the War of 18 12-15 had formed a sincere respect and attachment for the whites, succeeded in inducing the ma- jority of the braves at least to remain neutral ; but the hot-heads, under Big Foot and a despicable half-breed British agent, Mike Girty, were fierce for taking the war-path. Shaubena, after quieting the passions of his followers, set out at once to make a rapid tour of the settlements in the Illinois and Rock valleys, carrying the first tidings of approaching war to the pioneers, even extending his mission as far east as Chicago.^ General Henry Atkinson ^ had arrived at Fort Armstrong early in the spring, in charge Troop of a company of regulars, for the pur- caiiedout i^q^^ q{ enforcing the demand of the Indian department for the Sauk murderers of the Menominees. He did not learn of the invasion until the thirteenth of April, seven days after the crossing, and at once notified Governor Reynolds that his own force was too small for the emergency and that a large detachment of militia was essential. The gov- 1 See Matson's Memories of Shaubena (Chicago, i8So). 2 The Indians called him " White Beaver." 142 Essays in Western History ernor immediately issued another fiery proc- lamation (April 16), calling for a special levy of mounted volunteers to assemble at Beards- town, on the lower reaches of Illinois River, upon the twenty-second of the month. The news spread like wild-fire. Some of the settlers flew from the country in hot haste, stockade never to return ; but the majority of forts those who did not join the State troops hastened into the larger settlements or to other points convenient for assembly, where rude stockade forts were built on Kentucky models, the inhabitants forming themselves into little garrisons, with officers and some degree of mihtary discipline.^ 1 The following named forts figured more or less conspicu- ously in the ensuing troubles : III Illinois — Galena, Apple River, Kellogg's Grove, Buf- falo Grove, Dixon's, South Ottawa, Wilburn (nearly opposite the present city of Peru), West Bureau, Hennepin, and Clark (at Peoria). Iji Michigan Tt'r/vVf^rj/ (now Southwestern Wisconsin) — Union (Dodge's smelting works, near Dodgeville), Defiance (Parkinson's farm, five miles southeast of Mineral Point), Hamilton (William S. Hamilton's smelting works, now Wiota), Jackson (at Mineral Point), Blue Mounds (one and a half miles south of East Blue Mound), Parish's (at Thomas J. Parish's smelting works, now Wingville), Cassville, Platte- ville, Gratiot's Grove, Diamond Grove, White Oak Springs, Old Shullsburg, and Elk Grove. The Black Hawk War 143 Fort Armstrong was soon a busy scene of preparation. St. Louis was at the time the Atkinson ^^^^^ government supply dep6t on organizes the Upper Mississippi ; and Hmited tie army transportation facilities, and the bad weather incident to a backward spring, greatly hampered the work of collecting troops, stores, boats, and camp equipage. General Atkinson, energetic and possessed of much executive ability, overcame these difficulties as rapidly as possible. He had military skill, courage, perseverance, and knowledge of Indian char- acter, and during his preparations for the cam- paign took pains personally to assure himself of the peaceful attitude of those Sauks and Foxes not members of the British Band. He also sent two sets of messengers to Black Hawk, order- ing him to withdraw at once to the west bank of the river, on the peril of being driven there by force of arms. To both messages the Sauk leader, now blindly trusting in the Prophet, sent defiant answers.^ 1 " Another express came from the White Beaver [Atkin- son], threatening to pursue us and drive us back, if we did not return peaceably. This message roused the spirit of my band, and all were determined to remain with me and contest the ground with the war chief, should he come and attempt to drive us. We therefore directed the express to say to the war chief, ' If he wished to fight \xs, he might come on ! ' We 144 Essays in Western History Meanwhile the volunteers, easily recruited amid the general excitement, rendezvoused at Volunteers Beardstowu. They were organized mobihzed Jj^|.q f-Q^j. regiments, under the com- mands of Colonel John Thomas, Jacob Fry, Abraham B. Devvitt, and Samuel M. Thomp- son ; there were also a spy (or scout) battalion under Major James D. Henry, and two " odd battalions " under Majors Thomas James and Thomas Long.^ The entire force, some six- were determined never to be driven, and equally so, not to make the first attack, our object being to act only on the defensive." — Autobiography, p. 114. Wakefield's History of the War (Jacksonville, 111., 1834), pp. 10-12, gives an interesting report of a visit to Black Hawk's camp at the Prophet's town, made April 25-27, by Henry Gratiot, Indian agent for the Rock River band of Winnebagoes. Gratiot bore one of the messages from Atkinson, which Black Hawk declined to receive. See Wis. Hist, Colls., ii., p. 336 ; x., pp. 235, 493, for details of this mission, and sketch of Gratiot. 1 See roster in Armstrong's The Sauks and the Black Hawk War (Springfield, 111., 1887), appendix. Abraham Lincoln, afterwards President of the United States, was captain of a company in the Fourth (Thompson's) regiment. Wakefield, the historian, served in Henry's spy battalion. Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy, was a lieutenant of Co. B., First United States infantry, which was stationed at Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien) during January and February, 1832, but Davis himself is on the rolls as "absent on detached service at the Dubuque mines by order of Colonel Morgan." He was absent from his company on furlough, from March 26 to August 18, 1S32; hence, it would The Black Hawk War 145 teen hundred strong — all horsemen except three hundred who had by mistake been en- listed as infantry — was placed under the charge of Brigadier-General Samuel Whiteside, who had previously been in command of frontier rangers and enjoyed the reputation of being a good Indian fighter. Accompanied by Gov- ernor Reynolds, the brigade proceeded to Fort Armstrong, which was reached on the seventh of May, and General Atkinson swore the volun- teers into United States service. The governor, who remained with his troops, was recognized and paid as a major-general ; while Lieutenant Robert Anderson (later of Fort Sumter fame) was detailed from the regulars to be inspector- general of the Illinois militia. On the ninth, the start was made, Black Thear^ny Hawk's trail up the east bank of the sets out Rock being pursued by Whiteside and the mounted volunteers. Atkinson fol- appear from the records that he took no part in the Bhxck Hawk War further than to escort the chief to Jefferson Barracks. Nevertheless, an anonymous campaign biography of Davis, published at Jackson, Miss., 1851, in the interest of his candidacy for the governorship, and presumably inspired by the candidate himself, says that he " earned his full share of the glories, by partaking of the dangers and hardships of the campaign. Here he remained in the active discharge of his duties, and participating in most of the skirmishes and battles, until shortly after the battle of Bad Axe." 10 146 Essays m Western History lowed in boats with cannon, provisions, and the bulk of the baggage ; with him were the three hundred volunteer footmen and four hundred regular infantry, the latter gathered from Forts Crawford (Prairie du Chien) and Leavenworth, and under the command of Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterwards President of the United States.^ The rest of the baggage was taken by Whiteside's land force in wagons. The travelling was bad for both divisions. The heavy rains had swollen the stream ; the men frequently waded breast deep for hours to- gether, pushing the keel and Mackinac boats against the rapid current and lifting them over the rapids ; while upon the swampy trails the baggage wagons were often mired, and the horsemen obliged to do rough service in push- ing and hauling freight through the black muck and over tangled roots. For many days the troops had not a dry thread upon them ; the tents were found to be of poor quality, and but meagre protection from the driving storms on the Illinois prairies.^ 1 Major William S. Harney, the hero of Cerro Gordo, also served with the regulars in this campaign. 2 *' A great portion of the volunteers had been raised in the backwoods, and rafting and swimming streams were familiar to them." — Reynolds, p. 226. The Black Hawk War 147 Whiteside was thus enabled to out-distance Atkinson. Arriving at the Prophet's town, he found it deserted and the trail up the river fresh, so he pushed on as rapidly as possible to Dixon's, where he arrived on the twelfth. Here he found two independent battalions, three hundred and forty-one men all told, under Majors Isaiah Stillman and David Bailey.^ They had been at the ferry for some days, with abundance of ammunition and supplies, in which latter Whiteside was now deficient. These commands were not of the regular levy, and objected to joining the main army except on detached service as rangers. Imbued with reckless enthusiasm, they were impatient at the slow advance of the expedi- tion, and anxious at once to do something brilliant, feeling confident that all that was necessary to end the war was for them to be given a chance to meet the enemy in open battle. Obtaining Whiteside's permission to go stiiiman's forward in the capacity of a scout- scouts ing party, the independents set out bravely on the morning of the thirteenth, under 1 This made the total volunteer force 1,935 "^6"- The Stillman and Bailey battalions were afterwards organized as the Fifth Regiment, under Colonel James Johnson. 148 Essays t7i Western History Stillman. Late in the afternoon of the four- teenth they pitched camp in a small clump of open timber, three miles southwest of the mouth of Sycamore Creek. It was a peculiarly strong position for defence. The troop com- pletely filled the grove, which was surrounded by a broad, undulating prairie. With an Indian enemy averse to fighting in the open, the troopers might readily have repulsed ten times their own number. Black Hawk had tarried a week at the Prophet's town, holding fruitless councils with Trihemen the wily and vacillating Winnebago es. in council Hq now for the first time learned positively that he had been deceived. But to keep his engagement at Sycamore Creek, he pushed on, faint at heart, though vaguely hoping better things of the Potawatomis. Going into camp with his principal men, in a large grove near the mouth of the creek, he met the chiefs of that tribe, and soon found that Shaubena's counsels had rendered it im- possible to gain over to his cause more than about a hundred of the hot-head element. Black Hawk asserted in after years that he had at this juncture fully resolved to return at once to the west of the Mississippi should he again be summoned to do so by General Atkinson, The Black Hawk War 149 never more to disturb the peace of the white settlements. As a parting courtesy to his guests, however, he was on the evening of the fourteenth making arrangements to give them a dog feast, when the summons came in a manner Httle anticipated. The white-hating faction of the Potawato- mis was encamped on the Kishwaukee River some seven miles north of Black Hawk, and with them the majority of his own party. The Hawk says that not more than forty of his braves were with him upon the council ground. Towards sunset, in the midst of his prepara- tions, he was informed that a party of white horsemen were going into camp three miles down the Rock. It was Stillman's corps, but the Sauk — then unaware of the size of the force which had been placed in the field against him — thought it a small party headed by Atkinson, and sent three of his young men with a white flag, to parley with the new arrivals and con- vey his offer to meet the White Beaver in council. 1 The rangers, who had regarded the expedi- tion as a big frolic, were engaged in preparing their camp, in irregular picnic fashion, when 1 Autobiography y pp. 117, 118. 150 Essays in Western History the truce-bearers appeared upon a prairie knoll, nearly a mile away. A mob of the troopers, in helter-skelter form, some with saddles on their horses and some without, rushed out upon the astonished envoys, and hurried them into camp amid a hubbub of yells and imprecations. Black Hawk had sent five other braves to follow the flagmen at a safe distance, and watch developments. This second party was sighted by about twenty of the horsemen, who had been scouring the plain for more Indians. They were said to have been, like others of Stillman's men at the time, much excited by the too free use of intoxicants. Hot chase was given to the spies, and two of them were killed. The other three galloped back to the council grove and re- ported to their chief that not only two of their own number, but the three flag-bearers as well, had been cruelly slain. This flagrant disregard of the rules of war caused the blood of the old Sauk to boil with righteous indignation. Tear- ing to shreds the flag of truce which, when the spies broke in upon him, he himself had been preparing to carry to the white camp, he fiercely harangued his thirty-five braves and bade them, at any risk, to avenge the blood of their tribesmen. The Black Hawk War 1 5 1 The neutral Potawatomi visitors at once withdrew from the grove and hastily sped to stiiimaii's their villages, while Black Hawk and defeat ]^jg party of forty Sauks, ^ sallied forth on their ponies to meet the enemy. The entire white force, over three hundred strong, was soon seen rushing towards them in a confused mass. The Sauks withdrew behind a fringe of bushes, their leader hurriedly bidding them to stand firm. On catching a glimpse of the grim array awaiting them, the whites paused ; but before they had a chance to turn, the Hawk sounded the war-whoop, and the savages dashed forward and fired. The Sauk chief tells us that when he ordered it, he thought the charge suicidal, but, enraged at the treachery of the troopers, he and all with him were willing to die in securing reprisal. On the first fire of the Indians, the whites, without returning the volley, fled in great consternation, pursued by about twenty-five savages, until nightfall ended the chase. But nightfall did not end the rout. The volunteers, beset by the genius of fear, dashed through 1 " Black Hawk in his book says he had only forty in all, and judging from all I can discover in the premises, I believe the number of warriors were between fifty and sixty." — Reynolds, p. 234. 152 Essays in Western History their own impregnable camp, left everything behind them, and plunged madly through swamps and creeks till they reached Dixon's, twenty-five miles away, where they straggled in for the next twenty hours. Many of them did not stop there, but kept on at a keen gallop till they reached their own firesides, fifty or more miles farther, carrying the report that Black Hawk and two thousand bloodthirsty warriors were sweeping all Northern Illinois with the besom of destruction. The white casualties in this ill-starred foray amounted to eleven killed, while the Indians lost the two spies and but one of the flag-bearers, who had been treacherously shot in Stillman's camp — his companions owing their lives to the fleet- ness of their ponies. The flight of Stillman's corps was wholly inexcusable. It should, in any event, have stopped at the camp, which was easily defen- sible.-^ Stillman, no doubt, exerted himself to 1 " I never was so surprised, in all the fighting I have seen — knowing, too, that the Americans, generally, shoot well — as I was to see this army of several hundreds, retreat- ing without showing fight, and passing immediately through this encampment. I did think that they intended to hault here, as the situation would have forbidden attack by my party, if their number had not exceeded half mine, as we would have been compelled to take the open prairie, whilst The Black Hawk War 1 5 3 his utmost to rally his men, but they lacked discipline and that experience which gives soldiers confidence in their officers and each other. Their worst fault was their dishonor- able treatment of bearers of a flag of truce, a symbol which few savage tribes disregard. But for this act of treachery, the Black Hawk War might have been a bloodless demonstration. Unfortunately for our own good name, this violation of the rules of war was more than once repeated by the Americans during the contest which followed. From this easy and unexpected victory, Black Hawk formed a low opinion of the valor of the militiamen, and at the same time an The Hawk exaggerated estimate of the prowess at Kosh- of his own braves. Almost wholly onong destitute of provisions and ammu- nition, he was elated at the capture of Still- man's abundant stores. Recognizing that war had been forced upon him ^ and was hence- they could have picked trees to shield themselves from our fire." — Autobiography, p. 122. 1 " I had resolved upon giving up the war, and sent a flag of peace to the American war chief, expecting as a matter of right, reason, and justice, that our flag would be respected (I have always seen it so in war among the whites), and a coun- cil convened, that we might explain our grievances, having been driven from our village the year before, without per- 154 Assays in W ester 7i History forth inevitable, he despatched scouts to watch the white army while he hurriedly removed his women and children, by way of the Kish- waukee, to the swampy fastnesses of Lake Koshkonong, near the headwaters of Rock River, in Michigan Territory (now Wisconsin). He was guided thither by friendly Winneba- goes, who deemed the position impregnable. From here, recruited by parties of Winne- bagoes and Potawatomis, Black Hawk de- scended into Northern Illinois, prepared for active border warfare. The story of Stillman's defeat inaugurated a A reign reign of terror between the Illinois of terror ^^^ Wisconsin rivcrs, and much con- sternation throughout the entire West. The name of Black Hawk, whose forces and the mission to gather the corn and provisions, which our women had labored hard to cultivate, and ask permission to re- turn, — thereby giving up all idea of going to war against the whites. Yet, instead of this honorable course which I have always practised in war, I was forced into war, with about five hundred warriors, to contend against three or four thousand. " The supplies that Neapope and the Prophet told us about, and the reinforcements we were to have, were never more heard of, and it is but justice to our British father to say, were never promised — his chief having sent word in lieu of the lies that were brought to me, * for us to remain at peace, as we could accomplish nothing but our own ruin, by going to war.'" — Autobiography , pp. 123, 124. The Black Hawk War 155 nature of whose expedition were grossly exag- gerated, became associated the country over with tales of savage cunning and cruelty. The bloodthirsty Sauk long served as a household bugaboo. Shaubena and his friends again rode post-haste through the settlements, sound- ing the alarm. Many of the frontiersmen, lulled into a sense of security by the long calm following the invasion at Yellow Banks, had returned to their fields. But there was now a hurrying back into the forts; they flew like chickens to cover, on the warn- ing of the Hawk's foray. The rustle in the underbrush of a prowling beast; the howl of a wolf on the prairie ; the fall of a forest bough; the report of a hunter's gun, were sufficient in this time of panic to blanch the cheeks of the bravest men, and cause families to fly in the agony of fear for scores of miles, leaving all their possessions behind them.^ 1 Wakefield, pp. 56-60, relates some amusing and appar- ently truthful anecdotes of the scare. Here is one of them : " In the hurried rout that took place at this time, there was a family that lived near the [Iroquois] river [in northeastern Illinois] ; they had no horses, but a large family of small children ; the father and mother each took a child ; the rest were directed to follow on foot as fast as possible. The eldest daughter also carried one of the children that was not able to keep up. They fled to the river where they had to 156 Essays in Western History On the day of the defeat, Whiteside, with a thousand four hundred men, proceeded to the The army field of battle and buried the dead. disbanded Qn the nineteenth, Atkinson and the entire army moved up the Rock, leaving Still- man's corps at Dixon to care for the wounded and guard the suppHes. But the army was no sooner out of sight than Stillman's cowards added infamy to their record, by deserting their post and going home. Atkinson hastily returned to Dixon with the regulars, leaving Whiteside to follow Black Hawk's trail up the Kishwaukee. Whiteside's men, however, now began to weary of soldiering. They declared that the cross. The father had to carry over all the children, at different times, as the stream was high, and so rapid the mother and daughter could not stem the current with such a burden. "When they all, as they thought, had got over, they started, when the cry of poor little Susan was heard on the opposite bank, asking if they were not going to take her with them. The frightened father again prepared to plunge into the strong current for his child, when the mother seeing it, cried out, ' Never mind Susan ; we have succeeded in getting ten over, which is more than we expected at first — and we can better spare Susan than you, my dear.' So poor Susan, who was only about four years old, was left to the mercy of the frightful savages. But poor little Susan came off unhurt; one of the neighbors, who was out hunting, came along and took charge of little Susan, the eleventh, who had been so miserably treated by her mother." The Black Hawk War 157 Indians had gone into the unexplored and impenetrable swamps of the north, and could never be captured ; even were that possible, Illinois volunteers were not compelled to serve out of the State, in Michigan Territory; they also claimed to have enlisted for but one month. After two or three days' fruitless skirmishing, and before reaching the State line, the council of officers determined to abandon search. Turning about, they marched southward to Ottawa, where they were, on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of May, at their own request, mustered out of the ser- vice by Governor Reynolds. En route from the Kishwaukee to Ottawa, the militiamen stopped at the Davis farm on Indian Creek, where a massacre of whites (p. 160) had oc- curred a few days before, and the mutilated corpsesof fifteen men, wom.en, and children were lying on the greensward, unsepulchred. This revolting spectacle, instead of nerving the troops to renewed action in defence of their homes, appears to have still further disheartened them.^ Thus did the first campaign of the war end, as it had begun, with an exhibition of 1 See Reynolds's statement of the case, in My Own Times, PP- 238, 239. 158 Essays in Western History rank cowardice on the part of the Illinois militia. Governor Reynolds was active, and at once arranged for a fresh levy of " at least two Afresh thousand " men to serve through the ^^'-^ war, to rendezvous at Beardstown, June 10; while the federal government ordered a thousand regulars under General Winfield Scott to proceed from the seaboard to the seat of war, Scott being directed to conduct all future operations against the enemy. Mean- while, at Atkinson's earnest appeal, three hundred mounted volunteer rangers, under Henry Frye as colonel and James D. Henry as Heutenant-colonel, agreed to remain in the field to protect the northern line of Illinois settlements until the new levy could be mobilized.^ 1 General Whiteside enlisted as a private in this battalion. Abraham Lincoln was also a member, being enlisted May 27 as a " private horseman," in Captain Elijah Iles's company. He was mustered out at Ottawa, June 16, when the regular levy had taken the field. June 20 he re-enlisted in Captain Jacob M. Early's company, an independent body of rangers not brigaded, and served throughout the war. Besides these three hundred volunteer rangers, divided into six companies, General Atkinson had some three hundred regulars on Rock River, the entire force available to check the enemy, until the new levy could assemble. The Black Hawk War 159 Black Hawk, upon descending Rock River from Lake Koshkonong, divided his people Irregular into war-partlcs, himself leading the largest, about two hundred strong. He was assisted by small scalping parties of Winnebagoes, who were always ready for guerilla butchery when the chance for detec- tion was slight, and by about a hundred Pota- watomis under Mike Girty. During the irregular hostilities which now broke out in northern lUinois and just across the Michigan (now Wisconsin) border, pending the resumption of the formal campaign, some two hundred whites and nearly as many Indians lost their lives, great suffering was induced among the settlers, and panic among the latter was widespread. Many of the incidents of this partisan strife are rich in historic and romantic interest and have been productive of elaborate discussions in the press and in documentary collections ; but in a paper of this scope only a few of the most striking events can be al- luded to.^ 1 Nearly every volume of the Wisconsin Historical Collec- tiofts contains articles and documents bearing on this war, which it would be burdensome to cite here in detail ; many of them are invaluable, while some, in the light of later de- velopments, are worthless. i6o Essays in Western History On the twenty-second of May a party of thirty Potawatomis and three Sauks, under Notable Girty, Surprised and slaughtered skirmishes fifteen men, women, and children congregated at the Davis farm, on Indian Creek, twelve miles north of Ottawa, Illinois. Two daughters of William Hall — Sylvia, aged seventeen years, and Rachel, aged fifteen — were spared by their captors. Being taken to Black Hawk's stronghold above Lake Kosh- konong, they were there sold for two thousand dollars in horses and trinkets to White Crow, a Winnebago chief who had been sent out by Henry Gratiot, sub-agent for the Winnebagoes, to conduct the negotiation. The girls were safely delivered into Gratiot's hands at Blue Mounds, on the third of June. On the evening of the fourteenth of June, a party of eleven Sauks killed five white men at Spafford's farm, on the Peckatonica River, in what is now La Fayette County, Wisconsin. Colonel Henry Dodge, with twenty-nine men, followed, and the next day overtook the savages in a neighboring swamp. In a hot brush last- ing but a few minutes, the eleven Indians were killed and scalped, while of Dodge's party three were killed and one wounded. The de- tails of no event in the entire war have been The Black Hawk War i6i so thoroughly discussed and quarrelled over as those of this brief but bloody skirmish. _ On the twenty-fourth of June, Black Hawk s own party made a desperate attack on Apple River Fort, fourteen miles east of ^al^";*' Illinois. For upwards of an hour the little garrison sustained the heavy siege, displaying remarkable vigor, the women and girls mouldmg bullets, loading pieces, and in general proving themselves border heroines. The red men retired with small loss, after laying waste by fire the neighboring cabins and fields. iUe following day this same war party attacked, with singular ferocity. Major Dements spy battalion of Posey's brigade, a hundred and fifty strong, at Kellogg's Grove, sixteen ni.les to the east. General Posey came up w.th a detachment of volunteers to relieve the force, and continued the skirmish. The Indians were routed, losing about fifteen killed, while the whites lost but five.^ 1 Notably in WU. Hist. Colls., ii., iv., v., vi vii., viii., x. ^ K« Grove, afterwards Waddams's, and now Timms's, t situated in the soutlrwestern portion of Ke.rt Si*,;, Stephenson County, I"'"-; -'-."' Tt, tn south o£ Lena. The five men killed nr the ^^^ ">-h ° J - « ,832, had been buried at different points w.thm the g ;ve. During the summer of .886 their remains were coW fected by order of the county board of supervisors, and 1 62 Essays in Western History At Plum River Fort, Burr Oak Grove, Sin- siniwa Mound, and Blue Mounds, skirmishes of less importance were fought. The people of the lead-mining settlements in what is now southwestern Wisconsin, deemed The lead- themselves pecuHarly liable to attack, niinedis- fearing that the troops centred on Rock River would drive the enemy upon them across the Illinois border. The news of the invasion at Yellow Banks was received by the miners early in May, and ac- tive preparations for defence and offence were at once undertaken. Colonel Henry Dodge, one of the pioneers of the lead region, and an energetic citizen largely interested in smelting, held a commission as chief of the Michigan militia west of Lake Michigan, and assumed direction of military operations north of the Illinois line. With a company of twenty-seven hastily equipped mounted rang- ers he made an expedition to Dixon, with a view both to reconnoitre the country and decently interred upon a commanding knoll at the edge of the copse. "With these were placed those of five or six other victims of the Black Hawk War, who had fallen in other portions of the county. Over these remains, a monument costing five hundred dollars was erected by the board, being formally dedicated September 30, 1886, under the auspices of W. R. Goddard post of the G. A. R. The Black Hawk War 163 solicit aid from Governor Reynolds's force. He failed in this latter mission, however, and returned to the mines carrying the news of Stillman's defeat.^ After making prepara- tions for recruiting three additional compa- nies, Dodge proceeded with Indian Agent Gratiot and a troop of fifty volunteers to White Crow's Winnebago village at the head of Lake Mendota (Fourth Lake), on a point of land now known as Fox's Bluff, some four miles northwest of the present Madison. The Winnebagoes were always deemed a source of danger to the mining settlements, and it was desirable to keep them quiet during the present crisis. Colonel Dodge held council with them on the twenty-fifth of May, and received profuse assurances of their fidelity to the American cause ; but the partisan leader appears to have justly placed small reliance upon their sincerity.^ 1 "General Dodge was camped in the vicinity [Dixon's], on the north side of Rock River, and I wrote him, at night [May 14-15], the facts of StiUman's disaster, and that his frontiers of Wisconsin would be in danger. He returned immediately to Wisconsin." — Reynolds, p. 235. 2 Dodge's " talk " is given in Smith's History of Wisconsin (Madison, 1854), i., pp. 416, 417. See Wis. Hist. Colls., ii., p. 339, for White Crow's taunt flung at Dodge, that the whites were " a soft-shelled breed," and could not fight. For sketch of this chief — whose Indian name was Kaukishkaka (The 164 Essays in Western History Returning from this council, Dodge set out from his headquarters at Fort Union on an Dod e's active campaign with two hundred j^ou^/i mounted rangers enhsted for the war. These men, gathered from the mines and fields, were a free-and-easy set of fellows, imbued with the spirit of adventure and an intense hatred of the Indian race. While dis- ciplined to the extent of obeying orders when- ever sent into the teeth of danger, these Rough Riders of seventy years ago swung through the country with small regard for the rules of the manual, and presented a striking contrast to the habits and appearance of the regulars. On the third of June they arrived at Blue Mounds, just in time to receive the Hall girls brought in by White Crow. The Crow and his companions being now offensive in their manner, Dodge had them thrown into the guard-house, and held for a time as hostages for the good behavior of the rest of the Lake Mendota band. On the eleventh, he was joined by a small party of Illinois rangers from Galena, under Captain J. W. Stephenson, the united force proceeding to Atkinson's re- Blind), he having lost an eye in a brawl — see 11/., x., pp. 495, 496. W^ashburne's estimate of him, ii>ii/., p. 253, is unfavor- able ; others of his white contemporaries speak with enthu- siasm of his strength as a native orator, and his manly bearing. The Black Hawk War 165 cruiting quarters, then at Ottawa, where Dodge conferred with the general as to the future conduct of the campaign. After remaining a few days, the rangers returned to the lead mines to complete the local defences. In less than three weeks from the date of Stillman's defeat, Atkinson and Reynolds had The new together recruited and organized a army ^ew mountcd militia force, and on the fifteenth of June the troops rendezvoused at Fort VVilburn (near Peru). There were three brigades, respectively headed by Gen- erals Alexander Posey, M. K. Alexander, and James D. Plenry. Each brigade contained a spy battalion. The aggregate strength of this volunteer army was three thousand two hundred, Vv'hich was in addition to Frye's rangers, half of whom continued their ser- vices to protect the settlements and stores west of the Rock River. With these, Dodge's rangers, and the regular infantry, the entire army now in the field numbered about four thousand effective men. A party of Posey's brigade was sent in ad- The ad- vaucc from Fort Wilburn to scour ^Koshko- ^^^ country between Galena and the nong Rock, and disperse Black Hawk's war- party. It was this force that had the brush with 1 66 Essays in Western History the Sauks at Kellogg's Grove on the twenty- fifth of June, already alluded to. Meanwhile, Alexander's and Henry's brigades had arrived overland at Dixon's. On arrival of news of the defeat of the Indians at Kellogg's, Alex- ander was despatched in haste to Plum River to intercept the fugitives should they attempt to cross the Mississippi at that point; while Atkinson, with Henry and the regulars, re- mained at Dixon's to await developments. On learning that Black Hawk's main camp was still near Lake Koshkonong, Atkinson at once marched up the east bank of the Rock, leaving Dixon's on the afternoon of June 27. The main army, now consisting of four hundred regulars and two thousand one hundred volun- teer troops, was joined the following day by a party of seventy-five friendly Fotawatomis, who seemed eager to join in the prospective scrimmage. On the thirtieth, the army crossed the Illinois- Wisconsin boundary about one mile east of the site of Beloit, near the Turtle village of the Winnebagoes, whose inhabitants had flown at the approach of the column.^ Sauk signs were 1 In the Beloit Weekly Free Press for October 15, 1891, and January 21, 1892, Cornelius Buckley discusses in detail the place of crossing the boundary, and the site of Atkinson's The Black Hawk War 167 fresh, for after his defeat at Kellogg's at the hands of Posey and Dement, Black Hawk had, instead of crossing the Mississippi, fled directly to his stronghold, reaching the Rock above the mouth of the Kishwaukee three or four days in advance of the white army. It was this warm trail that Atkinson's men, with the vehemence of bloodhounds, v/ere now fol- lowing. When possible, at the close of each day, the troops selected a camp in the timber, v^ere protected by breastworks, and at all times slept on their arms, for there was con- stant apprehension of a night attack; the rear guard of the savages, prowling about in the dark, were frequently fired on by the sentinels. The outlet of Lake Koshkonong was reached on the second of July. Hastily deserted Indian Fruitless camps werc found, with white scalps scouting hanging on the poles of the tepees. Scouts made a tour of the lake, but beyond a few stragglers nothing of importance was seen. A few Winnebagoes hanging upon the flanks of the column were captured, and after their camp, which latter he places "near the northeast corner of the southwest quarter of section 25, town i, and range 12, and 480 rods north of the State line . . . and directly north of the old fair grounds." 1 68 Essays in Western History kind gave vague and contradictory testimony; one of them was shot and scalped for his impertinence. Several succeeding days were spent in fruitless scouting. July 4, Alex- ander arrived with his brigade, reporting that he had found no traces of red men on the Mississippi. On the sixth, Posey reported with Dodge's squadron. Dodge was at Fort Hamilton (Wiota) on the twenty-eighth of June, reorganizing his rangers, when Posey arrived from Kellogg's Grove, bringing from Atkinson orders to bring Dodge's command vv^ith him and join the main army on the Koshkonong. At Sugar River, Dodge was joined by Stephenson's Galena company and by a party of twenty friendly Menominees and eight or ten white and half- breed scouts under Colonel WiUiam S. Hamil- ton, a son of the famous Alexander, and then a prominent lead miner. This recruited his Rough Rider squadron so that it now numbered about three hundred. Proceeding by the way of the Four Lakes (neighborhood of Madison), White Crow and thirty Winnebagoes offered to conduct Posey and Dodge to Black Hawk's camp, and unite with them for that purpose. After advancing for several days through al- most impassable swamps, the corps were within The Black Hawk War 1 69 short distance of the locality sought, when an express came from Atkinson ordering them to proceed without delay to his camp on Bark River, an eastern affluent of Lake Koshkonong, for he believed the main body of the enemy to be in that vicinity. This order much provoked Dodge, but it proved to be opportune. Black Black Hawk's camp occupied a position Hawk's advantageous for defence, at the sum- '^«"'/ mit of a steep declivity on the east bank of the Rock, where the river was difficult of passage, being rapid and clogged with boulders.^ White Crow's solicitude as a guide was undoubtedly caused by his desire to lead this small force, constituting the left wing of the army, into a trap where it might have been badly whipped if not annihilated. The army was thus formed; Posey's brigade and Dodge's rangers comprised the left wing, on the west side of the Rock; the regulars under Taylor, and Henry's volunteers, were the right wing, commanded by Atkinson in person, and marched on the east bank ; while Alexander's brigade, also on the west bank, was the centre. While marching across country, Dodge had conceived a poor opinion of Posey's men, and on the arrival of the left 1 The site of the present village of Hustisford, Wisconsin. 1 70 Essays in Western History wing at headquarters, solicited a change of companions. To secure harmony, Atkinson caused Posey and Alexander to exchange positions. While the treacherous White Crow had been endeavoring to entrap the left wing, other Winnebagoes of the neighborhood informed Atkinson that Black Hawk was encamped on an island in the Whitewater River, a few miles east of the American camp on the Bark. In consequence, the commander was from the seventh to the ninth of July running a wild- goose chase through the broad morasses and treacherous sink-holes of that region. It was because of this false information that Atkinson had hastily summoned the left wing to his aid, and thus in the nick of time unwittingly saved it from grave danger. Through lack of con- cert in their lying, the wily Winnebagoes failed of their purpose, for in the meantime the Hawk, startled from his cover by the manoeuvring in his neighborhood, fled west- ward to the Wisconsin River. Governor Reynolds, and several other promi- ,,„ . nent Illinois men who were with the Illinois men dis- army, had become discouraged. They therefore promptly left for home by way of Galena, impressed with the opinion The Black Hawk War 1 7 1 that the troops, now in wretched physical con- dition, almost destitute of food, and flound- ering aimlessly through the Wisconsin bogs, were pursuing an ignis-fatuus and the Black Hawk could never be captured.^ On the same day (July 10), Henry's and Alexander's brigades were despatched with At Fort Dodge's squadron to Fort Winnebago, Win7iebago ^t the portagc of the Fox and Wis- consin rivers, eighty miles to the northwest* for much-needed provisions, it being the nearest supply point. The Second Regiment of Posey's brigade, under Colonel Ewing, was 1 " On the loth of July, in the midst of a considerable wilderness, the provisions were exhausted, and the army forced to abandon the pursuit of the enemy for a short time. Seeing the difficulties to reach the enemy, and knowing the extreme uncertainty of ever reaching Black Hawk by these slow movements, caused most of the army to believe we would never overtake the enemy. This condition of affairs forced on all reflecting men much mortification, and regret that this campaign also would do nothing. Under these cir- cumstances, a great many worthy and respectable individuals, who were not particularly operative in the service, returned to their home. My staff and myself left the army at the burnt village, on Rock River, above Lake Koshkonong, and returned by Galena to the frontiers and home. When I reached Galena, the Indian panic was still raging with the people there, and I was compelled to order out more troops to protect the citizens — although the militia of the whole country was in service." — Reynolds, pp. 251, 252. 172 Essays in Wester 7i History sent down the Rock to Dixon's, with an officer accidentally wounded ; while, with the rest of his troops, Posey was ordered to Fort Ham- ilton to guard the mining country, which Dodge's absence had left exposed to the enemy. Atkinson himself fell back to Lake Koshkonong, and built a fort a few miles up Bark River, on the eastern limit of the present village of Fort Atkinson. On arrival at Fort Winnebago, the troopers found there a number of Winnebago Indians, all of them free with advice to the white chiefs. There was also at the fort a famous half-breed scout and trader named Pierre Paquette, who had long been a trusted servant of the Ameri- can Fur Company. He informed Henry and Dodge of the location of Black Hawk's strong- hold, confirming White Crow's story, but with added information as to its character. With twelve Winnebago companions, he was promptly engaged as pilot thither. While the division was at the fort, there was, from some unknown cause, a stampede of its horses, the animals plunging madly for thirty miles through the neighboring swamps, where up- wards of fifty were lost.^ 1 Reynolds, pp. 254, 255 ; also Wis. Hist. Colls., x., p. 3M- The Black Hawk War 1 73 Henry and Dodge, resolute Indian fighters, decided to return to camp by way of the Hus- tisford rapids, and there engage Black Hawk if Mutinous possible. But Alexander's men re- conduct . fused to enter upon this perilous expedition, and insisted on obeying Atkin- son's orders to return to headquarters by the shortest available route. Alexander easily yielded to his troopers' demands, and this mutinous example would have corrupted Henry's brigade but for the firmness of that commander, who was a strict disciplinarian. Alexander returned direct to camp (July 15), with the men whose horses had been lost in the stampede, and twelve days' provisions for the main army. The same day, Henry and Dodge, the former in command, started out with twelve days' supplies for their own force, accompanied by Paquette and the Winnebago guides. The ranks had been depleted from many causes, so that roll-call on the sixteenth disclosed but six hundred effective men in Henry's brigade, and about a hundred and fifty in Dodge's squadron. On the eighteenth, the troopers reached Rock River and found the Winnebago village at which Black Hawk and his band had been quartered, but the enemy had fled. The Win- 174 Assays in Western History nebagoes insisted that their late visitors were now at Cranberry Lake/ a half day's march up the River, and the white commanders re- solved to proceed thither the following day. They had arrived at the village at noon, and at two in the afternoon Adjutants Merriam of Henry's, and Woodbridge of Dodge's, bearing information of the supposed discovery, started south to Atkinson's camp, thirty-five miles down the river. Little Thunder, a Winnebago chief, accompanied them as guide. When nearly twenty miles out, and halfway between A hot the present sites of Watertown and trail Jefferson, the messengers suddenly struck a broad, fresh trail trending to the west. Little Thunder became greatly excited, and shouted and gestured vehemently, but the adjutants were unable to understand a word of the Winnebago tongue. When the chief suddenly turned his pony and dashed back to Henry's camp, they were obliged to hasten after him, as further progress through the tangled thickets and wide morasses without a pilot was inadvisable. Little Thunder had, it seemed, returned to inform his people that the trail of Black Hawk in his flight to the Missis- 1 Afterwards Horicon Lake, in Dodge County — now drained. The Black Hawk War 175 sippi had been discovered, and to warn them that further dissembling was useless.^ In the camp of the volunteers, this news was received with great joy. Their sinking spirits at once revived, and the following morning pursuit on the fresh scent was undertaken with an enthusiasm that henceforth had no occasion 77^^ to lag. All possible encumbrances pursuit were left behind, so that progress should be unimpeded. The course lay slightly to the north of west, through the present towns of Lake Mills and Cottage Grove. The Chicago & Northwestern Railway between Jefferson Junction and Madison follows quite closely Black Hawk's trail from the Rock River to the Four Lakes. Deep swamps and sink-holes were met by the army, nearly the entire dis- tance. The men had frequently to dismount and wade in water and mud to their armpits, while the first night out a violent thunder- storm with phenomenal rainfall, followed by an unseasonable drop in the temperature, in- creased the natural difficulties of the march. But the fickle Winnebago stragglers, who in this time of want and peril were deserting the band of Sauk fugitives, and fawning upon their white pursuers, reported the Hawk but two 1 Wis. Hist. Colls., ii., p. 407. 1 76 Essays in Western History miles in advance, and the volunteers eagerly hurried on with empty stomachs and wet clothes. By sunset of the second day (July 20) they reached the lakes, going into camp for the night a quarter of a mile north of the north- east extremity of Lake Monona (Third Lake)/ That same night, Black Hawk was strongly 1 Wakefield, who was with the army, gives this interesting picture (p. 66) of the now famous Four-lake country, as it appeared to him, July 20, 1832 : " Here it may not be unin- teresting to the reader to give a small outline of those lakes. From a description of the country, a person would very natu- rally suppose that those lakes were as little pleasing to the eye of the traveller as the country is. But not so. I think they are the most beautiful bodies of water I ever saw. The first one that we came to [Monona] was about ten miles in circumference, and the water as clear as chrystal. The earth sloped back in a gradual rise; the bottom of the lake ap- peared to be entirely covered with white pebbles, and no appearance of its being the least bit swampy. The second one that we came to [Mendota] appeared to be much larger. It must have been twenty miles in circumference. The ground rose very high all around ; — and the heaviest kind of timber grew close to the water's edge. If those lakes were anywhere else, except in the country they are, they would be considered among the wonders of the world. But the country they are situated in is not fit for any civilized nation of people to inhabit. It appears that the Almighty intended it for the children of the forest. The other two lakes [Kegonsa (First) and Waubesa (Second)] we did not get close enough for me to give a complete description of them ; but those who saw them, stated that they were very much like the others." The Black Hawk War 1 77 ambushed, seven or eight miles beyond, near the present village of Pheasant Branch, at the western extremity of Lake Mendota. At daybreak of the twenty-first, the troops were awakened, and, after fording Catfish River where the Williamson Street bridge now crosses ^t it, swept in regular line of battle across Madison ^^g isthmus between Monona and Men- dota lakes, Ewing's spies to the front. Where to-day is built the park-like city of Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, was then a heavy forest with frequent dense thickets of under- brush. The line of march was along the shore of Monona to about the present site of the Fauerbach brewery, thence almost due west to Mendota, the hilly shores of which were closely skirted through the present campus of the University of Wisconsin, across inter- vening swamps and hills to Pheasant Branch, and thence due northwest to Wisconsin River, which here sweeps in majestic curves between corrugated, grass-grown bluff's, some two or three hundred feet in height. The advance was so rapid that, during the day, forty horses succumbed between the Catfish and the Wisconsin. When his animal gave out, the trooper would trudge on afoot, throwing away his camp-kettle and other encumbrances, thus 1 78 Essays in Western History following the example of the fugitives, whose trail was strewn with Indian mats, kettles, and miscellaneous equipage discarded in the hurry of flight. Some half-dozen Inoffensive Sauk stragglers, chiefly old men who had become exhausted by the famine now prevailing In the Hawk's camp,^ were at Intervals shot and scalped by the whites — two of them within the present limits of Madison. It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the enemy's rear guard of twenty braves under Neapopewas overtaken. Several running skir- mishes ensued. The timber was still thick, and it was impossible at first to know whether or not Neapope's party were the main body of the fugitives. The weakness of the tribesmen after a time became apparent, and thereafter when they made a feint the spies would charge and easily disperse them. At about half-past four o'clock, when within 1 "During our encampment at Four Lakes, we were hard put, to obtain enough to eat to support nature. Stuck in a swampy, marshy country (which had been selected in conse- quence of the great difficulty required to gain access thereto), there was but little game of any sort to be found — and fish were equally scarce. . . . We were forced to dig roots and bark trees, to obtain something to satisfy our hunger and keep us alive. Several of our old people became so much reduced, as actually to die with hunger." — Autobiography, p. 130. The Black Hawk War 1 79 a mile and a half of the river, and some twenty- five miles northwest of the site of Madison, Battle of Neapope's band, reinforced by a score Wisconsin of braves under Black Hawk, made ^^^^^^ a bold stand to cover the flight of the main body of his people down the bluffs and across the broad island-studded stream. Every fourth man of the white column was de- tailed to hold the horses, while the rest of the troopers advanced on foot. The savages, yell- ing like madmen, made a heavy charge, and endeavored to flank the whites, but Colonel Frye on the right and Colonel Jones on the left repulsed them with loss. The Sauks now dropped into the grass, here nearly six feet high ; but after a half-hour of hot firing on both sides, with a few casualties evenly distrib- uted, Dodge, Ev/ing, and Jones charged the enemy with the bayonet, driving them up a rising piece of ground at the top of which a second rank was found, skilfull}'' covering the retreat. After further firing, the Indians swiftly descended through the rank herbage of the bluffs to join their main body, now engaged in crossing the river. It had been raining softly during the greater part of the battle, and difficulty was experienced in keeping the mus- kets dry; nevertheless a sharp fire was kept i8o Essays in Western History up between the lines until dusk. At the base of the bluffs there was swampy ground some sixty yards in width, thick strewn with willows, and then a heavy fringe of timber on a strip of firm ground along the river-bank. As the Indians could reach this vantage-point before being overtaken, it was deemed best to aban- don the pursuit for the night. Black Hawk, skilful in military operations, personally conducted the battle, on the part of the Sauks, and from a neighboring knoll, where he was seated on a white pony, directed and encouraged his men with clear, loud voice.^ After dusk had set in, a considerable party of the fugitives, composed mainly of women, children, and old men, were placed on a large raft and in canoes begged from the Winneba- goes, and sent down the river in the hope that the soldiers at Fort Crawford, guarding the mouth of the Wisconsin, would allow these non-combatants to cross the Mississippi in peace. But too much reliance was placed on the humanity of the Americans. Lieutenant 1 Black Hawk says that he lost six warriors in this en- gagement at Wisconsin Heights (opposite Prairie du Sac). Mrs. Kinzie's Wau Bim (New York, 1856) says, it was re- ported at Fort Winnebago that fifty Sauks were killed. Wakefield puts the number at sixty-eight killed outright, and twenty-five mortally wounded. The Black Hawk War 1 8 1 Joseph Ritner, with a small detachment of regulars, was sent out by Indian Agent Joseph M. Street^ to intercept these forlorn, half- starved wretches, a messenger from the field of battle having apprised the agent of their approach. A short distance above Fort Craw- ford, Ritner fired on them, killing fifteen men and capturing thirty-two women and children, and four men. Nearly as many more were drowned during the onslaught; while of the rest, who escaped to the wooded shores, all but a half-score perished with hunger or were massacred by a belated party of three hundred Menominee allies from the Green Bay district, under Colonel Stambaugh and a small staff of white officers.^ During the night after the battle of Wiscon- sin Heights — as that affair has since been Anwisiw known in history — there were fre- ccssfui quent alarms from prowling Indians, and the men, fearing an attack, were nearly always under arms. About an hour and a half before dawn of the twenty-second, a loud, shrill voice, speaking in an unknown tongue, was heard from the direction of the 1 Stationed at Prairie du Chien, 2 See " Boyd Papers," Wis. Hist. Colls., xii., for the docu- mentary history of Stambaugh's expedition. 1 82 Essays in Western History eminence known to have been occupied by- Black Hawk during the previous afternoon. There was at once a panic in the camp, for it was thought that the savage leader was giving orders for an attack, and Henry thought it de- sirable to bolster the courage of his men by making them a patriotic speech, during which the interrupted harangue of the savage ceased. It was afterwards learned that the orator was Neapope, who had spoken in the Win- nebago tongue, under the presumption that Paquette and the Winnebago pilots were still in camp. But during the night they had left for Fort Winnebago, and it chanced that no one among the troops had understood a word of the speech — an offer of conciliation, ad- dressed to the victors. Neapope had said that with the Sauks were their squaws, children, and old people ; they had unwillingly been forced into war, they were literally starving, and if allowed to cross the Mississippi in peace would nevermore do harm. But the plea fell on un- witting ears, and thus failed the second earnest attempt of the British Band to close the war. As for Neapope, finding that his mission had failed, — apparently through the hardness of the American heart, — he fled to the Winne- bagoes, leaving his half-dozen companions to The Black Hawk War 183 return with the discouraging news to Black Hawk, now secretly encamped with the rem- nant of his band in a neighboring ravine north of the Wisconsin.^ The twenty-second of July was spent by the white army on the battlefield, making prepara- tions to march to the rude local fort at Blue Mounds for supplies. It was now known that during the night the enemy had escaped across or down the river; and the troops were in- sufficiently provisioned for a long chase through the unknown country beyond Wis- consin River. On the twenty-third, Henry marched with his corps to Blue Mounds, and late that even- Preparing ing was joined by Atkinson and for the " Alexander, who, on being informed ^"''"'' by express of the discovery of the trail and the rapid chase, had left the fort on the Koshkonong and hastened on to the Mounds to join the victors. Atkinson assumed command, distributed rations to the men, and ordered that the pursuit be resumed. On the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth, the Wisconsin was crossed on rafts at Helena, 1 Autobiography, pp. I3i-i33- Black Hawk does not men- tion this incident of Neapope's night harangue. Reynolds reports it, p. 262; so also Ford, p. 146, and Wakefield, p. 86. 184 Essays {71 Western History then a deserted log village, whose cabins had furnished material for the floats.^ Posey here joined the army with his brigade, and thus all of the generals were now reunited. The march was commenced at noon of the twenty-eighth, the four hundred and fifty regulars, now under General Brady, — with Colonel Taylor still of the party, — in advance ; while Dodge, Posey, and Alexander followed in the order named, Henry bringing up the rear in charge of the baggage. It appears that much jealousy had been displayed by Atkinson, at the fact that the laurels of the campaign, such as they were, had thus far been won by the volunteers. Henry, as chief of the victors at Wisconsin Heights, was especially unpopular at head- quarters. But the brigadier and his men trudged peacefully on behind, judiciously pocketing what they felt to be an affront.^ 1 See Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 403 ; and Libby's " Chronicle of the Helena Shot Tower," ibid., xiii., pp 335-374. The town, built for the accommodation of the employees of a shot-making company, had been deserted at the outbreak of the war, most of the men being now members of Dodge's rangers. 2 Ford, pp. 146-155, publishes some interesting corre- spondence, showing that Dodge was disposed to claim more than his share of the honors of this and some other engage- ments in the war, and to ignore Henry as his superior officer. Those men under Dodge, who have written about the cam- The Black Hawk War 185 After marching four or five miles northeast- ward, the trail of the fugitives was discovered A forbid- trending to the north of west, towards ding path the Mississippi. The country between the Wisconsin and the great river is rugged and forbidding in character; it was then un- known to whites, and almost equally unfamiliar to the Winnebago guides. The impediments were many and serious, swamps and turbulent rivers being freely interspersed between steep, thickly wooded hills. However, the fact that they were noticeably gaining on the enemy constantly spurred the troopers to great en- deavors. The pathway was strewn with the bodies of dead Sauks, who had died of wounds and starvation, and there were frequent evi- dences that to sustain life the fleeing wretches were eating the bark of trees and the sparse flesh of their fagged-out ponies.-^ paign, extol the superior merits of their chief; but in Illinois pioneer reminiscences, Henry is invariably the hero of the occasion. 1 " I started over a rugged country, to go to the Mis- sissippi, intending to cross it, and return to my nation. Many of our people were compelled to go on foot, for want of horses, which, in consequence of their having had nothing to eat for a long time,'caused our march to be very slow. At length we reached the Mississippi, having lost some'of our old men and little children, who perished on the way with hunger." — Autobiography, p. 133. 1 86 Essays in Western History On Wednesday, the first of August, Black Hawk and his now sadly depleted and almost The famished band reached the Missis- Mississippi, gippj at a point two miles below the mouth of the Bad Axe, a small east- ern tributary, and about forty north of the Wisconsin. In these upper reaches the broad river is diverted into several channels by long, narrow islands heavily wooded by swamp oaks and willows, and thick strewn with giant wind- rows of drift, lodged by spring freshets. Here Black Hawk undertook to cross ; there were, however, but two or three canoes to be had, and the work was slow. One large raft, laden with women and children, was despatched to thread its way under cover of the islands along the east side of the river, towards Prairie du Chien; but on the way it capsized, probably impelled upon one of the sprawling snags which ofttimes rendered early river navigation a perilous undertaking, and nearly all of its occupants were drowned. In the middle of the afternoon, the steamer " Warrior," of Prairie du Chien, used to trans- port army supplies, appeared on the scene with John Throckmorton as captain.^ On 1 See Fonda's report of the " Warrior's " part in the battle, Wis. Hist. Colls., v., pp. 261-264. The Black Hawk War 187 board were Lieutenants Gaines P. Kingsbury and Reuben Holmes, with fifteen regulars and six volunteers. The party had been up the river to notify the friendly Sioux chief Wa- basha, — whose village was on the site of Winona, Minnesota, — that the Sauks were headed in that direction. As the steamer The Battle neared the shore, Black Hawk ap- of the Bad peared on the bank with a white flag, "^"^ and in the Winnebago tongue called to the captain to send a boat ashore, as the fugitives wished to give themselves up. A Winnebago stationed in the bow interpreted the request, but the captain affected to believe that an ambush was intended, and ordered the Hawk to come aboard in his own craft. This the Sauk could not do, for the only canoes at his command were engaged in transporting his women and children across the river, and were not now within hail. His reply to this effect was quickly met by three successive rounds of canister-shot, which ploughed with deadly effect through the Httle group of Indians on shore. There followed a fierce fire of musketry on both sides, in which twenty- three Indians were killed, while the whites suffered the loss of but one wounded. The ''Warrior," now being short of fuel, towards i88 Essays in Western History night returned to Prairie du Chien to " wood up," the soldiers much elated at their share in the campaign. During the night a few more savages crossed the river into Minnesota; but Black Hawk, foreseeing that disaster was about to befall his people, gathered a party of ten warriors, among whom was the Prophet, and these, with about thirty-five squaws and children, headed east for a rocky hiding-place at the Dalles of the Wisconsin, whither some Winnebagoes offered to guide them.^ The next day the heart of the old man smote him for having left his people to their fate, and he returned in time to witness from a neighboring bluff the con- clusion of the Battle of the Bad Axe, that struck the death-blow to the British Band. With a howl of rage, he turned back into the forest and fled. The aged warrior had left excellent instruc- tions to his braves, in the event of the arrival of the white army by land. Twenty picked Sauks were ordered to stand rear guard on one of the high, ravine-washed bluffs which here line the east bank of the Mississippi ; and when engaged, to fall back three miles up the river, thus to deceive the whites as to the 1 Wakefield, pp. 97, 98, The Black Hawk War 189 location of the main band, and gain time for the flight of the latter across the stream, which was progressing slowly with but two canoes now left for the purpose. Atkinson's men were on the move by two o'clock in the morning of the second. When within four or five miles of the Sauk position, the decoys were encountered. The density of the bottom timber obstructing the view, and the twenty braves being widely separated, it was supposed that the main force of the enemy had been overtaken. The army accordingly spread itself for the attack, Alexander and Posey forming the right wing, Henry the left, and Dodge and the regulars the centre. When, as directed by their chief, the braves retreated up the river, the white centre and right wing followed quickly, leaving the left wing — with the exception of one of its regiments detailed to cover the rear — without orders. This was clearly an additional affront to Henry, Atkin- son's design being doubtless to crowd him out of what all anticipated would be the closing engagement of the campaign, and what little glory might corne of it. But the fates did not desert the brigadier. Some of Ewing's spies, attached to his com- mand, accidentally discovered that the main 190 Essays in Western History trail of the fugitive band was lower down the river-bank than whither the decoys were lead- ing the army. Henry, with his entire force, thereupon descended a bluff in the immediate neighborhood, and after a dash on foot through the open wooded plateau between the base of the bluff and the shore, found himself in the midst of the main body of three hundred war- riors, which was about the number of the at- tacking party. A desperate conflict ensued, the bucks being driven from tree to tree at the point of the bayonet, while women and chil- dren plunged madly into the river, many of them being immediately drowned. The air quivered with savage yells and whoops, with the hoarse cry of the troopers as they cheered one another on, and with the shrill notes of the bugle directing the details of the attack. A full half-hour after Henry had made his descent upon the Sauk centre, Atkinson, hear- ing the din of battle in his rear, came hasten- ing to the scene with the centre and right wing, driving in the decoys and stragglers before him, thus completing the corral. The carnage now proceeded more fiercely than ever. The red men fought with intense desperation, and, though weak from hunger, died like braves. A few escaped through a broad slough to a The Black Hawk War 1 9 1 willow island, which the steamer "Warrior," now reappearing on the river, raked from end to end with canister. This was followed by a wild charge through mud and water by a detachment of regulars, with a few of Henry's and Dodge's volunteers, who ended the affair by sweeping the island with a bayonet charge. Some of the fugitives succeeded in swimming to the west bank of the Mississippi, but many were drowned on the way, or coolly picked off by sharpshooters, who exercised no more mercy towards squaws and children than towards braves — treating them all as though rats rather than human beings.^ The Battle of the Bad Axe — massacre would be a better term — lasted for three long, horrible hours. Few if any contests between red men and white men have been less credit- able to our race. In the course of the carnage, 1 " Although the warriors fought with the courage and valor of desperation, yet the conflict resembled more a car- nage than a regular battle." — Reynolds, p. 265. " Our braves, but few in number, finding that the enemy paid no regard to age or sex, and seeing that they were mur- dering helpless women and little children, determined to fight until they were killed." — Aiitobiography, p. 135. Wakefield says, p. 85, " It was a horrid sight to witness little children, wounded and suffering the most excruciating pain. ... It was enough to make the heart of the most hardened being on earth to ache." 192 Essays in Western History a hundred and fifty Indians were slaughtered outright, while as many more of both sexes and all ages and conditions were drowned — some fifty only being taken prisoners, and they mostly women and children. About three hundred of the band successfully crossed the river, before and during the struggle. The whites lost but seventeen killed and twelve wounded.^ Those few of the Sauks who safely regained the west bank were soon set upon by a party ^ ^^^.^_ of a hundred Sioux, under Wabasha, honorable sent out for that purpose by Atkin- chapter ^^^^ . ^^^ ^ j^^j^ ^^ these hclplcss, nearly starved non-combatants were cruelly slaughtered, while many others died of exhaus- tion and wounds before they reached those of their friends who had been wise enough to abide by Keokuk's peaceful admonitions and stay at home. Thus, out of the band of nearly a thousand persons who crossed the Missis- sippi at the Yellow Banks in April, not more, all told, than a hundred and fifty, lived to tell the tragic story of the Black Hawk War — a 1 I follow Reynolds, p. 265. He says apologetically, years after the event, " Some squaws were killed by mistake in the battle. They were mixed with the warriors, and some of them dressed like the males." The Black Hawk War 193 dishonorable chapter in the history of the border. The rest can soon be told. On the seventh of August, when the victors had returned to Prairie du Chien, General Winfield Scott arrived and assumed command, discharging the volunteers the following day. Cholera among his troops had detained him first at Detroit, then at Chicago, and lastly at Rock Island, nearly a fourth of his detachment of a thousand regulars having died of the pes- tilence. Independent of this, the American loss in the war, including volunteers and settlers killed in the irregular skirmishes and in massa- cres, was not over two hundred and fifty. The financial cost to the nation and to the State of Illinois aggregated nearly two millions of dollars. On the twenty-seventh of August, Chsetar and One-eyed Decorah, two Winnebago braves Black ^^'^° were desirous of displaying their Hawk a ncwly-inspircd loyalty to the Amer- trisoner j^^^^^ delivered Black Hawk and the Prophet into the hands of Agent Street, at Prairie du Chien. They had found the con- spirators at the Dalles' of Wisconsin River, above the site of Kilbourn City.^ 1 See McBride's " Capture of Black Hawk," in Wis. Hist. Colls., v., pp. 293, 294; id., viii., p. 316, note; Wakefield, pp. 13 194 Essays in Western History On the twenty-first of September, a treaty of peace was signed at Fort Armstrong ; under its terms, Black Hawk, the Prophet, and Nea- pope — who had been captured later — were, with others, kept as hostages for the good be- haviour of the small remnant of the British Band and their Winnebago allies.^ They were kept through the winter at Jefferson Barracks (St. Louis),^ and in April, 1823, taken to Washington ; thence being sent as prisoners of war to Fortress Monroe, where they were discharged on the fourth of June. After visit- ing the principal cities of the East, in which Black Hawk was much lionized, and came for the first time to appreciate the power and re- 95-101. There have been many traditions of the capture, differing from the above, but there is no documentary evi- dence to substantiate them. The account here followed is based upon Street's official report. Decorah received from Atkinson, at Dixon, twenty horses as his reward for the delivery. The originals of much of Street's correspondence as Indian Agent are in the Iowa and Wisconsin historical archives. 1 Treaties, p. 50S. 2 Lieutenant Jefferson Davis took charge of the transfer of the prisoners from Fort Armstrong to Jefferson Barracks. The Davis biography previously cited, says, " He entirely won the heart of the savage chieftain, and before they reached Jefferson Barracks there had sprung up between the stern red warrior and the young pale face a warm friendship which only terminated with the life of Black Hawk." The Black Hawk War 195 sources of the whites, the party returned to Fort Armstrong, where they arrived about the first of August. Here the pride of the Sauk leader was completely crushed, he being formally transferred by the military authorities to the guardianship of his hated rival, Keokuk. This ceremony the fallen Black Hawk regarded as an irreparable insult, which he nursed with much bitterness through the remainder of his days. The broken-hearted warrior, with the weight of seventy-one years upon his whitened head, Death of passcd away on the third of October, the Hawk 1838, at his homc on a small reserva- tion which had been set apart for him and his few remaining followers, on the Des Moines River, in Davis County, lowa.-^ In July of the following year, an Illinois physician rifled his grave. Complaint being made by Black Hawk's family, Governor Lucas of Iowa, in the spring of 1840, caused the skeleton to be delivered to him at Burlington, then the capital of that Territory. Later in the year the seat of gov- ernment being moved to Iowa City, the box 1 Cornelius Buckley writes, in the Beloit Weekly Free Press, October 15, 1891 : "He was buried in the northeast corner of Davis County, on section 2, township 70, range 12, ninety rods from where he died, and near the present village of Eldon." 196 Essays in Western History containing the remains was deposited in a law office in that town, where it remained until the night of January 16, 1853, when the building was destroyed by fire.^ Black Hawk was an indiscreet man. His troubles were, in the main, the result of lack His of mental balance, aided largely by character uutoward circumstanccs. He was of a highly romantic temperament; his judgment was warped by sentiment; and tricksters easily played upon this weakness. But he was honest, — more honorable, often, than those who were his conquerors. He was, above all things, a patriot. In the year before his death, he made a speech to a party of whites who were making a holiday hero of him, and thus forcibly de- fended his motives : " Rock River was a beau- tiful country. I liked my town, my cornfields, and the home of my people. I fought for them." No poet could have penned for him a more touching epitaph. Forbearance, honorable dealing, and the ex- ercise of sound policy upon the part of the whites might easily have prevented the war, 1 It had been designed to place the warrior's bones in the museum of the Iowa Historical and Geological Institute, but the fire occurred before the removal could take place. — Bur- lington (Iowa) Gazette, August 25, 188S. The Black Hawk War 197 with its pitiful expenditure of blood and treasure. Squatters had been allowed with impunity to violate the spirit of treaty obli- gations, in harassing the Sauks in their ancient village long before the government had sold the land ; for six thousand dollars — a beggarly price for securing peace with a formidable band of starving savages, grown desperate from ill usage — Black Hawk would, in 1831, have removed his people to the west of the Mississippi, without any show of force ; ^ at Sycamore Creek, an observance of one of the oldest and most universally-established rules of war would have procured a peaceful retreat of the discouraged invaders; on the night of the Battle of Wisconsin Heights, reasonable prudence in keeping an interpreter in camp, in a hostile country, would have enabled Nea- pope's peaceful mission to succeed ; at the Bad Axe, as at Sycamore Creek, a decent regard for the accepted amenities of civilized warfare, on the part of the reckless soldiers on the steamer *' Warrior," would have secured an abject surrender of the entire hostile band, which was, instead, ruthlessly butchered ; while the sending out of Sioux bloodhounds upon the trail of the few worn-out fugitives, in the very 1 Autobiography, pp. 99, lOO. 198 Essays in Western History country beyond the great river to which the Sauks had been persistently ordered, capped the chmax of a bloody and costly contest characterized on our part by gross misman- agement, bad faith, and sheer heartlessness. It is generally stated in the published his- tories of those commonwealths that the defeat of Black Hawk opened to settlement What -was ^ accom- northern Illinois and the southern fished portion of what is now Wisconsin. Unquahfied, this statement is misleading. In- directly, it is true that the war proved a powerful agent in the development of that region. The British Band was in itself no obstacle to legitimate settlement, the fron- tiers of which were far removed from Black Hawk's village, and need not to have crowded it for several years to come. Although the natural outgrowth of the excitable condition of the border, the war was not essential as a means of clearing the path of civilization. What it did accomplish in the way of territo- rial development, was to call national attention, in a marked manner, to the attractions and re- sources of an important section of the North- west. The troops acted as explorers of a large tract concerning which nothing had hitherto definitely been known among white men. The The Black Hawk War 199 Sauks themselves were, previous to their inva- sion, unacquainted with the Rock River valley above the mouth of the Kishwaukee, and had but vague notions of its swamps and lakes, gathered from their Winnebago guides, who alone were well informed on the subject. From Wisconsin Heights to the Bad Axe, every foot of the trackless way was as unknown to the Sauks and their pursuers as was the interior of Africa to Stanley, when he first groped his way across the Dark Continent. During and imme- diately following the war, the newspapers of the Eastern States w^ere filled with descriptions, more or less florid, of the scenic charms of, and the possibilities for, extractive industries in, the Rock River valley, of the groves and prairies on every hand, of the park-like region of the Four Lakes, of the Wisconsin River highlands, and of the picturesque hills and dense forests of Western Wisconsin. From the press were issued books and pamphlets by the score, giving sketches of the war and ac- counts of the newly discovered paradise — for the most part crude publications abounding in gross errors, and to-day practically unknown save to bibliographers and collectors. But in their own way and season they advertised the country and set flowing thither a tide of immi- 200 Essays in Western History gratlon. There necessarily followed, in due time, the opening to sale of public lands here- tofore reserved, and the purchase of what terri- tory remained in the possession of the Indian tribes of the district. Quite as important, the decisive ending of this war with the Sauks completely humbled the spirit of the mischief- making Winnebagoes, so that they never re- sumed their old-time arrogant tone, and were quite content to allow the affair to remain the last of the Indian uprisings in either Illinois or Wisconsin. This incidental subduing of the Winneba- goes, and the broad and liberal advertising given to the theatre of disturbance, were there- fore the two practical and immediate results of the Black Hawk War, the consequence of which was at once to give an enormous impetus to the development of both the State of Illinois and the Territory of Wisconsin.^ 1 Wisconsin Territory was erected in 1836. IV THE STORY OF MACKINAC M IV THE STORY OF MACKINAC ■ACKINAC has played a considerable . . 1 part on the stage of Western history. Early recognized as a vantage-point, com- manding the commerce of the three uppermost ^^,^^,u lakes of the great chain, - Huron. formastery Michigan, and Superior, — red men and white men have struggled for its mastery, tribe against tribe, nation against nation. The fleur-de-lis, the union jack, and the stars and stripes, have here each in their turn been symbols of conqueror and conquered; coun- cils have been held here, and treaties signed, which settled the political ownership of fertile regions as wide as all Europe; and when at last armed hostilities ceased through the final surrender to the Republic, when the toma- hawk was buried and the war-post painted white, a new warfare opened at Mackinac - the commercial struggle of the great fur-trade companies, whose rival banners contested the 204 Essays in Westej'n History sway of lands stretching from Athabasca to the Platte, from the Columbia to Georgian Bay. It is a far cry from the invasion of Chippewa Michillimackinac by the long-haired coureurs de bois of New France, to the invasion of Mackinac Island by modern armies of summer tourists from New York and New England. In attempting, within this narrow compass, to tell the story of Mackinac, it will be imprac- ticable to take more than a bird's-eye view. In the first place, let us understand that the term Mackinac, as used in our earliest Three history, is the title of the entire dis- Mackinacs ^j.j^^ hcrcabout, as well as that of a particular settlement. There have been, in chronological succession, at least three distinct localities specifically styled Mackinac: (i) Be- tween 1670 and 1672, Mackinac Island, near the centre of the strait, was the seat of a French Jesuit mission. (2) From 1672 to 1706, the Mackinac of history was on the north side of the strait, upon Point St. Ignace, and wholly under the French regime. (3) From 17 12 to 1 78 1 Mackinac was on the south side of the strait — until 1763, just west of the present Mackinaw City, and possibly between 1764 and 1 78 1 at some point farther west along the coast of Lake Michigan; this south-side Mackinac The Story of Mackmac 205 was at first French and then English, and the site near Mackinaw City has come to be known in history as " Old Mackinaw." Finally, the Mackinac settlement was in 1781 once more placed upon the island, and while at first under English domination at last became American. A remembrance of these facts will help to dispel the fog which has often obscured our historical view of Mackinac. That indefatigable explorer of high seas and pathless forests, Samuel de Champlain, planted the first permanent French colony in Champlain ^ , i r ^-^ i hears of Canada on the rock of Quebec, in Lake 1608 — only a twelvemonth later than Superior the establishment of Jamestown, and full twelve years before the coming to Plymouth of the Pilgrim Fathers. It was seven years be- fore Champlain saw Lake Huron, his farthest point west in the limitless domain which the King of France had set him to govern. Twenty- one years had passed — years of heroic strug- gling to push back the walls of savagery which hemmed him in; when one day there came to Quebec, in the fleet of Indian canoes from this far northwest, — which annually picked its way over fifteen hundred miles of rugged waterways beset with a multitude of terrors, — a naked Algonkin, besmeared with grease and 2o6 Essays in Western History colored clays, who laid at the feet of the great white chief a lump of copper mined on the shores of Lake Superior. A shadowy region this, as far removed from the ordinary haunts of the adventurous woodsmen of New France as were the headwaters of the Nile from the African explorers of a generation ago, and quite as dangerous of access. It was five years later (1634) before Cham- plain could see his way to sending a proper Jean emissary into the Northwest. Finally Ntcoiet Qj^g ^^g found in the person of young Jean Nicolet, whom Champlain had had trained in the forest for tasks hke this. Conveyed by Indian oarsmen engaged by relays in the sev- eral tribes through which he passed, Nicolet pushed up the St. Lawrence, portaged around the rapids at Lachine, ascended the trough of the turbulent Ottawa with its hundred water- falls, portaged over to Lake Nipissing, de- scended French Creek to Georgian Bay, and threading the gloomy archipelago of the Mani- toulins, sat at last in a Chippewa council at Sault Ste. Marie. Doubtless he here heard of Lake Superior, not many miles away, but it does not appear that he saw its waters. In- tent on finding a path which led to the China Sea, supposed not to be far beyond this point, The Story of Mackinac 207 he turned south again, and pushing on through the straits of Mackinac found and traversed Lake Michigan. He traded and made treaties with the astonished tribesmen of Wisconsin and Illinois, who in him saw their first white man, and thus brought the Northwest within the sphere of French influence.^ Seven years later the Jesuit missionaries, Jogues and Raymbault, following in the path The of Nicolet, said mass before two thou- earliest ^^^^ breech-cloutcd savages at Sault Ste. Marie. Affairs moved slowly in the seventeenth century, upon these far- away borders of New France. Jogues and Raymbault had long been ashes before the Northwest again appeared on the pages of history ; nearly a generation had passed be- fore the daring forest traders and explorers, Radisson and Groseilliers, arrived upon the scene (1658-62), discovered the Upper Mis- sissippi, discovered Lake Superior, and first 1 Authorities on Nicolet are : Butterfield's History of the Discovery of the Northzvest by John Nicolet (Cincinnati, 1881) ; Gosselin's Les iVormands an Canada — Jeatt Nicolet (Evreux, 1893) ; Jouan's " Interprete voyageur au Canada, 1618-1642," in La Revue Canadienne, Fevrier, 1S86; Suite's Melanges d'histoire et de litteratiire (Ottawa, 1876) ; articles by Garneau, Ferland, Suite, etc., in Wis. Historical Collections ; and a bibliography by Butterfield in ibid., xi., pp. 23, 25. 2o8 Essays in Western History made known to the English the fur-trading capabihties of the Hudson Bay region. The Hudson's Bay Company was organized in London, with these renegade Frenchmen as their pilots, in 1670; the following year, at Sault Ste. Marie, where the Jesuits had a fairly prosperous mission, Saint-Lusson formally took possession of the great Northwest for the French king.^ I suppose that Saint- Lusson, when he floated the banner of France at the gateway of Lake Superior, knew nothing of his English neighbors, the Hudson's Bay Company; unconsciously he made an im- portant play for France on the American chess-board; but a century later England won the game. Those who have read Parkman's Jesuits'^ will remember that the Hurons, whose habitat Flight of had long been upon the eastern shores theHtcrons of Georgian Bay, retreated northward and westward before the advance of the all- conquering Iroquois. At first taking refuge with starving Algonkins on the Manitoulin Islands, and on the mainland hereabout, they 1 See Saint-Lusson's proces-verbal (June 14, 1671), in Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., pp. 26-29. 2 The present article, however, is in this respect based upon Thvvaites's The Jesuit Relations and Allied Docuinciiis (Cleveland, 1896-1902). The Story of Mackinac 209 were soon driven forth by their merciless foe, and made their stand in the swamps and tangled woods of far-away Wisconsin. Many of them centred upon Chequamegon Bay, the island-locked estuary near the southwest corner of Lake Superior, the ancient home of the Chippewas. Here Radisson and Groseilliers visited and traded with them.^ The Jesuit Menard, who had accompanied these adven- turers, — the first missionary to follow in the wake of Jogues and Raymbault, — had stopped at Keweenaw Bay to minister to the Ottawas, and later lost his life while trying to reach a village of Hurons, crouching, fear-stricken, in the forest fastnesses around the headwaters of the Black River. ^ Then came, three years later (1665), Father At Chzqua- AUouez, to rcopcu at Chequamegon megonBay j^^y |-j^g Jesuit missiou on our great- est inland sea. Alloiiez being ordered, after 1 Radisson's *' Journal " first appeared in Prince Soc. Pubs., xvi. (Boston, 18S5). Portions were published with notes, in Wis. Hist. Cells. ^ xi. See the following monographs on this subject: Campbell's "Exploration of L. Superior," Parkman Chib Pubs., No. 2 (Milw., 1896), and Moore's "Dis- coveries of L. Superior,'* in Mich. Polit. Sci. Ass. Pubs., ii., No. 5 (Ann Arbor, 1897). 2 See Campbell's " Pere Rene Menard," Parkman Club Pubs., No. II (Milw., 1897). 14 2 1 o Essays in Western History four years of arduous and I fear unprofitable labor at Chequamegon, to found a mission at Green Bay, was succeeded (1669) t)y the youthful Marquette. But Marquette was not long at Chequamegon before his half-naked parishioners provoked to quarrel their power- ful western neighbors, the Sioux, the result being (1671) that the Chequamegon bands, and Marquette with them, were driven like leaves before an autumn blast eastward along the southern shore of the great lake ; the Ottawas taking up their homes in the Mani- toulin Islands, the Hurons accompanying Mar- quette to the island of Mackinac, where, the previous year, the Jesuits had founded the mission of St. Ignace. Mackinac Island was then noted throughout this region for its abundance of fish, in both summer and winter: also because it Hurons return to stood in the path to and from the Mackinac sQ^^hwest. In formcr days the island and the neighboring mainland had been thickly populated by several tribes of Indians who had been driven westward by the Iroquois. Now that peace with the Iroquois had been estab- lished, with hopes of its being permanent, the tribesmen had again flocked to the straits, mak- ing the region highly desirable as a mission resi- The Story of Mackinac 2 1 1 dcnce. It was therefore to their old homes on the island that the Hurons now returned with Marquette. Here the young priest ministered to the miserable savages about him, and to the handful of nomadic fur-trade employes who in spring and autumn gathered at this isolated frontier station of New France on their way to and from the great wilderness beyond. Soon after his arrival, apparently within a year, the mission was moved to the mainland, Removal to on the sitc of the present village of St. ignace gj. Jgnace. There is abundant ground for behef that the St. Ignace monument, which is visited each summer by thousands of tourists, represents the place where stood the *' rude and unshapely chapel, its sides of logs and its roof of bark," in which Marquette thereafter conducted the offices of the Church. Under what circumstances the removal took place, we know not. Quite likely the island, at first resorted to because of its safety from attack by foes, was found too small for the villages and fields of the Indians who now centred here in large numbers ; and moreover was found difficult of approach in time of summer storm, or when the ice was weak in spring and early winter. The long continuance of peace with the Iroquois removed for the time all danger 212 Essays in Western History from that quarter, and events proved that they had made their last attack upon the tribesmen of these far Western waters. Louis JoUiet, a coureur de bois, was sent forth by the authorities at Quebec (1672) to explore joiiietand ^^^ Mississippi River, about which so Marquette much had bccu heard, and by that route to reach, if may be, the Great Western Ocean — for the road to India, either through the continent or by way of the Northwest Passage, \vas still being sought in those days. He arrived in December at Point St. Ignace, bringing orders to Marquette to ac- company him. The conversion of the Indians went hand in hand, in New France, with the extension of commerce; no trading-post was complete without its missionary, no explor- ing expedition without its ghostly counsellor. Marquette, a true soldier of the cross, obeyed his marching orders, and on the seventeenth of May following, handed his spiritual task over to Father Philippe Pearson, and went forth to help discover unknown lands and carry to their peoples the word of Christ. With JoUiet he entered the Upper Missis- sippi at Prairie du Chien, and proceeded far enough down the great river to establish the fact that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico The Story of Mackinac 2 1 3 and not the Pacific Ocean. It is possible that Radisson and GroseiUiers were on the Missis- sippi thirteen years before them; but Radis- son's Journal, written in England long after, was not published until our own time, and it is not at all likely that Jolliet and Marquette, or any one else of importance in New France, ever heard of this prior claim. The merit of carefully planned, premeditated discovery cer- tainly rests with Jolliet and his companion. It so happened — the story of the swamping of Jolliet's home-returning canoe in the wild rapids of Lachine is a familiar one — Mar- ^ quette's that the detailed journals and maps Journal ^|- ^|^^ chief Were lost; whereas the simple story which Marquette wrote at the Green Bay mission and transmitted by Indian courier to his father superior at Quebec, reached its destination and was published to the world for the glory of the church. Thus it was that the gentle, unassuming Marquette became un- wittingly its only historian ; fate willed that his name should be more commonly associated with the great discovery than that of his secular companion. Four years later the weary bones of this missionary-explorer, who had died on his way thither from the savage camps of the Illinois, were laid to rest " in a little vault in 2 1 4 Essays in Western History the middle of the chapel " at St. Ignace. In September, 1877, when antiquarians could but ingeniously guess at the site of this early mis- sion in the wilderness, the bones of Father Marquette were discovered in the rude grave wherein they had rested for two centuries, and to-day are visible relics for inspiration to deeds of holiness.^ Throughout the seventeenth century the outpost of Mackinac at Point St. Ignace — A French MichlUimacklnac, in those easy-go- oiitpost jj^g days when there was more time in which to pronounce the name — remained the most important French military and trad- ing station in the upper lakes, for it guarded the gateway between Huron, Michigan, and Superior ; and every notable expedition to the Northwest waters had perforce to stop here. We must not think of this Mackinac of the 1 A detailed account, in German, of the discovery (said to have been written by Father Edward Jacker, then the Catholic missionary at St. Ignace) appeared first in the St. Louis Pastoral-BlaU ; an English translation was published in the Green Bay (Wis.) Advocate, August 29, 187S. The site of the old mission was discovered May 4, but the remains of Marquette were not exhumed until September 3. See contro- versial articles in the St. Louis Sunday Messenger, June 24, 1877, and in the Chicago Times, August 14 and 29, and September 13, 1879. For details of Marquette's career, see Thwaites's Father Marquette (New York, 1902). The Story of Machmac 2 1 5 seventeenth centiny, strategetically important though it was, as a settlement in any modern sense. The poHcy of the rulers of New France was to maintain the interior of the continent as a fur-bearing wilderness. Unlike Anglo- Saxons, they had no desire to plant settle- ments simply as settlements. They had not the colonizing spirit of Englishmen. To carry the fur-trade to the uttermost limits, to bring the savages to at least a nominal recognition of the cross, were their chief aims ; to this end, palisaded trading-posts, which they rather grandiloquently called forts, were established throughout the country, the officers of which were rare diplomatists, and bullied and cajoled the red men as occasion demanded. Around each of these little forts, and Mackinac was one of them, were small groups of habitants, voyageurs, and coureurs de bois, who could hardly be called colonists, for few of them expected to lay their bones in the wilderness, but eventually to return to their own people on the Lower St. Lawrence, when enriched or their working days were over. It was rather an army of occupation than a body of settlers. The little log fort at Mackinac, calculated only to withstand a fusillade of savage arrows and musket-balls, was the principal feature of the 2i6 Essays i7i Western History place, and the commandant the chief person- age. After him, the long-robed Jesuit, and then the swarm of folk dependent on the spas- modic fur-trade. In the year of grace 1701, the little group upon Point St. Ignace received word one day Establish ^^^^^ ^ "^^^ post, called Detroit, had tnent of bccn established away down in the Detroit unknown country at the narrow mouth of Lake Huron, which was henceforth, under one Cadillac, to be the centre of commerce in these Western parts. Heretofore, owing to the Iroquois stoutly holding the lower lakes against the French, progress to the far Northwest had been altogether by way of the raging Ottawa. But now, after seventy- five long years of journeying by that toilsome route, it had from various reasons become possible to come to Mackinac through Lakes Ontario and Erie. This new post, Detroit, was to command a still wider range than that of Mackinac ; the gar- rison was soon withdrawn thither; the fur- traders, both white and Indian, for the most part soon followed — it was easy for a popu- lation like this to pull up stakes and hie away at beat of drum. Nearly everybody went to the new Mecca, save the Jesuit missionaries, who were not wanted by this new man Cadillac, The Story of Mackinac 2 1 7 a hater of the ** black robes." For five years the good fathers — there were then three of them — maintained their Httle chapel and school here on Point St. Ignace; but they ministered to an ever-decreasing, disorderly flock, and at last, burning their crude build- ings, with a few white followers retired dis- comfited to Quebec. For six years there does not appear to have been any French establishment hereabout. But "(9/^ in 1712 Governor-General Vaudreuil Macki7tatv'' ^^^^ j^g Louvigny, a noted frontier captain, to restore the abandoned post on the upper waters. This he did, but upon the south shore of the strait, not far west of the present Mackinaw City; and over there on the main- land, at what came in time to be known as "Old Mackinaw,"^ — although it was, as we 1 Note the orthographic change. The historic name is Mackinac, an abbreviation of Michillimackinac, and such is to-day the legal designation of Fort Mackinac, Strait of Mackinac, and Mackinac Island; but the pronunciation is Mack'inaw. The spelling has been made phonetic in the cases of Old Mackinaw and Mackinaw City, to distinguish them from the island, and many writers prefer to use the phonetic form whenever mentioning any of the several Mackinacs. A cultured native of Mackinac Island has told me that, so far as he knew, but one person pronounced it Macki;/rtc/^; and he was Samuel Abbott, of the American P'ur Company, who in his day was regarded as an eccentric. 2i8 Essays in Western History have seen, not the oldest Mackinac, — occurred such historic events as are spread upon the records to the credit of this name between 1 71 2 and 1763. It was on the log ramparts of Old Mackinaw that, in token of the fall of New France, the fleur-de-lis was at last hauled down on September 28, 1761, and the union jack proudly lifted to the breeze. Here, upon the fourth of June, 1763, occurred that cruel massacre of the English garrison, which Park- man has so vividly described for us in his Conspiracy of Pontiac. A year or more later the English rebuilt their fort, but whether or not upon the site of the T/te massacre is a moot question. There English appears to be good reason for the belief that it was among the sand-dunes farther west along the coast ; for in the official corre- spondence of the next fifteen years there is much complaint upon the part of command- ants that their ** rickety picket is commanded by sand hills" — a condition which does not exist at the old site near Mackinaw City. To this rickety picket there came one October day, in the year 1779, Patrick Sin- clair, lieutenant-governor of Michillimackinac and its dependencies, charged with the rebuild- ing and enlarging of his Majesty's post in these The Sto7y of Mackinac 2 1 9 parts. The Revolutionary War was in progress. George Rogers Clark had captured Kaskaskia and Vincennes; his emissaries were treating with Indian chiefs away ofif in Wisconsin ; there were rumours of Clark's intended foray on Detroit ; and some suspicions that the '' Bos- tonnais," as the French Canadians called these leather-shirted Virginians, had designs of put- ting a war vessel upon Lake Michigan. Sin- clair saw at once that the old site was untenable and the fort beyond repair. In advance of orders he made a bold step. Seven miles away to the northeast of Old The island Mackinaw, in the midst of the strait, reoccupied j^y ^^ comcly island whereon had first been established, a hundred and nine years before, the Jesuit mission of St. Ignace — " La Grosse Isle," the Canadians called it, although smaller than its neighbor, Bois Blanc. The Indians deemed it a sort of shrine, where at times they gathered at their medicine feasts, and to which, as to a sanctuary, they fled in periods of extreme danger. Frenchmen were more considerate of the superstitions of the dusky tribesmen than were the intolerant English. This now untenanted island Sinclair appropriated to the king's use, although some eighteen months later he formally bought it 220 Essays in Wester 7 1 History from the Indians for ^^5000, New York cur- rency. A month after his arrival the Heutenant- governor began to erect a durable fort on the island, and thither, upon receiving tardy per- mission from his superiors, he finally removed in the spring of 1781, with him going the now revived Catholic mission and the entire fur-trade colony from the south shore. The new fort still bore the name of Fort Mackinac, and La Grosse Isle of the French henceforth was known in the English reports as Mackinac Island. By the treaty of Paris (1783), Mackinac came within the boundary of the United States ; Arrival of but the English still held the whip- Americans hand in thcsc parts, and upon sundry pretexts continued to hold this and other lake posts until the Jay treaty set matters right. In October, 1796, American troops first took possession of the post, and this gateway to the upper lakes was at last ours. The English, however, were still hopeful that they would some day win this part of the country back again, and their garrison retired to Isle St. Josephs, only some forty miles to the north- east, where in 1795 they had built a fort. The French and half-breeds did not at first relish Yankee interference in their beloved The Story of Mackinac 221 Northwest. They had maintained harmonious relations with the Engh'sh, who fostered the fur-trade and employed the French with liber- ality. Then, too, among the Creoles the repu- tation of these Americans was not of the best. They were known to be a busy, bustling, driving people, quite out of tune with the easy-going methods of the French, and were, moreover, an agricultural race that was fast narrowing the limits of the hunting-grounds. The Frenchmen felt that their interests in this respect were identical with those of the savages, hence we find in the correspondence of the time a bitter tone adopted towards the new- comers, who were regarded as intruders and covetous disturbers of existing commercial and social relations. When war broke out between England and the United States, in 1812, naturally the Creoles Ef lish ^^ ^^ Northwest were against us, and capture the freely entered the service of their old "'"" and well-tried friends, the English. Fort Mackinac was then garrisoned by "57 effective men, including officers." There had been no news sent here of the declaration of war, although the American lieutenant in charge, Porter Hanks, was expecting it. July 17, 18 1 2, a British force of a thousand whites 222 Essays in Western History and Indians from Fort St. Josephs secretly effected a landing at the cove on the north- west shore of the island, — known to-day as " British Landing," — took possession of the heights overlooking the fort, and then coolly informed the commandant that hostilities had been declared between the two nations, and a surrender would be in order. The Americans were clearly at the mercy of the enemy, and promptly capitulated. The old fort had from the first been in poor condition. The English, once more in posses- sion, built a new and stronger fort upon the higher land to the rear, which they had occu- pied, and named it Fort George, in honor of their sovereign. This stronghold was stormed on the fourth of August, 1814, by United States troops under Colonel George Croghan, who also disembarked at British Landing. The English position, however, was too strong for the assailants, who lost heavily under the galling fire of the French and Indian allies, and Croghan was obliged to retire. Among his dead was Major Holmes, a soldier of con- siderable reputation. The treaty of Ghent resulted In the forti- fication being restored to the United States, the transfer being actually made on July 18, The Story of Mackinac 223 181 5. Colonel McDouall, the British com- mander at Mackinac, was loath to leave. His Americans dcspatchcs to headquarters plainly regaintheir indicate that he thought his govern- footiitg , . . , ment weak in surrendering to the Americans, for whom he had a decided con- tempt, this Malta of the Northwest. When at last obliged to depart, he went no farther than necessary — indeed not quite so far, for he built a fort upon Drummond Island, at the mouth of River St. Mary, territory soon there- after found to belong to the United States. It was not until thirteen years later (1828) that the English forces were finally and reluctantly withdrawn from Drummond Island/ and Eng- lish agents upon our northern frontier ceased craftily to stir our uneasy Indian wards to bickerings and strife. When the United States resumed possession of Mackinac Island the name of the fort built by the English on the highest ground was changed from Fort George to Fort Holmes, in honor of the victim of the assault of the year before ; but later this position was abandoned, and old Fort Mackinac, built by Sinclair and 1 In his Drummo/i(/ /s/a7id (La.ns'mg, Mich., 1S96), Samuel F. Cook has given the history of the British occupation thereof, with numerous illustrations of the ruins and sur- roundings of the old fort. 2 24 Essays in Western History capitulated by Hanks, was rehabilitated, and remains to this day as the military stronghold of the district. The name of Mackinac will always be inti- mately associated with the story of the fur- trade. We have seen that the first settlement Centre of the upon the shorcs of thcsc straits had fur-trade j|-g inception in the primitive com- merce of the woods ; and chiefly as a pro- tection to this trade the several forts were maintained under changing flags unto our own day. In 1783 the North West Fur Company opened headquarters here; later, the Mackinac Company and the South West Fur Company were formidable competitors; in 1 81 5, with the re-establishment of the American arms, came the American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor was the controlUng spirit. We cannot fully understand the course of history in this region unless we remember that despite the treaty of Ghent (1783), Jay's treaty (1794), Wayne's Indian treaty at Greenville (1795), and the occupation of Fort Mackinac by United States troops between 1796 and 18 12, the fur-trade upon the upper lakes and beyond was not really under American control until after the War of 1812-15; indeed, the territory itself was not until that time within The Story of Mackinac 225 the sphere of American influence, beyond the visible Hmits of the armed camps at Mackinac and Green Bay. After the Jay treaty, British traders, with French and half-breed clerks and voyageurs, were still permitted free intercourse with the savages of our Northwest, and held substantial domination over them. The Mack- inac, North West, and South West companies were composed of British subjects — Scotch- men mainly — with headquarters at Montreal, and distributing points at Detroit, Mackinac, Sault Ste. Marie, and Grand Portage. Their clerks and voyageurs were wide travellers, and carried the forest trade throughout the Far West, from Great Slave Lake on the north to the valleys of the Platte and the Arkansas on south, and to the parks and basins of the Rocky Mountains. Goods were sent up the lakes from Montreal, either by relays of sailing vessels, with portages of men and merchandise at the Falls of Niagara and the Sault Ste. Marie, or by picturesque fleets of bateaux and canoes up the Ottawa River and down French Creek into Georgian Bay, from there scattering to the companies' various entrepots of the South, West, and North.^ 1 See Turner's " Fur Trade in Wisconsin," Wis. Hist, Soc. Proc, 1889. 2 26 Essays in Western History The Creole boatmen were a reckless set. They took life easily, but bore ill the mildest The restraints of the trading settlements; Creoles their home was on the lakes and rivers and in Indian camps, where they joyously par- took of the most humble fare, and on occasion were not averse to suffering extraordinary hardships in the service of their bourgeois. Their pay was light, but their thoughts were lighter, and the vaulted forest rang with the gay laughter of these heedless adventurers ; while the pent-up valleys of our bluff-girted streams echoed the refrains of their rudely melodious boating songs, which served the double purpose of whiling the hours away and measuring prog- ress along the glistening waterways. In Irving's Astoria is a charming description of fur-trading life at the Grand Portage of Lake Superior, over which boats and cargoes were carried from the eastward-flowing Pigeon to the tortuous waters which glide through a hundred sylvan lakes and over a hundred dashing rapids into the wide-reaching system of Lake Winnipeg and the Assiniboin.^ The book records the heroic trans-continental expe- 1 For historical sketch of Grand Portage, see Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., pp. 123-125. See N. Y. Nation, Dec. 23, 1897, pp. 499-501, for corrections of Astoria. The Story of Mackinac 227 dition of Wilson and Hunt, which started from Mackinac one bright morning in August, 1809, and wended its toilsome way along many a river and through mountain-passes, beset by a thousand perils, to plant far-distant Astoria. With the coming of peace in 181 5, English fur-traders were forbidden the country, and American interests, represented by Astor's great company, were at last dominant in this great field of commerce. New and improved methods were introduced, and the American Fur Company soon had a firm hold upon the Western country; nevertheless, the great cor- poration never succeeded in ridding itself of the necessity of employing the Creole and mixed- blood voyageurs, engages, and interpreters, and was obliged to shape its policy so as to accommodate this great army of easy-going subordinates. The fur-trade of Mackinac was in its heyday about the year 1820. Gradually, with the in- Modern rush of Settlement and the consequent ^■^^ cutting of the timber, the commerce of the forest waned, until about 1840 it was practically at an end, and the halcyon days of Mackinac were over. For years it was promi- nent as the site of a Protestant mission to the modernized Indians of Michic^an and Wis- 228 Essays in Western History consin ; ^ finally, even this special interest was removed to new seats of influence, nearer the vanishing tribes, and Mackinac became re- signed to the hum-drum of modern life — a sort of Malta, now but spasmodically gar- risoned ; a fishing station for the Chicago trade ; a port of call for vessels passing her door; a resort for summer tourists; a scene which the historical novelist may dress to his fancy ; a shrine at which the historical pilgrim may worship, thankful, indeed, that in what many think the Sahara of Western history are left a few romantic oases Hke unto this. 1 For an account of this experiment, see Williams's The Old Mission Clncrch of Mackinac Is/and {Detroit, 1895). V THE STORY OF LA POINTE THE STORY OF LA POINTE IN 1634, when the child born upon the " Mayflower " was but fourteen years of age, Jean Nicolet, a daring young Nicoid explorer, was despatched by the enterprising Champlain upon a journey of discovery as far as Wisconsin, a thousand miles of canoe journey west from Quebec. In that far distant region, Nicolet made trading con- tracts, such as they were, with a half-score of squalid tribes huddled in widely-separated villages throughout the broad wilderness lying between Lakes Superior and Michigan. It was a hazardous, laborious expedition, far more notable in its day than, in our time, is a journey through Thibet. Its results were slow of development, for in the seventeenth century man was still cautiously deliberate; nevertheless this initial visit of the forest am- bassador of New France to the country of the Upper Lakes broke the path for a train of 232 Essays in Western History events which were of mighty significance in American history. Let us examine the topography of Wiscon- sin. That State is situated at the head of the chain of Great Lakes. It is touched Topograph- . 1 t 1 •« /r • 1 • 1 teal signifi- on the east by Lake Michigan, on the canceof north by Lake Superior, on the west Wisconsin . , t.,. . . . . . , . , , by the Mississippi, and is drained by interlacing rivers which so closely approach each other that the canoe voyager may with ease pass from one great water system to another. He may enter the continent by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and by utilizing numerous narrow portages in Wisconsin emerge into the south-flowing Mississippi, eventually returning to the Atlantic through the Gulf of Mexico. From Lake Michigan, the Fox-Wisconsin river system was the most feasible of the several high- ways to the great river. Lito Lake Superior there flow numerous turbulent streams from whose sources short portage trails lead over to the headwaters of feeders of the Mississippi. From the western shore of Lake Superior, Pigeon River invites to exploration of the Win- nipeg country, whence the canoeist may by a half-hundred easy routes reach the distant re- gions of Athabasca and the Polar Sea, and — as Mackenzie found — even the Pacific Ocean. The Story of La Pointe 233 In their early voyages to the head of lake navigation, it was in the course of nature that the French should soon discover Wisconsin, and having discovered it, learn that this was the key-point of the Northwest, — the principal waterway to the continental interior. Through Wisconsin's interlacing streams, to which Nico- let led the way, New France largely prosecuted her far-reaching forest trade and missionary ex- plorations, securing a nominal control of the basin of the Mississippi at a time when Anglo- Saxons had gained little more of the Atlantic Slope than could be seen from the mast-head of a caravel. Thus, early in the history of New France, the geographical character of Wisconsin became an important factor. The trading posts and Jesuit missions on Chequa- megon Bay^ of Lake Superior, Hke those on Green Bay ^ of Lake Michigan, soon played a prominent part in American exploration.^ 1 In his authoritative " History of the Ojibway Nation," in Alhin. Hist. Colls., v., Warren prefers the spelling *• Cha- gouniigon," although recognizing " Shagawaumikong" and " Shaugahwaumikong." " Chequamegon " is the current modern form. Edward P. Wheeler, of Ashland, an authority on the Chippewa tongue and traditions, says the pronuncia- tion should be " Sheh-gu-wah-mi-kung." 2 See Neville and Martin's Historic Green Bay (Milwaukee, 1894), and various articles in the Wisconsitt Historical Collections. 8 See Minn. Hist. Colls., v., pp. 98, 99, note, and Wis. 2 34 Essays in Western History After Nicolet's journey to Wisconsin, there followed a long period in which the energies of New France were devoted to lighting back the Iroquois, who often swarmed before the very gates of Quebec and Montreal. Explo- ration was for the time wellnigh impossible. Twenty-one years elapse before we have evi- dence of another white man treading Wisconsin soil. In the spring of 1655, the Indians of the Fox River valley were visited by two Radisson and Gro- r rcnch fur-tradcrs from the Lower seiiiiers on g|.^ Lawrcncc, — Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur the Fox ^ Radisson, and his sister's husband, Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers. There are no characters in American history more picturesque than these two adventurous traders, who, in their fond desire to '* travell and see countries," and "to be known w*^ the remotest people," roamed at will over the broad region between St. James's Bay and the Wisconsin River, having many curious and perilous ex- periences. They made several important geographical discoveries — among them, pos- Hist. Colls., xvi. and xvii., for accounts of early copper mining on Lake Superior by Indians. In the summer of 1892, W. H. Holmes, of the Smithsonian Institution, found on Isle Royale no less than a thousand abandoned shafts which had been worked by them; and "enough stone implements lay around, to stock every museum in the country." The Story of La Pointe 235 sibly, the discovery of the Mississippi River, eighteen years before the visit of Jolliet and Marquette; while from a trading settlement which they proposed to the English, when ill- treated by their fellow-countrymen, developed the great establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company. The unconsciously-amusing narra- tive which Radisson afterwards wrote, for the edification of King Charles II. of England, is one of the most interesting known to American antiquaries.^ Five years after Radisson and Groseilliers were upon Fox River, they were again in Atcheqiia- the Northwcst, this time upon Lake megon Bay SupcHor, which they had approached, in the company of a party of Huron refugees, by carrying around the Sault Ste. Marie. Skirting the southern shore of the lake, 1 SQe/esziit Relations, xlv., pp. 235-237, for Father Lalle- mant's report of the discoveries of the " two Frenchmen," who had found "a beautiful River, large, wide, deep, and worthy of comparison, they say, with our great river St. Lawrence." In Franquelin's map of 16SS, what is now Pigeon River, a part of the international boundary between Minnesota and Canada, is called Groseilliers. An attempt was made in the Wisconsin Legislature, during the session of 1S95, by mem- bers of the Wisconsin Historical Society, to have a proposed new county called Radisson ; the name was adopted by the friends of the bill, but the measure itself failed to pass. 236 Essays in Western History past the now famous Pictured Rocks, the traders and their savage companions carried across Keweenaw Point, visited a band of Christine Indians ^ not far from the mouth of Montreal River, now the far western boundary between upper Michigan and Wisconsin, and, portaging across the base of Point Chequame- gon, — then united to the mainland, but now insular, — entered beautiful Chequamegon Bay. Just where the Frenchmen made their camp, it is impossible from Radisson's confused nar- rative to say ; but that it was upon the main- land, no Wisconsin antiquary now doubts. We have reason to believe that it was upon the southwest shore, between the modern towns of Ashland and Washburn.^ Writes our chronicler, with a homeliness of detail suggestive of De P'oe : '' We went about to make a fort of stakes, w*"^ was in this manner. Suppose that the watter-side had ben in one end ; att the same end there should be mur- 1 Now called Crees. 2 Father Verwyst's " Historic Sites on Chequamegon Bay," in Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., pp. 426-440, is accompanied by notes on the site of Radisson's fort, by Sam. S. Fifield and Edward P. Wheeler. Verwyst thinks the location to have been "somewhere between Whittlesey's Creek and Shore's Land- ing ; " Fifield and Wheeler are confident that it was at Boyd's Creek. The Story of La Pointe 237 therers, and att need we made a bastion in a triangle to defend us from assault. The doore was neare the watter-side, our fire was in the Chequamegon Bay midle, and our bed on the right hand, covered. There were boughs of trees all about our fort layed acrosse, one uppon an other. Besides 238 Essays in Western History those boughs, we had a long cord tyed w"' some small bells, vv''^ weare sentereys. Finally, we made an ende to that fort in 2 dayes' time." First habi' Modernize this statement, and in im- tation of agination we can see this first dwell- ■wnttemeii j^^ reared by white men on the shores of Lake Superior: a small log hut, built possibly on the extremity of a small rocky promontory; the door opens to the water front, while the land side, to the rear of the hut, is defended by a salient of palisades stretching from bank to bank of the narrow promontory ; all about the rude structure is a wall of pine boughs piled one upon the. other, with a long cord intertwined, and on this cord are strung numbers of the little hawk-bells then largely used in Indian trade for purposes of gift and barter. It was expected that in case of a night attack from savages, who might be willing to kill them for the sake of their stores, the enemy would stir the boughs and unwit- tingly ring the bells, thus arousing the little garrison. These ingenious defences were not put to the test, although no doubt they had a good moral effect in keeping the thieving savages at a respectful distance. Winter was just setting in. The waters of the noble bay were taking on that black and The Story of La Pointe 239 sullen aspect peculiar to the season. The beautiful islands, later named for the Twelve Agioomy Apostles,^ looked gloomy indeed in winter ^^^^^ ^^^y^ evergreen mantles. From the precipitous edges of the red sandstone cliffs, which girt about this estuary of our great- est inland sea, the dense pine forests stretched for hundreds of miles westward and southward. Here and there in these gloomy depths was a cluster of starvehng Algonquians, or a band of Hurons from east of Georgian Bay, still trembHng from fear of a return of the Iro- quois, who had chased them from Canada into this land of swamps and tangled woods, where their safety lay in hiding. At wide intervals, uncertain trails led from village to village, and in places the rivers were convenient highways ; these narrow paths, however, beset with dan- ger in a thousand shapes, but emphasized the unspeakable terrors of the wilderness. Radisson and Groseilliers, true coureurs de bois, were undaunted by the dangers which daily beset them. Securely hiding their goods in skilful caches, they passed the winter with their Huron and Algonquian neighbors upon a prolonged hunt, far into the Mille Lacs region 1 Apparently by Jonathan Carver, in the map accompany- ing his volume of Travels. 240 Essays in Western History of Minnesota. The season was phenomenally severe, and the Indians could not find game enough to sustain life. A famine ensued in the camp, the tragical details of which are vividly- painted by Radisson. In the spring of 1662, the traders were back again at Chequamegon, and built another fortified shelter, this time possibly on the sand-spit of Shagawaumikong,^ 1 Says Warren {Minn. Hist. Colls., v., p. 102) : " Shag-a- waum-ik-ong is a narrow neck or point of land about four miles long, and lying nearly parallel to the island of La Pointe, toward the western end of which it converges, till the distance from point to point is not more than two miles." In first entering the bay, the previous autumn, Radisson describes Shagawaumikong, and adds : " That point should be very fitt to build & advantageous for the building of a fort, as we did the spring following." But later on in his journal, in describ- ing the return to the bay from their winter with the Sioux of the Mille Lacs, he does not mention the exact location of the new " fort." While here, they " received [news] that the Octanaks [Ottawas] [had] built a fort on the point that forms that Bay, w'^*^ resembles a small lake. We went towards it with all speede," — and had a perilous trip thither, across thin ice. This would indicate that the French camp was not on the point. As with many other passages in the journal, it is impossible to reconcile these two statements. Verwyst thinks that the traders were stationed on Houghton Point. Warren, who had an intimate acquaintance with Chippewa traditions, believed that that tribe, driven westward by degrees from the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, reached Lake Superior about the time of the Columbian discovery, and came to a stand on Shagawaumikong Point. "On this spot they remained not long, for they were harassed daily by their The Story of La Pointe 241 from which place they once more wandered in search of adventures and peltries, going as far northwest as Lake Assiniboin, and later in the season returning to their home on the Lower St. Lawrence. Returning to Montreal in August (1660), the well-laden canoes of these adventurous fur-traders were accompanied thither Ingratitude ^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ Hurous from the Lac Courte Oreille country, which lies just over the Lake Superior watershed several days to the south of Chequamegon Bay. Radisson and Groseilliers were obliged to suffer the con- fiscation of the greater part of their valuable warlike foes, and for greater security they were obliged to move their camp to the adjacent island of Mon-ing-wun-a- kauning [" place of the golden-breasted woodpecker," now known as La Pointe]. Here, they chose the site of their ancient town, and it covered a space about three miles long and two broad, comprising the western end of the island." [Minn. Hist. Colls., v., p. 96-) They remained in this large town " for the space of three generations, or one hundred and twenty years," but for various reasons evacuated the place, and settling on the adjacent mainland came to regard La Pointe Island' (now Madelaine) as an abode of evil spirits, upon which, it is said, until the days of Cadotte, no Indian dare stay over night alone. Gradually, as the beaver grew more scarce, the Chippewas radiated inland ; hence at the time of Radisson's visit, the shores of the bay were almost unoccupied, save during the best fishing season, when Chippewas, Ottawas, Hurons, and others congregated there in considerable numbers. 16 242 Essays iii Weste^m History peltries, because of trading in the upper waters without a license, and were nearly ruined by this unfortunate outcome of their enterprise. Such ungenerous treatment of the explorers, who had brought tidings of a vast stretch of new territory, led to their desertion to the English and the ultimate formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. While in Montreal, the Hurons were met by Jesuit missionaries who persuaded them to Father rcqucst the presence of a " black- Menard gowu " in their far-away camps in the Wisconsin woods. Father Pierre Menard was assigned to the task by his superior, and in September returned with the tribesmen, accompanied by his servant and seven other Frenchmen. After a deplorable winter at Keweenaw Bay, on the south shore of Lake Superior, where he had been abandoned by his hosts, Menard started overland to find them. It was a toilsome journey of some two hundred miles to the southwest, partly by water, but much of it through a tangled for- est. While making a portage around Bill Cross Rapids, in the upper reaches of the Wis- consin River, the unfortunate priest appears to have lost the path and perished of exposure. He was never after seen by his companion. The Story of La Pointe 243 It was not until August of 1665, four years later, that Father Claude AUouez, another Father Jesuit, was scnt to re-open the Lake Aiioucz Superior mission. He chose his site on the southwestern shore of Chequamegon Bay, possibly at the mouth of Vanderventer's Creek, doubtless not far from the spot on which Radisson's hut had been built, four years previously. The mission and the local- ity were called La Pointe du Saint Esprit^ which in familiar speech was soon shortened to La Pointe.^ 1 Neill (in Minn. Hist. Colls., v., p. ii6) is of the opinion that Allouez " built a bark chapel on the shores of the bay, between a village of Petun Ilurons and a village composed of three bands of Ottawas." That Allouez was stationed upon the mainland, where the Indians now were, is evident from his description of the bay {Jesuit Relations for 1666-67, 1., p. 273) : "It is a beautiful Bay, at the head of which is situated the great Village of the Savages, who there cultivate fields of Indian corn and lead a settled life. They number eight hundred men bearing arms, but are gathered from seven different nations, living in peace, mingled one with another." Verwyst, whose local knowledge is thorough, thinks that AUouez's mission was at the mouth of Vander- venter's Creek, and I have followed him in this regard. In christening his mission " La Pointe," Allouez had ref- erence, doubtless, to the neighboring sandy point of Shaga- waumikong, hemming in the bay on the east. In this he must have had a poetic interest, for tradition told him that it was the landfall of the Chippevvas, and the place where, perhaps a century before, had been fought a great battle be- 244 Essays in Western History At the time of Radlsson's visit, the shores of Chequamegon Bay were uninhabited save by a few half-starved Hurons, who came peri- odically to fish, from the larger villages on inland lakes to the south. But soon thereafter it became the centre of a considerable Indian population, residents of several tribes — Chip- pewas, Potawatomis, Kickapoos, Sauks, and Foxes, native to Wisconsin, together with Hurons and Ottawas from the Huron coun- try — having been attracted thither : first, by the fisheries; second, by a fancied security in tween them and the Dakotas (or Sioux), relics of which were to be found in our day, in the human bones scattered freely through the shifting soil ; doubtless in his time, these were much in evidence. The map in the Jestdt Relations for 1670-71 (Iv., p. 94) styles the entire Bayfield peninsula, forming the west shore of the bay, '* La Pointe du St. Esprit," which of course was map-making from vague report. Franquelin's map of 16SS, more exact in every particular, places a small settlement near the southwestern extremity of the bay. See also Verwyst's Missionary Labors of Fathers Marquette, Menard, and Allouez (Milwaukee, 18S6), p. 183. In 1820, Cass and Schoolcraft visited Chequamegon Bay, and the latter, in his Narrative, says : " Passing this [Bad] river, we continued along the sandy formation to its extreme termination, which separates the Bay of St. Charles [Chequa- megon] from that remarkable group of islands called the Twelve Apostles by Carver. It is this sandy point which is called La Pointe Chagoimegon by the old French authors, a term now shortened to La Pointe." The Story of La Pointe 245 so isolated a region against the Iroquois of the East and the wild Sioux of the West. When Allouez arrived in this polyglot village, the first of October, he found here Chippewas, Potawatomis, Kickapoos, Sauks, and Foxes, all of them Wisconsin tribes ; besides these were Hurons, Ottawas, Miamis, and Illinois — victims of Iroquois hate who had fled in droves before the westward advances of their merci- less tormentors. Despite his large congregations, Allouez made little headway among these people, being Father cousolcd for his hardships and ill- Marqiistte treatment by the devotion of a mere handful of followers. For four years did he labor alone in the Wisconsin wilderness, hop- ing against hope, varying the monotony of his dreary task by occasional canoe voyages to Quebec, to report progress to his father superior. Father Jacques Marquette, a more youthful zealot, was at last sent to relieve him, and in September, 1669, arrived at La Pointe from Sault Ste. Marie, after spending a full month upon the journey — so hampered was he, at that early season, by snow and ice. Allouez, thus relieved from a work that had doubtless palled upon him, upon invitation of the Potawatomis proceeded to Green Bay, 246 Essays in Western History where he arrived early in December, and founded the second Jesuit mission in Wis- consin, St. Francis Xavier, on the site of the modern town of De Perc.^ Marquette had succeeded to an uncomfort- able berth. Despite his strenuous efforts as a peacemaker, his dusky parishioners soon un- wisely quarrelled with their western neighbors, the Sioux,^ with the result that the La Pointe bands, and Marquette with them, retreated eastward along the southern shore of the great lake : the Ottawas taking up their home in the Manitouhn Islands of Lake Huron, and the Hurons accompanying Marquette to the Island 1 By this time, fear of the Iroquois had subsided and many Hurons had lately returned with the Potawatomis, Sauks, and Foxes, to the old haunts of the latter, on Fox River. Cadillac, writing in 1703 from Detroit, says [Margry, v., p. 317) : "It is proper that you should be informed that more than fifty years since [about 1645] the Iroquois by force of arms drove away nearly all of the other Indian nations from this region [Lake Huron] to the extremity of Lake Superior, a country north of this post, and fright- fully barren and inhospitable. About thirty-two years ago [1671] these exiled tribes collected themselves together at Michillimakinak." 2 ** The cause of the perpetual war, carried on between these two nations, is this, that both claim, as their exclusive hunting-ground, the tract of country which lies between them, and uniformly attack each other when they meet upon it." — Henry's Travels and Adventures (N. Y., 1809), pp. 197, 198. The Story of La Pointe 247 of Mackinac, where the Jesuits had recently es- tabhshed the mission of St. Ignace. With La Pointe mission abandoned, and Lake Superior closed to French enterprise by the " raging Sioux," the mission at De Pere now became the centre of Jesuit operations in Wis- consin ; and it was a hundred and sixty-four years later (1835) before mass was again said upon the forest-fringed shores of Chequamegon Bay. Although the missionary had deserted La Pointe, the fur-trader soon came to be much in r , ^ evidence. The spirit of Radisson and Lords of "^ 11' the fur- Groseilliers long permeated this out- trade of-the-way corner of the Northwest. We find (1673), two years after Marquette's expulsion, La Salle's trading agent, Sieur Raudin, cajoling the now relentent Sioux at the western end of Lake Superior. In the summer of 1679, that dashing coureur de bois, Daniel Graysolon du Luth,i ascended the St. Louis River, which divides Wisconsin and Min- nesota, and penetrated with his lively crew of voyageurs to the Sandy Lake country, being probably the first white trader upon the head- waters of the Mississippi. The succeeding winter he spent in profitable commerce with 1 From whom the city of Duluth, Minn., was named. 248 Essays in Western History the Assiniboins, Crees, and other northern tribes in the neighborhood of Grand Portage, on the present boundary between Minnesota and Canada. In June, probably unaware of the easier portage by way of the Mille Lacs and Rum River, Du Luth set out at the head of a small company of employes to reach the Mississippi by a new route. Entering the narrow and turbulent Bois Brule, half- way along the southern shore of Lake Superior, between Red Cliff and St. Louis River, he with difficulty made his way over the fallen trees and beaver dams which then choked its course. From its headwaters there is a two- mile portage to the Upper St. Croix; this traversed, Du Luth was upon a romantic stream which swiftly carried him, through foaming rapids and deep, cool lakes, down into the Father of Waters. Here it was that he heard of Father Louis Hennepin's captivity among the Sioux, and with much address and some courage rescued that doughty adventurer, and carried him, by way of the Fox-Wisconsin route, in safety to Mackinac.^ An adventurous forest trader, named Le Sueur, was the next man to imprint his name 1 See Thvvaites's edition of Hennepin's New Discovery (Chicago : A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903). The Story of La Pomte 249 on the page of Lake Superior history. The Fox Indians, who controlled the valleys of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, had for various reasons become so hostile to the French that those divergent streams were no longer safe as a gateway from the Great Lakes to the Great River. The tendency of the prolonged Fox War was to force the fur-trade travel to the portages of Chicago and St. Josephs on the south, and those of Lake Superior on the north.^ It was with a view to keeping open the Bois Brule-St. Croix route, that Le Sueur, who had been in the West for several years, was despatched by the authorities of New France in 1693. He built a stockaded fort on Madelaine Island, convenient for guarding the northern approach,^ and another on an island in the Mississippi, below the mouth of the St. Croix, and near the present town 1 See Parkman's Half-Centtiry of Conflict, Hebberd's Wisconsin under French Dominion (Madison, 1890), and Wis. Hist. Colls., xvi., xvii. 2 Neill, in Minn, Hist. Colls., v., p. 140, says that soon after St. Lusson's taking possession of the Northwest for France, at Sault Ste. Marie (1671), French traders built a small fort set about with cedar palisades, on which a cannon was mounted, "at the mouth of a small creek or pond mid- way between the present location of the American Fur Com- pany's establishment and the mission-house of the American Board of Foreign Missions." 250 Essays in Western History of Red Wing, Minnesota. The post in the Mississippi soon became " the centre of com- merce for the Western parts." The station in Chequamegon Bay also soon rose to import- ance, for the Chippewas, who had drifted far inland into Wisconsin and Minnesota with the growing scarcity of game, — the natural result of the indiscriminate slaughter which the fur- trade encouraged, — were induced by the new trading facilities to return to their old haunts, massing themselves in an important village on the southwestern shore. This incident strikingly illustrates the impor- tant part which the trader early came to play ^, ^ ^. in Indian life. At first, the tribesman The Indian and the was an agriculturist in a small way, trader ^^^ huntcd and fished only to meet the daily necessities of food and clothing. The white man, however, induced him to kill animals solely for their furs, luxuries ever in great demand in the marts of civilization. The savage now wholly devoted himself to the chase, and it became necessary for the white man to supply him with clothing, tools, weapons, and ornaments of European manu- facture, — the currency, as well as the neces- sities, of the wilderness.-^ These articles the 1 Minn. Hist. Colls. ^ v., p. 125. Originally, the Indians of Lake Superior went to Quebec to trade ; but, as the whites The Story of La Pointe 251 savage had heretofore laboriously fashioned for himself at great expenditure of time; but now he was not content with native manu- factures, and indeed he quickly lost his old- time facility for making them. Soon he was almost wholly dependent on the white trader for the commonest conveniences of life. No longer tied to his fields, he became more and more a nomad, roving restlessly to and fro in search of fur-bearing game, and quickly popu- lating or depopulating a district according to the conditions of trade. Without his trader, he quickly sank into misery and despair; with the advent of the trader, a certain sort of pros- perity once more reigned in the tepee of the red man. In the story of Chequamegon Bay, the heroes are the fur-trader and the mission- ary: and of these the fur-trader is the greater, for without his presence on this scene there would have been no Indians to convert. Although Le Sueur was not many years in command upon Chequamegon Bay,^ we there- penetrated westward by degrees, these commei-cial visits were restricted to Montreal, Niagara, Detroit, Mackinac, Sault Ste. Marie, as each in turn became the outpost of French in- fluence ; finally, trading-posts were opened at La Pointe, St. Louis River, and Pigeon River, and frequently traders even followed the savages" on their long hunts after the ever- decreasing game. 1 In July, 1695, Chingouabc, chief of the Chippewas, 252 Essays in Wester 7i History after catch frequent glimpses of stockaded fur- Pnr-trade trade statioiis here, — French, English, stockades ^^^ American, in turn, — the most of them doubtless being on Madelaine Island, which not only commands the bay but is easily defensible from mainland attacks.^ We voyaged with Le Sueur to Montreal, to "pay his respects to Onontio, in the name of the young warriors of Point Chagouamigon, and to thank him for having given them some Frenchmen to dwell with them ; and to testify their sorrow for one Jobin, a Frenchman killed at a feast. It oc- curred accidentally, not maliciously." In his reply (July 29), Governor Frontenac gave the Chippewas some good advice, and said that he would again send Le Sueur ** to command at Chagouamigon." — Minn. Hist. Colls. ^ v., p. 421. 1 It is evident that hereafter Madelaine Island was the chief seat of French power in Chequamegon Bay, but it was not until the present century that either the name La Pointe or Madelaine was applied to the island. Franquelin's map (16S8) calls it "Isle Detour ou St. Michel." Bellin's French map of Lake Superior (in Charlevoix's Histoire et Descrip- tion GSnirale de Nouvelle France^ Paris, 1744) calls the long sand-point of Shagawaumikong, " Point de Chagauamigon," and styles the present Madelaine Island, "Isle La Ronde," after the trader La Ronde. What is now Basswood Island, he calls "Isle Michel," and at the southern extremity of the bay indicates that at that place was once an important Indian village. In De 1' Isle's map of 1745, a French trading house {Maison Fran^oise) is shown on Shagawaumikong Point it- self. Madelaine Island has at various times been known as Monegoinaiccauning (or moningwunakauning, Chip- pewa for " golden-breasted woodpecker "), St. Michel, La Ronde, Woodpecker, Montreal, Virginia (Schoolcraft, 1820), Michael's (McKenney, 1826), Middle (because midway be- The Story of La Pointe 253 know that in 171 7 there was a French trader at La Pointe, — now the popular name for the entire bay district, — for he was asked by Lieutenant Robertel de la Noiie, who was then at Kaniinistiqua,^ to forward a letter to a cer- tain Sioux chief. In September of the follow- ing year, Captain Paul le Gardeur St. Pierre, whose mother was a daughter of Jean Nicolet, Wisconsin's first explorer, was sent to com- mand at Chequamegon, assisted by Ensign Linctot, the authorities of the lower country having been informed that the local Chippewa chief was, with his fellow-chief at Keweenaw, going to war with the Foxes. St. Pierre was at Chequamegon for at least a year, and was succeeded by Linctot, who effected an impor- tant peace between the Chippewas and Sioux.^ Whether a garrisoned stockade was main- tained at Chequamegon Bay, from St. Pierre's time to the close of the French domination, it is impossible to say ; but it seems probable, for the geographical position was one of consider- tween the stations of Sault Ste. Marie and Fort William, at Pigeon River), Cadotte's, and La Pointe (the latter, because La Pointe village was situated thereon). 1 On the site of the present Fort William, Ont, near Thunder Bay. 2 Wis. Hist. Colls., xvi., p. 380 ; Minn. Hist. Colls., v., pp. 423-425. 254 Essays in Western History able importance in the development of the fur- trade, and the few records extant mention the fort as one of long standing.^ In 1730 it is recorded that a nugget of copper was brought to the post by an Indian, A copper and search at once made for a mine. mtgget l3^t a year later, the authorities of New France wrote to the home office in Paris that, owing to the superstitions of the In- dians, which led them to conceal mineral wealth from the whites, no copper mine had thus far been found in the neighborhood of Chequamegon Bay. The commandant of Chequamegon at this time was Louis Denys, Sieur de la Ronde — Thefirsi Hkc most of his predecessors, a con- bark siderable trader in these far Western parts, and necessarily a man of enterprise and vigor. La Ronde, who was reported as ** knowing the savage languages better than the savages, as they themselves admit," ^ was for many years the chief trader in the Lake Superior country, his son and partner being Denys de la Ronde. In order to search for 1 It was during this period the only fur-trading station on the south shore of Lake Superior, and was admirably situ- ated for protecting not only the west end of the lake, but the Bois Brule-St. Croix trade route. 2 Beauharnois to the French Minister, Oct. 11, 1732. The Story of La Pointe 255 copper mines, as well as to conduct their grow- ing fur-trade, they built a bark of forty tons, which was without doubt '' the first vessel on the great lake, with sails larger than an Indian blanket." 1 On account of the great outlay incurred by him in this and other wilderness enterprises, the post of Chequamegon, with its trading monopoly, had, according to a de- spatch of that day, been given to the elder La Ronde, '' as a gratuity to defray expenses." Other allusions to the La Rondes are not infrequent: in 1736,' the son is ordered to investigate a report of a copper mine at Iron River, not far east of the Bois Brule ; in the spring of 1 740, the father is at Mackinac, on his return to Chequamegon from a visit to the 1 James D. Butler's " Early Shipping on Lake Superior," in Wis. Hist. Soc. Froc, 1894, P- 87. The rigging and other materials were taken in canoes from the lower country to Sault Ste. Marie, the vessel being built at Point aux Pins, on the north shore, seven miles above the Sault. Butler shows that Alexander Henry was interested with a mining company in launching upon the lake in May, 1771* a sloop of 70 tons. After this, sailing vessels were regularly employed upon Superior, in the prosecution of the fur-trade and copper mining. The Hudson's Bay Company's " Speedwell " was upon the lake as early as 1789; the North West Company's principal vessel was the " Beaver." 2 In this year there were reported to be 150 Chippewa braves living on Point Chagouamigon. — iV. Y. Colon. Docs.^ ix. 256 Essays in Western History lower country, but being sick is obliged to re- turn to Montreal, where he died ; ^ and in 1744, Bellin's map gives to what we now know as Madelaine, the name '* Isle de la Ronde " — fair evidence that the French post of this period was on that island. We hear nothing more of importance con- cerning Chequamegon until about 1756, when Allies of Hertel de Beaubassin, the last French the French commandant there, was summoned to Lower Canada with his Chippewa allies, to do battle against the English.^ For several years past, wandering English fur-traders had been tampering with the powerful Chippewas of Lake Superior, who in consequence frequently mal- treated their old friends, the French; ^ but now that the tribe were summoned for actual fighting in the lower country, with extravagant promises of presents, booty, and scalps, they with other Wisconsin Lidians eagerly flocked 1 Martin MSS., Dominion Archives, Ottawa — letter of Beauharnois. For much of the foregoing data, see Neill's " History of the Ojibways," Minn. Hist. Colls., v. 2 N. Y. Colon. Docs,, x., p. 424. 3 Says Governor Galissonicre, in writing to the colonial office at Paris, under date of October, 174S: " Voyage urs robbed and maltreated at Sault Ste. Marie, and elsewhere on Lake Superior ; in fine, there appears to be no security any- where." — N. V. Colon. Docs., x., p. 182. The Story of La Pointe 257 under the French banner, and in painted swarms appeared on the banks of the St. Law- rence, with no better result than to embarrass the French commissariat and thus unwittingly aid the ambitious English. New France was tottering to her fall. The little garrison on Madelaine Island had, with A tragic many another like it, been withdrawn tale ixom the frontier to help in the de- fence of the lower country ; and the Upper Lakes, no longer policed by the fur-trade monopoly, were free plunder for the unlicensed coureurs de bois. Doubtless such were the party who encamped upon the island during the autumn of 1760. By the time winter had set in upon them, all had left for their wintering grounds in the forests of the far West and Northwest, save a clerk named Joseph, who remained in charge of the stores and the local traffic. With him were his little family, — his wife, who was from Montreal, his child, a small boy, and a man-servant, or voy- ageur. Traditions differ as to the cause of the servant's action — some have it, a desire for wholesale plunder; others, detection in a series of petty thefts, which Joseph threatened to re- port; others, an unrequited passion for Joseph's wife. However that may be, the servant mur- 17 258 Essays in Western His lory dered first the clerk, and then the wife; and in a few days, stung by the piteous cries of the child, the lad himself When the spring came, and the traders returned to Chequame- gon, they inquired for Joseph and his fam- ily ; but the servant's reply was unsatisfactory, and he finally confessed to his terrible deed. The story goes, that in horror the traders dis- mantled the old French fort as a thing accursed, sunk the cannon in a neighboring pool, and so destroyed the palisade that to-day certain mys- terious grassy mounds alone remain to testify of the tragedy. Carrying their prisoner with them on their return voyage to Montreal, he is said to have escaped to the Hurons, among whom he boasted of his deed, only to be killed as too cruel a companion even for savages.^ New France having now fallen, an English trader, Alexander Henry, spent the winter of Aiexajider 1 765-66 upon the mainland opposite Henry ^^ island.^ Hcury had obtained 1 See the several versions of this tale, Wis. Hist. Colls., viii., pp. 224 et seq., and Minn. Hist. Colls., v., pp. 141-145, 431, 432. Warren says that some Chippewa traditions ascribe this tragedy to the year 1722, but the weight of evidence is as in the text above. 2 " My house, which stood in the bay, was sheltered by an island of fifteen miles in length, and between which and the main the channel is four miles broad. On the island theie was formerly a French trading-post, much frequented ; and The Story of La Pointe 259 from the English commandant at Mackinac the exclusive trade of Lake Superior, and at Sault Ste. Marie took into partnership Jean Baptiste Cadotte,! ^ thrifty Frenchman, who for many years thereafter was one of the most prominent characters on the Upper Lakes. Henry and Cadotte spent several winters to- gether on Lake Superior, but only one upon the shores of Chequamegon, which Henry styles ''the metropolis of the Chippeways." ^ The next dweller at Chequamegon Bay, j^j^„ of whom we have record, was John Johnston Johnston, a Scotch-Irish fur-trader of some education. Johnston established himself in its neighborhood a large Indian village." - Henry's Travels p. 199. Henry doubtless means that formerly there was an Indian village on the island ; Warren says t^^t "n|il after the coming of Cadotte the island was thought by the natives to be bewitched. ^ , ^ ,t, 1 Jean Baptiste Cadotte (formerly spelled Cadot) was the son of one Cadeau, who is said to have come to the_ North- west in the train of Sieur de Saint-Lusson, who m 1671 took possession of the region centring at Sault Ste. Mane. Jean Baptiste, who was legally married to a Chippewa woman, Ld two sons, Jean Baptiste and Michel, both of whom were extensive traders and in their turn married Chippewas. bee Minn. Hist. Colls., \.,m&ex. 2 " On my arrival at Chagouenig, I found fifty lodges of Indians there. These people were almost naked their trade having been interrupted, first by the English uwasion of Canada, and next by Pontiac's sy^x.^' - Travels, p. 193. 26o Essays in Western History on Madelalne Island, not far from the site of the old French fort. Some four miles across the water, on the mainland to the west, near where is now the town of Bayfield, was a Chippewa village with whose inhabitants he engaged in traffic. Waubojeeg (White Fisher), a forest celebrity in his day, was at this time the village chief, and possessed of a comely daughter whom Johnston soon sought and obtained in marriage. Taking her to his island home, Johnston appears to have lived there for a year or two in friendly commerce with the natives, at last retiring to his old station at Sault Ste. Marie.^ Mention has been made of Jean Baptiste Cadotte, who was a partner of Alexander The Henry in the latter's Lake Superior Cadottes trade, soon after the middle of the century. After his venture with Henry, Ca- 1 McKenny, in Histoiy of the Indian Tribes (Phila., 1S54), i., pp. 154, 155, tells the story. He speaks of Johnston as " the accomplished Irish gentleman who resided so many years at the Sault de Ste. Marie, and who was not better known for his intelligence and polished manners thati for his hospitality." Johnston died (aged sixty-six) at Sault Ste. Marie, September 22, 1828. His widow became a Presby- terian, and built a church of that denomination at the Sault. Her daughter married Henry B. Schoolcraft, the historian of the Indian tribes of the Upper Lakes. Waubojeeg died at an advanced age, in 1793. The Story of La Point e 261 dotte, whose wife was a Chippewa, returned to Sault Ste. Marie, from which point he con- ducted an extensive trade through the North- west. Burdened with advancing years, Jean retired from the traffic in 1796 and divided the business between his two sons, Jean Baptiste and Michel. About the opening of the nineteenth cen- tury,^ Michel took up his abode on Madelaine Island, and from that time to the present there had been a continuous settlement there. He had been educated at Montreal, and marrying Equaysayway, the daughter of White Crane, the village chief of La Pointe,^ at once became a person of much importance in the Lake Su- perior country. Upon the old trading site at the southwestern corner of the island, by this time commonly called La Pointe, — borrowing the name, as we have seen, from the original La Pointe, on the mainland, and it in turn from Point Chequamegon, — Cadotte lived at his 1 Warren thinks he settled there about 1792 [Mhm. Hist. Colls., v., p. Ill), but there is good evidence that it was at a later date. 2 "The Cranes claim the honor of first having pitched their wigwam, and lighted the fire of the Ojibways, at Shaug- ah-waum-ik-ong, a sand point or peninsula lying two miles immediately opposite the Island of La Pointe." — Warren, in Minn. Hist. Colls. ^ v., p. 86. 262 Essays in Western History ease for over a quarter of a century. Here he cultivated a " comfortable little farm," com- manded a fluctuating but often far-reaching fur-trade, first as agent of the North West Com- pany, and later of Astor's American Fur Com- pany, and reared a considerable family. His sons, educated, as he had been, at Montreal, became the heads of families of Creole traders, interpreters, and voyageurs whom antiquarians now confidently seek when engaged in resur- recting the French and Indian traditions of Lake Superior.^ 1 "Kind-hearted Michel Cadotte," as Warren calls him, also had a trading-post at Lac Courte Oreille. Like the other Wisconsin Creole traders, he was in English employ during the War of i8 12-15, and engaged in the capture of Mackinac (1812). Pie died on the island, July 8, 1837, aged seventy-two years, and was buried there. As with most of his kind, he made money freely and spent it with prodigality, partly in high living, but mainly in supporting his many Indian relatives; as a consequence, he died poor, the usual fate of men of his type. — Miim. Hist. Colls., v., p. 449. Warren says {ibid., p. 11) the death occurred "in 1S36," but the tombstone gives the above date. Cass, Schoolcraft, and Doty visited Chequamegon Bay in 1820. Schoolcraft says, in his Narrative, pp. 192, 193: "Six miles beyond the Mauvaise is Point Che goi-me-gon, once the grand rendezvous of the Chippeway tribe, but now re- duced to a few lodges. Three miles further west is the island of St. Michel (Madelaine), which lies in the traverse across Chegoimegon Bay, where M. Cadotte has an establish- ment. This was formerly an important trading-post, but is The Story of La Pointe 263 In the year 181 8 there came to the Lake Superior country two sturdy, fairly educated ^ The young men, natives of the Berkshire Warrens j^j^ig ^f Massachusctts— Lymau Mar- cus Warren, and his younger brother, Truman Abraham. They were of the purest New Eng- land stock, being hneally descended from Richard Warren, one of the " Mayflower " company. Engaging in the fur-trade, the brothers soon became popular with the Chip- pewas, and in 1821 still further intrenched themselves in the affections of the tribesmen by marrying the two half-breed daughters of old Michel Cadotte — Lyman taking unto himself Mary, while Charlotte became the wife of Tru- man. At first the Warrens worked in opposi- tion to the American Fur Company. But John Jacob Astor's lieutenants were shrewd men, and understood the art of overcoming com- mercial rivals ; Lyman was made by them a now dwindled to nothing. There is a dwelling of logs, stockaded in the usual manner of trading-houses, besides several outbuildings, and some land in cultivation. We here also found several cows and horses, which have been transported with great labour." 1 Alfred Brunson, who visited Lyman Warren at I.a Pointe, in 1843, wrote : "' Mr. Warren had a large and select library, an unexpected sight in an Indian country, containing some books that I had never before seen." — Western Pioneer (Cincinnati, 1879), ^i-> P- ^^3- 264 Essays in Western History partner in the lake traffic, and in 1824 estab- lished himself at La Pointe as the company's agent for the Lac Flambeau, Lac Court Oreille, and St. Croix departments, an arrangement which continued for some fourteen years. The year previous, the brothers had purchased the interests of their father-in-law, who now, much reduced in means, retired to private life after forty years' prosecution of the forest trade.^ The brothers Warren were the last of the great La Pointe fur-traders.^ Truman passed away early in his career, having expired in 1825, while upon a voyage between Mackinac and Detroit. Lyman dwelt at La Pointe until 1838, when his connection with the American Fur Company ceased ; he then received an appointment as United States sub-agent to the Chippewa reservation on Chippewa River, where he died on the tenth of October, 1847, aged fifty-three years.^ 1 Minn. Hist. Colls., v., pp. 326, 3S3, 384, 450. Contempo- raneously with the settlement of the Warrens at La Pointe, Lieutenant Bayfield of the British navy made (1822-23) sur- veys from which he prepared the first accurate chart of Lake Superior; his name is preserved in Bayfield peninsula, county, and town. 2 Borup had a trading-post on the island in 1846; but the forest commerce had by this time sadly dwindled. 3 He left six children, the oldest son being William Whipple Warren, historian of the Chippewa tribe. See The Story of La Pointe 265 Lyman Marcus Warren was a Presbyterian, and, although possessed of a Catholic wife. First Prot- was the first to invite Protestant mis- estant mis- sionarics to Lake Superior. Not since the days of AUoiiez had there been an ordained minister at La Pointe. Warren was solicitous for the spiritual welfare of his Chip- pewa friends, especially the young, who were being reared without religious instruction, and subject to the demoralizing influence of a rough element of white borderers. The Catholic Church was not just then ready to re-enter the long-neglected field ; and his predilections were in favor of the Protestant faith. In 1830, while upon his annual summer trip to Mackinac for supplies, he secured the co-operation of Fred- erick Ayer, of the Mackinac mission, who re- turned with him in his batteau as lay preacher and school-teacher, and opened at La Pointe what was then the only mission upon the shores of the great lake. In August the fol- lowing year, Warren brought out from Macki- nac Rev. Sherman Hall and wife, who served respectively as missionary and teacher, and Mrs. John Campbell, an interpreter.^ Williams's "Memoir of William W. Warren," in Minn. Hist. Colls., V, 1 See Davidson's excellent " Missions on Chequamegon Bay," in Wis. Hist. Colls., xii., to which I am chiefly indebted 266 Essays in Western History La Polnte Avas then upon the site of the old French trading-post at the southwest corner of Madelaine Island ; and there, on the first Sunday afternoon after his arrival, Mr. Hall preached '' the first sermon ever delivered in this place by a regularly ordained Christian minister." The missionaries appear to have been kindly received by the Catholic Creoles, several of whom were now domiciled at La Pointe. The school was patronized by most of the families upon the island, red and white, who had children of proper age. By the first of September there was an average attendance of twenty-five. Instruction was given almost wholly in the English language, with Sunday- school exercises for the children, and frequent gospel meetings for the Indian and Creole adults. We have seen that the first La Pointe village was at the southwestern extremity of the island. This was known as the " Old P'ort " site, for here had been the original Chippewa village, and later the fur-trading posts of the French and English. Gradually, the old harbor became for information concerning the modern La Pointe missions. Mr. Davidson has since given us, in his Unnamed Wiscon- sin (Milwaukee, 1895), ampler details of this interesting mission. The Story of La Poinfe 267 shallow, because of the shifting sand, and unfit for the new and larger vessels which came to be used in the fur-trade. The American Fur Company therefore built a " New Fort" a few miles farther north, still upon the west shore of the island ; and to this place, the present village, the name La Pointe came to be trans- ferred. Halfway between the '' Old Fort " and the '' New Fort," Mr. Hall erected (probably in 1832) "a place of worship and teaching," which came to be the centre of Protestant missionary work in Chequamegon Bay. The Presbyterians and Congregationalists were at that time, through the American Home A denomu Missionary Society and the American natio?tai Board, respectively united in the con- controversy ^^^^ ^^ Wisconsin missions ; it is, therefore, difficult for a layman to understand to which denomination the institution of the original Protestant mission at La Pointe may properly be ascribed. According to Neill, Warren was a Presbyterian ; so also, nominally, were Ayer and Hall, although the last two were latterly rated as Congregationalists. David- son, a Congregational authority, says : " The first organization of a Congregational church within the present limits of Wisconsin took place at La Pointe in August, 1833, in con- 268 Essays m Western History nection with this mission; " ^ and certainly the missionaries who later came to assist Hall were of the Congregational faith; these were Rev. Leonard Hemenway Wheeler and wife, Rev. Woodbridge L. James and wife, and Miss Abigail Spooner. Their work appears to have been as successful as such proselyting endeavors among our American Indians may hope to be, and no doubt did much to stem among the Wisconsin Chippewas the tide of demoralization which upon the free advent of the whites overwhelmed so many of our Western tribes. James's family did not long remain at La 1 M^is. Hist. Colls.y xii., p. 445. Mr. Davidson writes to me that in his opinion Ayer leaned to independency, and was really a Congregationalist ; Hall is registered as such in the Congregational Year Book iox 1859. "As to the La Pointe Odanah church," continues Mr. Davidson in his personal letter, " its early records make no mention of lay elders — otScers that are indispensable to Presbyterian organization. In manner of organization it was independent, rather than strictly Congregational. This could not well be otherwise, with no church nearer than the one at Mackinac. That was Presbyterian, as was its pastor, Rev. William M. Ferry. The La Pointe church adopted articles of faith of its own choosing, instead of holdhig itself bound by the Westminster Confession. Moreover, the church was reorganized after the mission was transferred to the Presbyterian board. For this action there may have been some special reason that I know nothing about. But it seems to me a needless procedure if the church were Presbyterian before." The Stcry of La Pointe 269 Pointe. Wheeler was soon recognized as the leadincf spirit there, although Hall An early . . Western did uscful service in the field of pub- ^°°^ lication, his translation of the New Testament into Chippewa (completed in 1836) being among the earliest of Western books. Ayer eventually went to Minnesota. In May, 1845, owing to the migration of the majority of the La Pointe Indians to the new Odanah Reservation, on the mainland upon the banks of Bad River, Wheeler removed thither and remained their civil as well as spiritual coun- sellor until October, 1866, when he retired from service, full of years, and conscious of a record of noble deeds for the uplifting of the savage. Hall tarried at La Pointe until 1853, when he was assigned to Crow Wing Reservation, on the Mississippi, thus ending the Protestant mission on Chequamegon Bay. The new church building, begun in 1837 near the pres- ent La Pointe landing, had fallen into sad decay, when, in July, 1892, it became the property of the Lake Superior Congregational Club, who purpose to preserve it as an historic treasure, considering it the first church-home of their denomination in Wisconsin. Not far from this interesting relic of Protes- tant pioneering at venerable La Pointe is a 270 Essays in Western History rude structure dedicated to an older faith. Widely has it been advertised, by poets, romancers, and tourist agencies, as ** the iden- tical log structure built by Pere Marquette " ; while within there hangs a picture which we are soberly told by the cicerone was '' given by the Pope of that time to Marquette, for his mission church in the wilderness." It is strange how this fancy was born ; stranger still that it persists in living when so frequently proved false. It is as well established as any fact in Western history — by the testimony of living eye-witnesses, as well as by indisputable records — that upon July 27, 1835, ^^^ years after Warren had introduced Ayer to Madelaine Island, there arrived at the hybrid village of La Pointe, with but three dollars in his pocket, Father a wortliy Austrian priest. Father Baraga (aftcrwards Bishop) Frederick Baraga. By the side of the Indian graveyard at Middle- port, he at once erected " a log chapel, 50 x 20 ft. and 18 ft. high," and therein he said mass on the ninth of August, one hundred and sixty- four years after Marquette had been driven from Chequamegon Bay by the onslaught of the Western Sioux.^ Father Baraga's resus- 1 See Verwyst's Missionary Labors, pp. 146-149. This chapel was built partly of new logs, and partly of material The Story of La Pointe 271 citated mission — still bearing the name La Pointe, as had the mainland missions of Alloiiez and Marquette — throve apace. His ** child- like simpHcity," kindly heart, and self-sacrificing labors in their behalf won to him the Creoles and the now sadly impoverished tribesmen; and when, in the winter of 1836-37, he was in Europe begging funds for the cause, his simple- hearted enthusiasm met with generous response from the faithful. Returning to La Pointe in 1837, he finished the little chapel, built log-houses for his half- starved parishioners, and lavished attentions upon them. Says Father Verwyst, himself an experienced missionary among the Chippewas, " In fact, he gave them too much altogether — so to say — spoiled them by excessive kind- ness." Four years later, his chapel being ill- built and now too small, he constructed a new one at the modern village of La Pointe, some of the materials of the first being used in the second. This is the building, blessed by Father Baraga on the second Sunday in August, 1841, which to-day is falsely shown to visitors as that of Father Marquette. It is needless to say that no part of the ancient mainland chapel of from an old building given to Father Baraga by the American Fur Company. 272 Essays in Western History the Jesuits went into its construction ; as for the picture, a " Descent from the Cross," alleged to have once been in Marquette's chapel, we have the best of testimony that it was im- ported by Father Baraga himself from Europe in 1 841, he having obtained it there the pre- ceding winter, when upon a second tour to Rome to raise funds for the new church.-^ This remarkable man, promoted later to a mis- sionary bishopric, continued throughout his life to labor for the upHfting of the Indians of the Lake Superior country, exhibiting a self- sacrificing zeal which is rare in the annals of any church, and establishing a lasting reputa- tion as a student of aboriginal philology. He left La Pointe mission in 1853, to devote him- self to the Menominees, leaving his work among the Chippewas of Chequamegon Bay to be conducted by others. About the year 1877, the town of Bayfield, upon the mainland oppo- site, became the residence of the Franciscan friars who were now placed in charge. Thus, 1 See Wis. Hist. Colls., xii., pp. 445, 446, w^?/.?; and Ver- wyst's Missionary Labors, pp. 183, 184. Father Verwyst also calls attention to certain vestments at La Pointe, said to be those of Marquette : " That is another fable which we feel it our duty to explode. The vestments there were procured by Bishop Baraga and his successors; not one of them dates from the seventeenth century." The Story of La Pointe 273 while the Protestant mission, after a relatively brief career of prosperity, has long since been removed to Odanah, the Catholics to this day retain possession of their ancient field in Che- quamegon Bay. In closing, let us briefly rehearse the changes in the location of La Pointe, as a loTJtfon^^ geographical term, and thus clear our minds of some misconceptions into which several historians have fallen. 1. As name-giver, we have Point Chequam- egon (or Shagawaumikong). Originally a long sand-spit hemming in Chequamegon Bay on the east, it is now an island. The most con- spicuous object in the local topography, it gave name to the district; and here, at the time of the Columbian discovery, was the Chippewa stronghold. 2. The mission of La Pointe du St. Esprit, founded by Alloiiez, was, it seems well estab- lished on the mainland at the southwestern corner of the bay, somewhere between the present towns of Ashland and Washburn, and not far from the site of Radisson's fort. The poijit which suggested to Alloiiez the name of his mission was, of course, the neighboring Point Chequamegon. 18 2 74 Essays iii Western History 3. The entire region of Chequamegon Bay came soon to be known as La Pointe, but early within the nineteenth century the name was again localized by being popularly attached to the island which had previously borne many names, but which to-day is officially designated " Madelaine." 4. Cadotte's little trading village on the southwestern extremity of the island, on the site of the old Chippewa village and the early French forts, came soon especially to be desig- nated as La Pointe. Thus still further was localized this historic name, which first had reference to a picturesque point of land, then to a Jesuit mission within sight of the point, then to the entire environs of Chequamegon Bay, then to an island within the bay, and now to a village upon that island. 5. When the American Fur Company estab- lished a new fort, a few miles north of the old, the oft-moved name La Pointe was transferred thereto. This northern village was in popular parlance styled '' New Fort " and the now almost-deserted southern village " Old Fort " ; while the small settlement around the Indian graveyard midway, where Father Baraga built his first chapel, was known as "Middleport." VI A DAY ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD VI A DAY ON BRADDOCK'S ROAD A BUSY little corner of the world is the Pennsylvania town of Brownsville, on the Monongahela. The lover of nature notes its Browns- existence, because beginning here ^'^"^^ the works of man have caused the river to change its character. The beautiful Monongahela, from flowing with broad and placid current between steep, wooded hills, deep dented with ravines, — a sore temptation to adventurous angler and canoeist and botan- ist, — becomes henceforth a commercial stream, lined with noisy, busy, grimy, matter-of-fact manufacturing towns literally abutting one upon the other, all of the sixty miles down to Pittsburg, and fast defiling the once picturesque banks with the grewsome offal of coal mines and iron plants. To the student of Western history, however, Brownsville is a sort of shrine, albeit a smoky. 278 Essays in Western History dusty shrine, with the smell of lubricators and the noise of hammers, and much talk there- about of the glories of Mammon. It is the Redstone of the eighteenth century : the centre of the first EngHsh settlement west of the AUeghanies, prominent in the annals of the French-English struggle for the mastery of the Ohio, and long the point of departure for expeditions down that river. It was, too, the terminus of one of two great pioneering paths across the AUeghanies, the other being Boone's trail through Cumberland Gap. Doubtless the comparative ease by which the AUeghanies can be crossed, between the waters of the Potomac at Cumberland ('* Will's Creek," of frontier history), and those of the Redstone Mouongahcla at the junction of Red- oid Fort stone Creek, was appreciated by the aborigines centuries ago : for extensive earth- work fortifications of the mound-building epoch were found by English settlers upon the riverside hill within the present city limits of Brownsville, these giving to the region its his- toric name, " Redstone Old Fort." It is pre- sumable, also, that the Indians had had, for a long period, a well-defined trail between Will's Creek and Redstone. In 1749, the Ohio Company was chartered by Braddock's Road 279 the English crown for fur-trading in the Ohio valley, and built a fort and storehouse at Will's Creek. Nemacolin, a Delaware In- coiiTs dian, whose village was at Redstone, ^''^^'' was employed to show the company's agent, Christopher Gist, the native route over the mountains ; and it was *' Nemacolin's Path " that was in great part followed by young Major Washington in 1753 in his visit to the French at Venango, that was improved for wagon traffic by Washington on his Fort Ne- cessity campaign the following year, and that was followed much of the way by Braddock in 1755. For sixty-five years '' Nemacolin's Path " — later developed into " Braddock's Road " — was travelled as the great northern highway to the West, until the present National Road was built (1795 till about 1820) between Cumber- land and Brownsville. This latter closely and often actually follows the Braddock route from Cumberland until near Uniontown, whence it diverges westward to Brownsville — practically along the old Indian trail, leaving the Braddock Road to verge northeastward to Gist's planta- tion at Mount Braddock, and thence westward to the mouth of Turtle Creek, where is now the modern iron-making town of Braddock. It was with the view of visiting the scenes of 28o Essays in Western History Washington's service along Nemacolin's Path, a century and a half ago, that we set out from Redsto7te Brownsvillc, one morning early in Creek May. The railway journey of some eighteen miles to Uniontown abounds in inter- est. The line makes its ascent to the foot of the Laurel Hills, up the rugged little valley of Redstone Creek, hugging the serpentine banks with a persistence resulting in sharp curves which bounce the traveller about in his seat to a degree more hvely than agreeable. There is a strange mixture upon the Redstone — dreary little coal-mine towns, with hillocks of shale sprawling over the landscape, and red-bedaubed, unhomelike homes of operatives; banks of coke ovens, hideously lurid ; soft brown fields, pricked with springing grain ; stretches of rectangular market-gardens; and pretty farm- steads, half hid in apple orchards, closely nes- tled by hillside shafts. Between jerks, you get charming vistas from the car-windows — of the swift little mountain stream flowing with alternating noisy cascades and placid pools be- tween banks in which are outcroppings of the reddish stone which gives name to the locality; of grassy slopes, spangled with trillium, violets, and dandelions ; of forest trees rustling into leaf; of the quaint log cabins of the pioneers, Braddock's Road 2 8 1 now falling into decay; and of picturesque side ravines where disused, dilapidated water- wheels serve as relics of the crude milling in- dustries of generations gone before. At Uniontown, a smart, well-built little town of some eight thousand inhabitants, dependent chiefly on the coking industry, we The '' . National took Carriage for Fort Necessity, ten ^"""^ miles distant to the southeast, on the National Road — locally styled "the pike." White, dusty, and rather stony, the old high- way leads straight over the foot-hills through the pleasant rustic suburb of Hopwood, and soon begins its zigzag climb over the Laurel Hills. The road is often carved out of the side of a rugged slope, and then we have below us sharp descents, heavily forested with chestnuts, maples, oaks, and lindens, already well in leaf. Great grapevines hang from the topmost boughs in rich festoons ; masses of ferns and the glossy may-apple are luxuriating in the moist depths ; flowering dogwoods lift their clusters of white bloom into gay relief on opposite hill slopes ; shining masses of the great laurel give an air of luxuriance to the crests of road- side banks, and everywhere are flitting butter- flies panoplied in rainbow tints, rejoicing in the scents and splendors of early summer. 282 Essays in Western History We have also backward views of the rolling country from which we have risen, of the hills scattered about us like haycocks, their sunny sides checkered with rectangular fields of yel- low, brown, and gray, and of whitewashed hamlets dotting the green depths. At the summit of the range, where a by-road, to be followed later in the day, leads off north- ward to Jumonville's Camp and Washington's Springs, an enterprising farm-wife conducts a summer, resort, with cottages for guests who may, during the stifling summer days yet to come, desire to be up in the air, out of the dust of the coke ovens. A tall, angular, harsh- visaged woman, in a blue sunbonnet and with sockless feet, stood leaning over a stile hard by, her eyes more intent on our approach than on the far-stretching mountain view. '* We fit fire last night, on Ches'nut Ridge, jest over yon," she volunteered, pointing with her thumb to the north, where a thin bank of smoke hung dreamily over the dark forest which here mantles the hills. She had no knowledge of Fort Necessity by that name, but " 'lowed as thar was an oF fort over on Facenbaker's farm, yon way, up the pike." As to how far it was, as expressed in miles, she " 'lowed she could n't tell, but it was a bit B ruddock's Road 2S3 furder — yon way furder, now"; and the peak of her sunbonnet flapped in the direction of the southeast, where the white Hne of turnpike dipped down into a little valley and ran up over the next hill, and then appeared to jump off into space. When we had climbed thither, there was a dreary little frame tavern on the top of the hill, with a lager-beer sign conspicuously posted, a watering trough, and a half-dozen farm hands sousing their heads at the tavern pump, pre- paratory to dinner. The aspect was not invit- ing. In further search of dinner, we descended into the next valley, where an old stone hos- telry stood by a shallow run in which hogs wallowed, and waddling geese craned their necks and hissed defiance to the new guests. The generous hall and dining-room, with their large open fireplaces and the commodious gal- leries, are eloquent of the old coaching days of the '20's and '30's, when the National Road from Cumberland to Redstone was the great trans-mountain highway, over which rolled a motley throng of immigrants, tourists, traders, and speculators, on foot, on horseback, and in every imaginable conveyance, bound for the unfolding West. This old stone pile, built in 1820, when 284 Essays in Western History the Westering tide was at its flood, was one of several established along the way, every A coaching twenty milcs or so apart — veritable tavern coaching tavems, at which man and beast in this restless stream might obtain re- freshment, solid and liquid. But few of these coaching houses now remain ; there is one six miles east of Brownsville, another in Uniontown, and this one at Braddock's Run. No more are they the scenes of nightly uproar — the crack of drivers* whips, the shouts and impre- cations of a rushing throng eager to reach the Western goal ; to-day they are peaceful spots much affected by summer boarders from Pitts- burg and Uniontown, and existing but in the shadow of their old-time glory. Upon the banks of this noisy little run, now a muddy barnyard rivulet, the famous Braddock „., is said to have died and been interred. Where Braddock It will be remembered that the ^^ general was mortally wounded in the slaughter-pen at the mouth of Turtle Creek, that fateful ninth of July, but was borne by his soldiers upon the retreat, and on the fourteenth died in camp. In the journal of Colonel James Burd, sent out through this district by Bouquet in 1759, to establish a base of supplies for the defence of the frontier, it is said that " two BraddocJcs Road 285 miles from here [Fort Necessity] we found General Braddock's grave, about twenty yards from a little hollow, in which there is a small stream of water, and over it a bridge." This locahty answers fully to Burd's description, and just up there on the hillside, — now an open pasture, a few yards north of the present Na- tional Road, and immediately within the plainly marked Braddock Road, which here crosses the former, — is a clump of tall evergreens, sur- rounded by a whitewashed board fence, which tradition establishes as the site of Braddock's burial. The evidence, I think, is acceptable, that Braddock was buried at about this spot, although the measures taken by his soldiers to obliterate the grave against possible Indian desecration were so thorough that the precise locality can never be known. It quickens one's historical imagination to stand by Braddock's resting-place, able with the eye to trace plainly through the hollow and up over the wooded hill to the west the path which the English engineers hewed out for the intrepid general. Brave and well-mean- ing he certainly was, and not so bad a man as many have pictured, else Washington would never have loved him and mourned his loss. Braddock was but the victim of the traditions 286 Essays in Western History of his school ; and that these have lasted unto our own day, the Boer War affords ample evidence. Two miles to the southeast, along the turn- pike, which follows the crest of a low-lying Qy^^t spur dipping towards the Youghio- Meadoivs gheny (pronounced Yock' -i-o-ga-ney)j is Geoffrey Facenbaker's farm, which includes Great Meadows and Fort Necessity. Descend- ing through a fenced cattle-way for three hun- dred yards, one emerges upon the meadow, a low, almost marshy tract of some fifty acres, surrounded by low, gently-sloping hills which once were heavily forested, but now are for the most part open fields. A small creek flowing southeasterly towards the Youghiogheny, and styled East Meadow Run, courses through the centre of the valley, and on its northern bank Washington built his fort. The first English fur-traders, in their journey along Nemacolin's Path, found here a springy, treeless basin much grown to bushes, but abounding in sweet grasses. They called it Great Meadows, in contradistinction to Little Meadows, a similar basin thirty-one miles to the east, and but twenty from Cumberland. In these meadows, Great and Little, they were accustomed in over-mountain trips to pasturing Braddock's Road 288 Essays in Western History their horses and cattle, and Washington also found them serviceable in this regard, in his expedition of 1754. It will be remembered that on his way to support the Virginian occu- pation of the Forks of the Ohio (Pittsburg), he made the Great Meadows a base of opera- tions, although his recognition of its unfitness for the purpose was recognized in the name he gave to his stockade. The French had driven off the English fort-makers at Pittsburg, before Washington's Thefirst arrival. Jumonville, sent out by way shot Qf Redstone to watch the Virginians, hid in an obscure ravine a half-dozen miles to the northwest, and five hundred yards east of Nemacolin's Path, at the base of a lofty hill from which he had a wide view of the country. Washington, with his advance party, here came upon Jumonville, and the encounter which ensued led to the death of the latter and the opening of the French and Indian War. Washington, too weak to meet the avenging French force from Fort Duquesne, under Jumonville's brother, De Villiers, who Fort had ascended the Monongahela in Necessity j^Q^ts and was rapidly approaching up the valley of the Redstone, fell back to Fort Necessity, strengthened it as best he might, Braddock's Road 289 and there stood siege with his half-starved band through that dreary third of July. In a rude stockade surrounded on three sides by hills, one of them so close that the enemy could approach within sixty yards under cover of the woods, and with the besieged crippled for lack of stores, the result was inevitable. The '' buckskin general " was obliged to capit- ulate, and at daybreak of the fourth marched out over Nemacolin's Path towards Will's Creek, a toilsome journey of fifty miles across the mountains, upon a mere apology for a road, the heart-sick officers and men bearing their burdens on their backs, and their wounded on stretchers. They were suffered to carry one swivel with them, for defence against the Indians who hung upon their flanks, and to spike the eight left behind them in the fort. The injury inflicted upon these latter was ap- parently but nominal, for the following year several of the guns were taken to Fort Cumberland. Years after this, emigrants to the West, following the old over-mountain route, discovered and used others at Great Meadows, and eventually these found their way into Kentucky, where they did service in the defence of savage-harassed settlers on the *' dark and bloody ground." 19 290 Essays m Western History It was surprising to find the remains of Fort Necessity so well preserved. Great Remains of Meadow Run, Originally a lazy, weed- thefort grown Stream some ten feet wide, has been straightened by the present proprie- tor into a drainage ditch, but its ancient windings are readily distinguishable. The change in the course of the run destroyed an outlying work, but the embankment of the fort itself is traceable through the greater part of its length. The line of earthwork is still some eight or ten inches above the surround- ing level ; while on the inner side, counting the excavation ditch, it has a height of about fifteen inches. The accounts of visitors to the fort dififer materially as to its shape. In his Journal of 1759, Colonel Burd says, under date of Sep- tember 10: *' Saw Colonel Washington's fort, which was called Fort Necessity. It is a small, circular stockade, with a small house in the centre." In 1816 Freeman Lewis made a sur- vey, and declared that the embankments were then nearly three feet high, and had the shape of an obtuse-angled triangle of one hundred and five degrees, with the base of two hundred and seventy-two feet on the stream (then un- changed in its course), and the sides one Braddock's Road 291 hundred and fifteen and ninety-nine feet respectively. Sparks visited the place in 1830, and tells us that it occupied " an irregular square, the dimensions of which u^ere about one hundred feet on each side," and his en- graving gives it a diamond shape. The author of the History of Fayette Comity (1822) thinks the outlines are those of a right-angled tri- angle. I cannot agree with any of these, for our measurements with compass and line gave us an equilateral triangle with sides of about a hundred and twenty feet. Of the side nearest the run (from northwest to southeast) seventy feet are now distinguishable ; upon that extending from the still perfect northwest cor- ner towards the southern angle there remains the upper portion, a hundred and ten feet in length ; the third side is broken at both ends, owing to the utter destruction of the southern and southeastern angles, but has ninety feet left in the curtain. There are of course no remaining evidences of the palisade, on top of the embankment, for this was at the time destroyed by the French, and all relics have long since been gathered up by curiosity- seekers. Two hawthorn-trees are growing on the western embankment, one of them fifty-four 292 Essays in Western History inches in circumference ; and Mr. Facenbaker reports that some forty years ago, on coming into the property, he eradicated a young locust grove then occupying the site of the fort. In the centre of the fort still rests, although upheaved by frost, a hewn block of limestone, two feet square, the only surviving memento of a movement inaugurated in 1854 — the centennial year — for the erection here of a Washington monument. This corner-stone was laid with much ceremonial by Fayette Lodge, A. Y. M., the Fourth of July of that year; but nothing has since been done about the matter, and the outlines of the fort alone remain as visual evidence of the momentous affair of the Great Meadows. Washington himself was conscious of the historic import- ance of the spot, and did his best to protect it from change. In 1767 he acquired claim to two hundred and thirty-four acres hereabout, including the meadow, and mentions the tract in his will. Sold by his executors, the site of Fort Necessity passed through several hands, but has been untouched by the plough unto this day; although thousands of crayfish, piling up little mounds of clay, are just now doing their best to disturb the surface. Leaving Great Meadows, with its sloping B ruddock's Road 293 brown sides being ploughed and harrowed for field crops, we ascended to the turnpike once Jumoti- more, through the cattle-way, and viiie's an hour later were back at Summit '^"^^ House, turning off to the northeast on the by-road towards Jumonville's Camp. It is the roughest sort of mountain road, the hubs of the carriage one moment bumping trees and stumps, and the other wallowing in deep ruts which are still filled with the residuum of yes- terday's rain. Up and down steep grades, swishing around sharp curves, rattling over stony hillsides, toiling laboriously through alternate beds of sand and clay, we reach an understanding of what Braddock's Road must have been before the turnpike came. In three miles we pass Washington's Springs, a roman- tic glen where the Virginia major is supposed to have camped the night before he met Ju- monville. There is, in this isolated spot, a small summer hotel with an outlying cottage or two. As we passed, a tall mountaineer and his women-folk were busied in whitewashing and repapering the establishment in prepara- tion for the " season," soon to open. A half mile or so farther, we found the rocky hillside hollow in which Jumonville made his camp, and where was fired the first shot in the 294 Essays in Western History final struggle between French and English for the control of the continent. The sides are now hung thick with laurel, and great beds of ferns carpet the ground ; while all about, the dark mountain forest is perhaps quite as tangled and dreary as it was in Washington's day. Towering aloft, a steep climb, is the hill which was Jumonville's outlook over Nema- colin's Path, and from which he could, himself unseen, readily observe the movements of the Virginians. Not far away, on the bank of the outlet of this spring, and at the foot of a huge boulder, is the spot styled Jumonville's Grave, although there is less evidence that here was the actual grave than there is concerning the identity of Braddock's resting-place. A half mile to the north was, the following year, the camp of Colonel Dunbar, in charge Dunbar's of Braddock's heavy reserves. It was Camp ^Q Dunbar's camp that the survivors of the ambuscade at Turtle Creek fled in terror ; and from here commenced that shameful retreat at a time when the victorious but apprehensive French and Indians were themselves in flight towards Fort Duquesne. Dunbar's Spring, in which Braddock's great stores of powder were spoiled, is still pointed out to strangers, and the story is told that twelve years after Brad- Braddock's Road 295 dock's defeat there were still visible '' some six inches of black nitrous matter all over the basin of the spring " — the residuum of the English powder so freely poured into it. Upon a lofty elevation near Dunbar's camp, with its stirring memories of border warfare, The mean- and a half-dozcn miles east of Union- ingofit town, is one of the admirable soldiers* orphans' schools, of which there are several in Pennsylvania. Just as the sun was sinking, we emerged from the rough forest road which passes the eastern gate of the institution, and drove through the grounds as a cut-short to the Uniontovvn '' pike." The smartly-uni- formed school-lads were drawn up in platoons on the parade-ground, saluting the flag of the country for which Washington, less than a mile distant, virtually fired the first shot, a century and a half ago. That for which Washington stood, at Jumonville's hiding-place, was the guarantee to all white dwellers in North America of the perpetuity of free English institutions, as against the mediaeval despotism of the French dominion ; the fathers of these homeless boys extended the benefits of those institutions to the blacks within our borders, thus completing the task so well begun. VII EARLY LEAD MINING ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VII EARLY LEAD MINING ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI! IT is not probable that the aboriginal inhabit- ants of the Upper Mississippi valley, aside from using it to ornament their pipes and other utensils, made any considerable use of lead , . . previous to the appearance among tiseof them of French missionaries, ex- ^^^'^ plorers, and fur-traders. The French continually searched for metallic deposits, and questioned the Indians closely regarding their probable whereabouts. Although superstitious with regard to minerals, the latter appear to have early made known to the whites the veins of lead in the tract which now embraces the 1 Not a formal treatise upon this interesting subject. I have here but thrown together in outline, as useful material for those who may wish to develop it, these notes on early lead mining in the Fever (or Galena) River region, the result of a somewhat protracted investigation, which, however, I have not had the opportunity to carry to its utmost possibilities. 300 Essays in Western History counties of Grant, Iowa, and La Fayette, in Wisconsin; Jo Daviess and Carroll counties in Illinois ; Dubuque County, in Iowa, and portions of Eastern Missouri. This is one of the richest of lead-bearing regions, and when once brought to the notice of the explorers of New France its fame became widespread. The French introduced fire-arms among the Northwestern Indians, and induced them to hunt, on a large scale, fur-bearing animals; thus lead at once assumed a value in the eyes of the latter, both for use as bullets in their own weapons, and as an article of traffic with the traders. The Wisconsin and Illinois Indians were visited in 1634 by Nicolet, who doubtless was Taught by the first to tcach them the use of lead -whites jj^ connection with fire-arms. Ra- disson and Groseilliers followed in 1658-59, and heard of lead mines among the Boeuf Sioux, apparently in the neighborhood of Dubuque.^ Jolliet and Marquette, when in 1673 return- ing from the Lower Mississippi, must traffic ht have instructed the Illinois in the use '"^ of fire-arms and the utility of lead — if, indeed, this tribe had not already had some 1 Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 93. Early Lead Mining 301 traffic in the ore with wandering traders and courcurs de bois operating the upper waters of the Mississippi River or on Lake Michi- gan, of whose presence in the region we catch faint gHmpses in the earhest records of ex- ploration.^ The journals of Marquette and of La Hontan (1689) speak of the mineral wealth of the Upper Mississippi country ; but they appear never to have seen the mines themselves, and, misunderstanding their informants, concluded that the deposits were of gold, silver, and copper. Hennepin's map of 1687 ^ places a lead mine in the neighborhood of the present Galena, showing that he had definite infor- mation regarding it. Joutel, who was in the country that year, says ^ that ** travelers who have been at the upper part of the Mississippi 1 " There cannot be a doubt that many of the French voyageurs besides M, Perrot and the Du I'Huts had explored a large part of the country * * * at a very early day, but of their adventures we have no account, because they were not sufficiently educated to record them. We have occasionally incidental allusions in public documents, in works on geography, and in memoirs, which prove this to have been the case " — Mills, Report on the Boiinda7-ics of the Province of Ontario (Ottawa, 1877), p. 6. 2 Breese, F.arly Ilistoiy of Iltiiiois ; and Winchell, Geo- logical Survey of Minnesota, Final Report. 3 Joutel, /<7«r//a/ (17 13). 302 Essays in Western History affirm that they have found mines of very good lead there." It is alleged^ that some French traders stationed in the vicinity of Peoria Lake, on the Illinois River, purchased a quantity of lead in 1690 from certain Indian mines on what after- wards came to be known as Fever or Galena River. After having made an expedition up the Mississippi in 1690, Nicholas Perrot, then PerroVs Frcuch commandaut of the West, on mines being presented by a Miami chief with a lump of lead ore, promised that within twenty days he would establish a post below the Wisconsin River.^ La Potherie says^ that the chief gave Perrot information as to the locality of the mines, and the latter accordingly visited them. Perrot, we are told, found *' the lead hard to work, because it lay between rocks and required blasting; it had very little dross, and was easily melted." His post, built at this time, was doubtless on the east side of the river, apparently opposite the Dubuque mines. 1 Hunfs Merchants' Magazine, xviii., p. 285. 2 Wis. Hist, Colls., xvi., pp. 146, 151, 157. 3 Edition of 1753, ii., p. 251; Wis. Hist. Colls., pp. ^oi, 33^' Early Lead Minhig 303 As early as 1693 Le Sueur was commandant at Chequamegon Bay, and appears to have Le Sueur's made extended explorations through- operations ^^^ ^he Upper Mississippi valley, thereby ** acquiring renown."^ In 1695 he built a fort on a large island in the Missis- sippi River between Lake Pepin and the mouth of the St. Croix,^ which became for the French, says Charlevoix, ''the centre of commerce for the Western parts." While occupying this position, it appears that Le Sueur discovered " mines of lead, copper, and blue and green earth," ^ and went to France to solicit the court's permission to work them. After many delays, he returned in 1699, in D'Iberville's second expedition to Louisiana, which arrived at its destination in December. Having been commissioned by the king to explore and work " the mines at the source of the Mississippi," he had thirty miners assigned to him. His reporter and companion, Penicaut, after speaking of the rapids in the Mississippi at Rock Island, says : " We found both on the right and left bank the lead mines, called to 1 Shea, Early Voyages tip and dawn the Mississippi (Albany, 1861 ), pp. 89 et seq. 2 Neill, History of Minnesota (1882), p. 148; Tlnvaitcs, Story of Wisconsin (IJoston, 1890), p. 79. 3 Wis. Il.st. Colls., xvi., p. 178. 304 Essays in Western History this day the mines of Nicholas Perrot, the name of the discoverer. Twenty leagues [thirty-nine English miles, by U. S. land survey] from there on the right, was found the mouth of a large river, the Ouisconsin." ^ It v/as the thirteenth of August, 1700, when they arrived opposite Fever River, which Penlcaut calls " Riviere a la Mine." He reports that up this little river, a league and a half, there was " a lead mine in the prairie." Passing up the Mississippi, Penlcaut mentions two streams which correspond to the Platte and Grant rivers, in Wisconsin, and says that Le Sueur " took notice of a lead mine at which he sup- plied himself" — supposed to be what after- wards came to be known as ** Snake diggings," near Potosi, Wisconsin. After making note of the Black, Buffalo, Chippewa, and St. Croix rivers, in Wisconsin, Le Sueur passed the winter on the Blue River, in what is now Minnesota. He does not appear, except for his immediate necessities, to have utilized the lead mines he had discovered, and the following summer abandoned his post, returning to France.^ 1 Margry, v., p. 412. 2 In this same year (1700), Father Gravier made a trip down the Mississippi, and wrote : " I do not know what our court will decide about the Mississippi, if no silver mines are found, for our government does not seek land to cultivate. Early Lead Mining 305 On William de I'lsle's chart of Louisiana (1703), in which he was assisted by the obser- vations of Le Sueur, the Galena lead mines are plainly indicated, as are also the Dubuque mines on the west side.^ September 14, 1712, Louis XIV. granted to Sieur Anthony Crozat, for a term of fifteen CrozaVs ycars, a monopoly of trade and min- monopoiy j^^g privileges in Louisiana. The mines were granted in perpetuity, subject to a royalty, and to forfeiture if abandoned. While Crozat's men found none of the precious metals, they appear to have discovered consid- erable lead deposits in what is now South- eastern Missouri ; ^ and no doubt the English traders, who seriously encroached on the French domain, and the wandering coureurs de bois, had more or less traffic with the Indians for ore, to meet both present needs and home demand. In 1 71 5, La Mothe Cadillac, governor of Louisiana, and founder of Detroit, went up to the Illinois country in search of reputed silver They care little for mines of lead, which are very abundant near the Illinois." — Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac (Boston, 1894), p. 365- 1 Neill, Minnesota, p. xlv. 2 Wallace, Illinois and Louisiana under French Rule (Cin- cinnati, 1893), pp. 239, 240. 20 3o6 ILssays hi Western History mines, but carried back only lead ore '' from the mines which were shown him fourteen miles west of the river." ^ Crozat resigned his monopoly to John Law's Company of the West, chartered September 6, 1 717; and two years later Louisiana — to which the Illinois country had now been at- tached — entered upon the brief period of "boom" which was inaugurated by that ill- timed enterprise. In 1 719 there arrived in the Illinois, Philippe Francois de Renault, newly appointed ''direc- ^ „ tor-general of the mines of the nauWsdis- Royal India Company in Illinois."^ covertes p^^ despatched prospecting parties to various points on both sides of the Mississippi River, and during the four years which he spent in the district discovered lead mines on the Meramec River and north of what is now Potosi, in Missouri ; while M. de la Motte found paying leads on the St. Francois River, also in Missouri. July 21, 1722, one Le Gardeur de risle writes from Fort Chartres, near Kaskaskia, 1 Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist, of Amer., v., p. 50. 2 The term Illinois was then applied to a large district lying on the Mississippi and centring at the mouth of the Illinois River — practically all of the present State of that name, and the eastern half of Missouri and Iowa. Early Lead Mining 307 that he was in command of a detachment of twelve soldiers to accompany M. de Renault to the Illinois River, to look after some alleged copper and coal mines, and found what he claimed to be silver and gold.^ No doubt these deposits were but lead and coal, for the French explorers were prone to deceive their patrons as to the value of their mineral discoveries. Charlevoix refers to alleged silver discoveries by Cadillac, but doubtingly. Shea says" that De Renault '* extracted silver from Illinois lead ore in 1722." Silver is certainly combined with the lead, in this district, but is not present in quantity sufficient for profitable working. In June, 1723, De Renault was granted a square league of territory in the northwestern part of what is now Monroe County, Illinois, and also a tract at Peoria containing about fourteen thousand acres. Upon the former grant he planted a small village named St. Philippe ; but by 1765 the place was deserted, the French residents having removed to the west bank of the Mississippi.^ The next reference we find to the lead mines is in 1743, when a M. le Guis gives an ac- 1 E. B. Washburne's letter to Chicago Hist. Soc. 2 In his edition of Charlevoix, vi., p. 25. 3 E, B. Washburne's letter to Chicago Hist. Soc. 3o8 Essays in Western History count ^ of the methods of *' eighteen or twenty " miners then operating in the Fever River re- Primitive gioi'i — a f^st lot, he says, every man viethods working for himself at surface oper- ations, and extracting only enough to secure a bare existence for the rest of the year. Le Guis makes the following report of wasteful smelting methods employed by these miners, which were strikingly similar to those in vogue among American miners of later days until the introduction of the Drummond blast furnace,^ about 1836: *' They cut down two or three big trees and divide them in logs five feet long; then they dig a small basin in the ground and pile three or four of these logs on top of each other over this basin : then they cover it with the same wood, and put three more logs, shorter than the first, on top, and one at each end crossways. This makes a kind of box, in which they put the mineral, then they pile as much wood as they can on top and around it. When this is done, they set fire to it from under; the logs burn up and partly melt the mineral. They are sometimes obliged to re- peat the same operation three times in order 1 Wallace, pp. 274, 275. 2 Invented by Robert A. Drummond, of Jo Daviess Comity, 111. Early Lead Mining 309 to extract all the matter. This matter, falling into the basin, forms a lump, which they after- ward melt over again into bars weighing from sixty to eighty pounds, in order to facilitate the transportation to Kaskaskia. This is done with horses, who are quite vigorous in the country. One horse carries generally four or five of these bars. It is worthy of remark, gentlemen, that in spite of the bad system these men have to work, there has been taken out of the La Motte mine 2,500 of these bars in 1741, 2,228 in 1742, and these men work only four or five months in the year at most." Up to November 3, 1762, France held pos- session of both sides of the Mississippi, and Frayice then ccdcd the eastern half of the attd Spain valley to Great Britain. In the same year, France made a secret treaty with Spain by which the country west of the river was transferred to the latter power, which, how- ever, allowed six years to elapse before she assumed charge. In 1763, Francis Benton made finds of lead near Potosi, Missouri, and for a time had extensive workings there. The map made by Jonathan Carver, as a result of his extended Northwestern travels in 1766, places 4ead mines at Blue Mounds, just 3IO Essays m Western History south of the Wisconsin River. He found ore in the streets of " the Great Town of the Saukies," about the site of the present Prairie du Sac, and appears to have ascended the principal mound, which he says ** abounded in lead." ^ In Captain Henry Gordon's Journal, written the same year (1766),^ occurs the following passage, showing that there was at siderabie that time a considerable lead industry tndtisiry j^ progTcss among the French on the west side of the Mississippi : " The French have large boats of 20 tons, rowed with 20 oars, which will go in seventy odd days from New Orleans to the IHnois. These boats go to the Ilinois twice a year, and are not half loaded on their return; was there any produce worth sending to market, they could carry it at no great expence. They, however, carry lead, the produce of a mine on the French side of the river, which yields but a small quantity, as they have not hands to work it. These boats, in times of the floods, which happen only in May and June, go down to New Orleans from the Ilinois in 14 and 1$ days." The first application for a concession of lead- 1 Carver, Travels (London, 1778), pp. 47, 48. 2 In Pownall, Topographical Description of North America (London, 1776). Early Lead Mining 311 mine land in the valley of the Upper Missis- sippi was made in 1769 by Martin Miloney Duraide's Duralde, who signed his application ^^«' at St. Louis, July 5, 1769. The day following, the grant was issued by Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, captain-commandant of the Illinois, and Joseph Labuxiere, " attorney of the attorney general, judge, etc., of the royal jurisdiction of the Illinois, for the French." This tract embraced land " three arpents in front, by the ordinary depth," ^ on Le Sueur's River of the Mines (Fever River), *' 160 leagues, more or less, above " St. Louis. From the tone of his petition, Duralde appears to have been a ne'er-do-well, and there is no record extant to show that he ever settled upon his grant or opened any mines, although the Spaniards confirmed all French grants. Captain Philip Pittman, writing in 1770 of 1 French claims in Michigan were usually forty arpents in depth ; at Green Bay these claims were merely possessory, and allowed by the government to extend eighty arpents from front to rear. The old Spanish common-field lots, in and around St. Louis, were from one to four arpents wide on the river, by forty in depth. This appears to have been " the usual depth " of grants during this period, although in special cases they were much more ample. The Spanish and French grants in Upper Louisiana are fully discussed in Scharf's St. Louis, chap. xiii. The arpent is equal to about 192 feet, English linear measure. 312 Essays in Western History Ste. Genevieve,^ which had become a notable market for lead, says : '' A lead mine about fif- A notable teen leagues distant, supplies the whole vtarket country with shot." It appears that at this time lead was, next to peltries, the most important and valuable export of the country, and served as currency. The lead trade was afterwards transferred to St. Louis, when that town began to control the commerce of the region.^ One of the largest lead-dealers of the day was Joseph A. Sire, an associate of Chou- teau & Sarp's fur company. Under the Spanish regime, which now ensued, we are told by Stoddard,^ a careful annalist, that lead miners working for themselves often took out '' thirty dollars per day, for weeks together." The traders who dealt in the material also made large profits, the returns being " cent per cent for the capital invested." * 1 Present State of European Settlements on the Mississippi (London, 1770). 2 In Og(\cw, Letters from the West (New Bedford, Mass., 1823), p. 58, is this entry, showing that Ste. Genevieve was still flourishing in his time : " St. Genevieve, in particular, is a fine flourishing town. Here, back of the river, lead ore is found in great abundance, which has become a traffic of great profit to the inhabitants." 3 Major Amos Stoddard, Sketches Hist, and Descrip. of Louisiana (Philadelphia, 1812). * Scharf, -5"/. Louis, p. 308 ; Mich. Pion. Colls., ix., p. 548. In his notes to Forman's Narrative (Cincinnati, 1888), L. C. Early Lead Mining 3 1 3 Julicn Dubuque was the next character of note upon the scene. He was a man of re- Diibuque's markable energy, and influential with mines ^he Indians. In 1788 he obtained from a full council of Sauk and Fox Indians, held at Prairie du Chien, formal permit " to work lead mines tranquilly and without any prejudice to his labors." He had previously made rich discoveries of this ore on the west bank of the Mississippi, in the bluffs and ra- vines adjoining the site of the present Iowa town which bears his name. In the immediate neighborhood of his mines, if not one of them, was a rich lead discovered in 1780 by the squaw of Peosta, a Fox warrior.^ Tradition has it that Draper says: " About the first of June, 1790, Colonel Vigo, an enterprising trader of the Illinois country, consigned to him [Michael Lacassangue, a Louisville trader] 4,000 pounds of lead, brought by Major Doughty [who built the fort at Cincinnati] from Kaskaskia." In 1796, John James Dufour, afterwards founder of the Swiss colony at Vevay, Ind., came to America and made his start here by buying lead at Kaskaskia, St. Louis, etc., and taking it up the Ohio River to Pittsburg, where he disposed of the cargo at a profit. With the proceeds he bought 630 acres of land for a vineyard, at the Big Bend of Kentucky River. 1 Schoolcraft, Discovery of Sources of Mississippi River (Phila., 1855), pp. 174, 175. Schoolcraft visited the Dubuque mines in 1820, and gives an entertaining account of them and the native manner of working them — ibid.^ pp. 169-173. He 314 Essays in Western History when Dubuque made his first location, a man named Du Bois was Hving at a mine on the eastern bank, nearly opposite — probably just south of the present village of Dunleith. Dubuque, in honor of the Spanish possessors of the soil, styled his diggings "The Spanish Mines." Undoubtedly some Spaniards had before his time conducted operations in the neighborhood, for when he went into the coun- try he found substantial roads built for the transportation of ore ; these, the Indians told him, had been made by Spaniards.^ Dubuque does not appear to have restricted himself to the west side of the river. It is believed that his prospectors and miners, who all enjoyed the full sympathy and confidence of the Sauks and Foxes, roved at will on both sides, and opened leads on Apple River, near the present places the distance below Prairie du Chien at sixty miles, and the extent of the tract, " seven leagues in front [along the Mississippi] by three in depth." See also Schoolcraft, View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, etc. (N. Y., 1819). 1 In 1780, as appears from letters of Lieutenant-Governor Patrick Sinclair to General Frederick Haldimand ( Wis. Hist. Coll., xi., pp. 151, 152, 155, 156), the Sauks and Foxes, led by MM. Calve and Ducharme, were in active league with Spanish and American miners against British influences in the diggings. The Winnebagoes and Menominees assisted the British in attacking the miners, and seventeen of the Americans and Spaniards were taken prisoners to Mackinac. Early Lead Mining 3 1 5 village of Elizabeth; and as early as 1805 even operated the old Buck and Hog leads on Fever River. It is fair to presume that the Indians had themselves crudely operated the mines fully Aboriginal 3. ccntury bcforc Dubuque's time. S7neiti>tg i3y^^ 33 ^yg have seen, this was doubt- less only to obtain bullets for the guns which they had acquired through trade with the French, and to furnish the fur-traders with a commodity quite as desirable as peltries. It is presumable that the French first taught the natives how to mine and smelt the ore. There is no evidence that the American aborigines ever practised the arts of smelting and casting, before the advent of the whites. The methods in vogue among the Indians were practically such as the whites are known to have employed in the earlier days of lead-mining, and are thus described by an eye-witness, writing in 1819: " A hole was dug in the face of a piece of sloping ground, about two feet deep and as wide at the top. This hole was shaped like a mill-hopper and lined with flat stones. At the bottom or point of the hopper, which was eight or nine inches square, narrow stones were laid across, gratewise. A trench was dug from the sloping ground inward to the bottom of the 3i6 Essays i7i Western History hopper. This channel was a foot in width and height, and was filled with dry wood and brush. The hopper being filled with the ore and the fuel ignited, in a few minutes the molten lead fell through the stones at the bot- tom of the hopper, and thence was discharged through the trench over the earth. The fluid mass was then poured into an awkward mould, and as it cooled it was called a * plat,' weighing about 70 lbs., very nearly the weight of the * pig ' of later days." There is no doubt, however, that this method was an improvement over that in vogue among the savages in the time of early French domi- nation ; for we read that in Crozat's day the Indians reduced the mineral by throwing it on top of large fires. " Large logs would be placed on the ground and smaller pieces of wood piled around and the ore heaped on. The fire would be set in the evening, and in the morning shapeless pieces of lead would be found in cakes, or in small holes scratched in the earth under the logs ; or sometimes in shapeless masses. These pieces were sold to the traders." ^ We are told by another writer ^ that the 1 Cf. Wis. Hist. Colls., ii., p. 228. 2 Hist. Jo Daviess Co., III. (Chicago, 187S), p. 836. Early Lead Mining 3 1 7 Indians as a rule but only skimmed the sur- face; although occasionally they drifted into side-hills for some distance, and upon reaching Aboriginal '' Cap rock " would bulld a fire under mining j^ ^^^ \.\v^xv crack the ore by dashing cold water on the heated surface. In the earH- est times, their tools were buck-horns, many of which were found in abandoned drifts by the early white settlers ; but in Dubuque's day they obtained hoes, shovels, and crowbars from the traders to whom they sold lead. The Indians loaded their ore at the bottom of the shaft into tough deerskins, the bundle being hoisted to the surface or dragged up inclined planes by long thongs of hide.^ Many of these Indian leads, abandoned by the aborigines when the work of development became too difficult for their simple tools, were afterwards taken pos- session of by whites, with improved appliances, and found to be among the best in the region. Early writers generally agree that the Indian mining was almost wholly conducted by old men and squaws, the bucks doing the smelting. However this may be, it is certain that in later days a good many bucks worked in these prim- itive mines, and many of them are known to have assisted Dubuque. The Sauks and Foxes 1 Hist. Grant Co, (Chicago, 1881), p. 477. 31 8 Essays in Western History were the owners of the lead-mine district during the eighteenth century, but by the treaty of 1804 they rehnquished their lands east of the Mississippi, and the gypsy Winnebagoes then squatted in the district; although with them were mingled many Sauks and Foxes who had married into the Winnebago tribe, in addition to " the British Band " of Sauks, around Rock Island, who were afterwards (1832) implicated in the Black Hawk War. Dubuque appears to have largely employed his Indian friends in prospecting for lead mines. When their discoveries were reported to him, he would send Canadians and half- r) A >^ .'. breeds to prove the claims and some- Unbiiqite s ^ Indian times to work them ; although in prospec ors ,^^^y cascs, lie was coutcut with proving the claim and allowing the Indians to work it themselves, the product being brought to his large trading-house on the west side of the river. In this manner the entire lead region of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois became more or less occupied by Dubuque's men before any permanent American settlement.^ Conciliating the Spaniards by naming his 1 In 1826, at Ottawa {Allenwrath diggings), two miles from Galena, there was found, under the ashes of a primitive furnace, a heavy sledge-hammer, undoubtedly left by Du- buque's miners. Early Lead Mining 3 1 9 west-side plant ** The mines of Spain," Dubuque deemed it advisable to seek a formal recog- nition from the government of Louisiana. He obtained, November 10, 1796, from Baron de " The Carondelet, Spanish intendant and Mines of govemor-gencral of the province, the spam " , c L ^ 1 grant of a tract seven leagues ni length along the west bank of the Mississippi, by three in depth, but with certain restric- tions as to trade, to be prescribed by " the merchant Don Andrew Todd," who had a monopoly of the commerce of the upper val- ley. Dubuque's friendship with the Indians and their dislike of the Spanish were a suffi- cient safeguard against interference from Don Andrew; although he appears to have met with no small opposition on the east side of the river from wandering representatives of the American Fur Company, whose Mackinac agents are said to have obtained considerable suppHes of lead from the crafty Foxes, and in- deed to have themselves smelted some ore. Dubuque waxed wealthy from his lead and peltries, which he shipped to St. Louis, making semi-annual trips in a pirogue. In a formal statement made to Major Zebulon M. Pike (September i, 1805),^ he claimed that his mines 1 Pike, Expedition (Philadelphia, i8io), appendix to part i.. P-5. 320 Essays m Western History on the west side of the Mississippi extended over a tract of territory " twenty-eight or Dubuque's twenty-seven leagues long, and from stateme7tt one to three broad." He said that he made each year from twenty to forty thousand pounds of lead pigs ; although it is probable that this was an underestimate, for evidently he did not view with favor this evidence of Ameri- can curiosity about his affairs. In 1800, France coerced Spain into retro- ceding Louisiana, and three years later sold it to the United States. It was, however, several years before Americans began operations in the lead region of the Upper Mississippi. We incidentally learn that in 181 1 George E. Jackson, a Missouri mxiner, had a rude log fur- nace on an island — now washed away — tow- ards the east side of the Mississippi, not far below Dunleith and nearly opposite the mouth of Catfish Creek.^ Jackson floated his lead to ^^ . r St. Louis by flatboat, and experi- Upening of j • r American enccd much troublc with the Indians, regime \^^\\o had a thorough dislike for Eng- lishmen and Americans. The reason for their aversion to the Anglo-Saxon race, which with few exceptions has been noticeable from our 1 Hist. La Fayette Co. (Chicago, 188 1 ), p. 394. Cf. Wis. Hist. Colls., vi., p. 272. Early Lead Mining 32 1 earliest intercourse with the red man, is easily explained. The French have been more in sympathy with the savages, with whom their pioneers have readily intermarried ; they settled among Indians for the purposes of the fur-trade, and their interests were identical with those of the Indians, being to keep the forests intact. The bearing of the Anglo-Saxon towards the savage has ever been of a domineering char- acter; we are pre-eminently an agricultural and manufacturing people ; our plan of coloni- zation aims at the reduction of nature, with the view to making the land support a large popu- lation. Our aims, our methods, our manners, are diametrically opposed to a state of savag- ery. We are a covetous people, and it did not take long for the Indian to understand that the English or American borderer was the herald of a relentless system of conquest. In the presence of the Anglo-Saxon settler, there was no room for the Indian. In 1812-13, John S. Miller joined fortunes with Jackson, but soon afterwards they aban- doned their island furnace and returned down the river. Five years later, Miller returned with two companions, traded a boat-load of goods at Dubuque's old mines, and is sup- posed to have penetrated to the site of Galena 32 2 Essays in Western History and spent some time in the lead region. Miller and Jackson again visited the place in 1823. The manufacture of shot near St. Louis dates from 1809, when J. Macklot ran his first cast through a tower which he had erected at A shot Herculaneum, thirty miles distant tower from St. Louis, on the Joachim River. Indians brought lead in small quantities in their canoes, but the bulk of the ore was trans- ported from the mines by Frenchmen. In the following February, Nicholas Boilvin, then United States agent for the Winnebagoes, passed through on foot from Rock Island to Prairie du Chien, with Indian guides who The Buck showed him a lead mine near Fever lead River — supposed to be what after- wards came to be known as the *' Buck lead." ^ In a letter to the secretary of war, dated a year later,2 Agent Boilvin reported that the Sauks and Foxes (on the eastern side of the river) and the lowas (on the west side) had " mostly abandoned the chase, except to furnish them- selves with meat, and turned their attention to the manufacture of lead, which they procure from a mine about sixty miles below Prairie du Chien," — undoubtedly the Fever River and 1 Hist. La Fayette Co., p. 396. 2 Wis. Hist. Colls., xi., p. 252. Early Lead Mijimg 323 Dubuque diggings. He reports that in 18 10 they manufactured four hundred thousand pounds of the metal, which they exchanged for goods, mainly with Canadian traders, who were continually inciting them to opposition against Americans. Boilvin alludes to the fact that the Indians found lead-mining more prof- itable than hunting, and that the government would be wise to introduce among them a blacksmith and improved tools. He thinks that by thus encouraging the Indian miners, " the Canadian trade would be extinguished." In the same year (1810) Henry Shreeve is said to have worked up the Mississippi as far as Fever River, and taken back from there to the towns on the lower Mississippi, a small cargo of Indian-smelted lead. Between 18 15 and 1820, Captain John Shaw made eight trips with a trading boat between St. Louis and Prairie du Chien, and several times visited the Fever River mines, where he saw the Indians smelting lead in rude furnaces. At one time he bought from them seventy tons of metal, " and still left much at the furnace." ^ Boilvin does not appear to have broken up ^ Wis. Hist. Colls., viii., p. 250. See Shaw's personal narrative in ;V/., ii., pp. 197 et seq. 324 Essays m Western History the French-Canadian trade in the lead district, for we find that up to 18 19 several American . traders, who attempted to go among Canadians the Sauk and Fox miners and run ""^^^"^ opposition to the Canadians, had been killed. In the immediate neighborhood of where Galena came to be planted, there were, in 181 5, about twenty rude Indian furnaces, the product being bought almost entirely by French-Canadian traders, who are reported to have rated a peck of ore as worth a peck of corn. The same year, a crew of American boatmen attempted to go up Fever River by water; but the Indians prevented them, fear- ing the cupidity of the Americans, who might become excited by the richness of the mines and attempt to dispossess the natives. In 1 816, Colonel George Davenport, agent of the American Fur Company, and engaged Lead a if^ trade with the Sauks and Foxes, currency ercctcd a trading-post on the portage between the Mississippi and the Fever, near the mouth of the latter ; but he soon after left and went to Rock Island, where he settled, Davenport is credited with shipping to St. Louis in 181 6, the first fiatboat cargo of lead ever avowedly emanating from the Fever Early Lead Mining 3^5 River mines; it was used in payment for Indian goods. Lead in those days was, like j fur, quite as useful as currency in the financial 1 operations of the Western country. By a treaty concluded at St. Louis August 24, 18 16, all lands lying north of a line drawn due west of the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, were granted to the Indians,! except a tract on the Mississippi River five leagues square, to be designated by the President. This reservation was intended to include the lead mines, the exact location of which was as yet undefined. In 18 19 there appears to have been a more 1 To the Ottavvas, Chippevvas, and Potawatomis. In a let- ter of Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois, dated Belleville, September 13, 1827 (Washburne, Edwards Papers, pp. 304- 306), and addressed to President Adams, it is pointed out that the Sauks and Foxes relinquished, by the treaty of 1804, all the lands between the Illinois and Wisconsin rivers ; and that by the treaty of 18 16 the United States gave the greater part of this tract, with the lead-mine reservation, to the three tribes named. Thus the Sauks had no share in this gift to the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Potawatomis; neither did the Winnebagoes have any claim in it, " unless some right has been recognized to them inadvertently by the United States, since 1816, of which I know nothing, but which if it exists, was a clear and palpable violation of the treaty with the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Potawatomis afore- said, unless their consent was previously obtained, which I do [not] suppose was the case." 326 Essays in Western History general movement upon the lead regions. That year, Jesse W. Shull, Francois Bouthil- A general li^r, Samuel C. Muir, and A. P. Van jnovemefit Metre were either trading or oper- ating small smelters in the district, and had taken Fox women for wives.^ Colonel James Johnson of Kentucky ^ came to the lead mines of Fever River as early as 1819-20, anddid some mining or smelting, and trading. A traveller on the Mississippi in 1821 speaks of meeting Johnson's flatboats, loaded with lead.^ The largest discovery of lead ore up to Johnson's time was made in 18 19 by the Sauks and Foxes operating a mine about a mile above the site of Galena. Those Indians were members of a band led by " The Buck," who had long been encamped in the vicinity.^ It is thought that the lead had originally been worked by Dubuque's men, but that after Dubuque's death (18 10) the natives had taken possession and continued operations with the crude furnace plant erected by 1 Hist. La Fayette Co., p. 400. 2 A brother of Col. Richard M. Johnson, who was said to have slain Tecumseh. 3 J. G. Soulard, in Hist. La Fayette Co., p. 402. 4 Wis. Hist. Colls., vi., p. 281. Early Lead Mining 327 the whites. It took the entire force of the band to raise the enormous nugget which they had discovered, and they were very enormous proud of it. The Indians expressed nugget ^ strong desire that the find should be sent as a present to their Great Father at Washington ; but as it was never so forwarded, it is presumable that the traders secured it in piecemeal, in the course of traffic, the rate of exchange still being a peck of corn for a peck of ore. The whites afterwards called this mine " Buck's lead," in honor of the chief who operated it ; and a neighboring lead was styled '' Doe's," in remembrance of the Buck's favor- ite squaw. The estimate was made, about 1820, that up to that time several millions of pounds had been extracted from the Buck lead, by the Indians and Dubuque's people — more than afterwards taken therefrom by the American miners, despite the fact that it was one of the richest mines in the region, and came to be worked in a scientific manner. In June and July, 18 19, Major Thomas Forsyth, United States Indian agent for the Sauks and Foxes, made a voyage from St. Louis to the Falls of St. Anthony, and in his journal gives us,^ upon good authority, " the 1 Wis. Hist. Colls., vi., p. 194. 328 Essays in Western History number, situation, and quality of all the lead mines between Apple Creek and Prairie du Chien." Contractors for army and Indian supplies were at this time frequently passing the mines, on their way between St. Louis and Prairie du Chien, and Green Bay and Missis- sippi River points, and both Indian and white miners found ready customers for their lead. Congress had in 1807 reserved mineral lands from sale, and ordered that leases thereof The lease should be granted to individuals for syste77i terms of three and five years. But owing to Indian opposition and the intrigues of Canadians, operations under government leases were confined chiefly to Missouri. Else- where, men operated on their own account, and without system. The first lease in the Fever River country was granted January 4, 1822, to T. D. Carneil and Benjamin John- son, and Messrs. Suggett & Payne, all of Kentucky. Lieutenant C. Burdine, U. S. A., was ordered to aid them in selecting a hundred and sixty acres each in the lead region, and to protect them with an armed force.^ But no report of the expedition, if it were ever undertaken, appears to have been published. As early as April 12 following, a lease for 1 Hist. La Fayette Co., p. 402. Early L ead Mtn ing 329 three years was granted to Colonel James Johnson, who had for three years operated in the country without license. He immediately took to the mines a number of workmen, in- cluding some negro slaves, together with a supply of good tools. Encamping where Galena now stands, and under strong military protection,^ Johnson began operations on the most extensive scale yet known in the lead country. At the time there were several French and Indian settlements on the Fever, the former being engaged in trade and the latter in mining and smelting. There now flocked thither a horde of squatters and prospectors from Missouri, Ken- A horde tucky, and Tennessee ; while many of squatters ^^^^ ^^^^ Southcm Illiuois via Fort Clark (Peoria) and the old Indian trail which was afterwards developed into a wagon road and styled '' Kellogg's trail." For the most part, the newcomers paid small attention to Congressional enactments. The lessees not being supported in their rights, protracted disputes ensued, many of them disastrous to all concerned. In 1822 there were, as we have seen, but four other lessees besides John- son ; and in 1823 but nine were added to the 1 IVis. Hist. Colls. y vi., p. 272; viii., p. 250. 33 o Essays in Western History list — among them Dr. Moses Meeker, who estabhshed a considerable mining colony, which gave great impetus to the development of the region.^ The unlicensed plants could, however, be numbered by the score. The leasing system was so unsatisfactory to all concerned, and yielded the government such scanty revenue, that, under act of Congress approved July ii, 1846, the lands were brought into the market and sold. It appears from the report of Lieutenant M. Thomas, U. S. A., superintendent of lead The great mincs, made to Congress in 1826,^ ''boom'' |.|-j^^ there were in the Fever River diggings, the first of July, 1825, about a hun- dred persons engaged in mining; which was increased to four hundred and fifty-three by the close of August the following year. The agent estimates that in Missouri, at the period of his report, there were two thousand men thus engaged — " miners, teamsters, and laborers of every kind (including slaves)"; but some of these were farmers who, with their slaves, spent only their spare time in the mines. 1 In Wis. Hist. Colls., vi., p. 271, Dr. Meeker gives an interesting statement of early affairs in the mines after his first visit in 1S22. Another valuable account is in Hist. Jo D.iviess Co., Ill; pp. 448 et seq. 2 House Ex. Docs., 19th Cong., 2d sess., ii., No. 7. Early Lead Mining 331 In 1827 the name Galena was applied to the largest settlement on Fever River, six miles from its junction with the Mississippi. ^ The heaviest immigration began in 1829, and from that time forward the history of the lead country is familiar. What had particularly assisted the later development of the Fever River region, after Spanish ^^^ Indians had been quieted, was the claimants fact that on the west side of the cjcc ec Mississippi the mines were held to be private property, and prospectors were warned off. In 1832 the United States War Depart- ment asserted the right of the general govern- ment to the tract granted by Spain to Dubuque, and Lieutenant Jefferson Davis was sent from Fort Crawford with a detail of infantry to eject from "the Spanish mines" all settlers claiming title from Spain. There was much dispute as to the right of the government to so act, but Con- gress ignored the claims of the settlers, and the lands being placed on the market were regu- larly sold. Many years after, a test case was decided in the United States Supreme Court; and the appellants — the heirs of Auguste Chouteau and John MuUamphy of St. Louis, 1 The river is not now navigable, owing to heavy deposits of soil worked do'^n from the limestone bluffs. 332 Essays iji Wester7i History who claimed to have, in 1804, purchased a cer- tain part of Dubuque's tract — were defeated. In 1833 mining began upon an extended scale west of the river, the Spanish and the Indian titles having at last been cleared. VIII THE DRAPER MANUSCRIPTS VIII THE DRAPER MANUSCRIPTS DURING the past decade, the Draper Manuscripts in the library of the The Wisconsin Historical Society have collector bccome so familiar to students of Western history, who have cited them on hundreds of their pages, that some account of the man who collected them, and of the manner in which he amassed this now cele- brated storehouse of historical materials, would seem a fitting conclusion to the present volume. Lyman Copeland Draper was born in the town of Hamburg (now Evans), Erie County, New York, on the fourth of September, 1815. His ancestors, five generations before him, were Puritans in Roxbury, Massachusetts ; his paternal grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier, and his maternal grandfather fell in the defence of Buffalo against the British in 181 3, while his father Luke was twice captured by the English during the same war. When Lyman was three years of age, the 336 Essays in Western History family removed to Lockport, on the Erie Canal. Luke Draper was by turns grocer, tavern- keeper, and farmer, and as soon as his son Lyman could be of service about the house, the store, or the land, he was obliged to assume his full share of family labor. Up to the age of fifteen, the boy's experiences were those of the average village lad of the period — the almost continuous performance of miscellaneous duties, including fam.Ily shoe repairing, the gathering and selling of wild berries, and occasional "jobs" for the neighbors. One summer was spent in acting as a hod-carrier for a builder in the village, at the daily wage of twelve-and-a- half cents. From his fifteenth year to his eighteenth, he served as clerk in various village shops. During this time, after having ex- hausted the possibiHties of the village school, he added to that meagre curriculum the read- ing of what few books were obtainable by purchase or loan in the then frontier settle- ment, and thereby established a local reputa- tion as a youth of letters. The lad's taste for Revolutionary history A youthful was early developed. He came natu- passiofi j.^|iy |3y j^^ ^^ L^j^g Draper's fire- side, the deeds of Revolutionary heroes formed the chief topic of conversation. There v/ere The Draper Manuscripts 337 yet living many veterans of the Continental Army, who were cordially welcomed to the hospitality of the Draper household, while the War of 1 8 12-15 was an event of but a few years previous. The boy, eagerly listening, became steeped in knowledge of the facts and traditions of Anglo-American fights and West- ern border forays. It was in after years im- possible for him to remember when he first became inspired with the passion for obtaining information as to the events in which his ancestors took part. As a boy he neglected no opportunity to see and talk with distinguished pioneers and patriots. In 1825, when but ten years of age, he saw La Fayette during the latter's visit to the United States; and in his own last days declared he held a vivid recollection of the lineaments of that distinguished friend of the Revolutionary cause. Lewis Cass, DeWitt CHnton, and other celebrities of the day, he also heard speak at Lockport. Visits to the village, on various occasions, of the then noted Seneca chiefs. Tommy Jimmy, Major Henry O'Bail, and others, were to the young enthusiast in border history like visitations from a realm of fancy. La Fayette was the subject of young Draper's first school composition. His first 22 33^ Essays in Western History article for the press, published in the Rochester Gem for April 6, 1833, was a sketch of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the ** signers." One of the first historical works he read, was Campbell's Annals of Tryon County ; or. Border Warfare of Neiv York, published in 183 1. This and other publications of the time were replete with lurid accounts of bor- der disturbances, well calculated to fire the imagination of youth. Peter A. Remsen, a cotton factor at Mobile, Alabama, had married Draper's cousin (1833). A patron of Taking an interest in the lad, then leartiing eighteen years of age, he invited him to pass the winter at his home. While in Mobile, Draper chiefly occupied himself in collecting information regarding the career of the famous Creek chief, Weatherford, many of whose contemporaries lived in the neigh- borhood of the Alabama metropolis. These jmanuscript notes, laboriously written down I seventy years ago, are, like the greater portion I of his materials for history, still mere unused I literary bricks and stone. In 1834, during his nineteenth year. Draper entered the college at Granville, At college .^^ , . i i -i->. • t t • Ohio, now styled Denison University. Here he remained for over two years as an The Draper Manuscripts 339 undergraduate. He appears to have been a good student, but was compelled from lack of money to leave before graduation. Remsen had now returned from the South to New York, and took up his new home in the neighborhood of Alexander, Genesee County. Draper's father was poor, and unable either to help his son towards an education or to support him in idle- ness ; it is probable, also, that the elder Draper was lacking in appreciation of Lyman's unusual tastes. The young man was undersized, far from robust, and entertained aspirations which appeared only to fit him for the then unprofit- able career of a man of letters. Remsen, sym- pathetic and having some means, offered him without cost a congenial home, and to this patron he again turned upon leaving Granville. For a time he was placed at Hudson River Seminary, in Stockport, his studies there being followed by an extended course of private reading, chiefly historical. Doddridge, Flint, Withers, and afterwards Hall were the early historians of the border. Doctors The young student of their works disagree found that on many essential points, and in most minor incidents, there were great discrepancies between them. It was in 1838, 340 Essays in Western History when twenty-three years of age, that Draper conceived the idea of writing a series of biog- raphies of trans-Alleghany pioneers, in which he should aim by dint of original investigation to fill the gaps and correct the errors then marring all existing books upon this fertile specialty. This at once became his controlling ambition. He entered upon its execution with an enthusiasm which never lagged through a half-century spent in the assiduous collection of material for what he always deemed the I mission of his life ; but in the end he had only \ investigated and collected, and the biographies l^were never written. From the Remsen home, Draper began an extensive and long-continued correspondence „ ., with prominent pioneers all along the corre- Westcm frontier — with Drs. Daniel sfondents j^^^^^ ^^^ 3^ p^ Hildrcth, and Colonel John McDonald, of Ohio ; William C. Preston, of South Carolina; Colonel Richard M. John- son, Charles S. Todd, Major Bland W. Ballard, Dr. John Croghan, and Joseph R. Underwood, of Kentucky; ex-Governor David Campbell, of Virginia; Colonel William Martin and Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, and scores of others of almost equal renown. Correspondence of this character, first with the pioneers and later with The Draper Ma7iuscripis 341 their descendants, he actively conducted until within a few days of his death. In 1840 he began to supplement his cor- respondence with personal visits to the homes ^^j of pioneers and the descendants of itinerafit pioneers and Revolutionary soldiers. He had found that for his purpose the gaining of information through letters was slow and unsatisfactory, for in those days the mails were tardy, unreliable, and expensive ; and many of those who possessed the material he most sought were not adepts with the pen. There were then practically no railroads in the country which he visited, and for many years the eager collector of historical material travelled far and wide, by foot, by horseback, by stage, by lumber wagon, and by steamboat, his constant companion being a knapsack well laden with note-books. In these journeys of discovery, chiefly through sparsely settled regions. Draper Pioneer travelled, in all, over sixty thousand hospi- miles, meeting with hundreds of curi- tality ^ ous adventures and hairbreadth es- capes by means of runaway horses, frightful storms, swollen streams, overturned stages, snagged steamboats, extremities of hunger, and the like, yet never injured nor allowing any 342 Essays in Western History untoward circumstance to thwart the particular mission at the time in view. Especially before 1 850, many of those he sought were far removed from taverns and other conveniences of civilization ; but pioneer hospitaHty was abundant, and a stranger at the hearth a welcome diversion to the dull routine of a frontiersman's home. The guest of the " interviewed," the inquisitive stranger, who was generally blessed with abundant leisure, often stopped weeks together at those crude homes in the New York, Ohio, Ken- tucky, Virginia, and Tennessee backwoods — long enough to extract, with the acquired skill of a cross-examiner, every morsel of historical information, every item of valuable reminis- cence stored in the mind of his host; while old diaries, letters, account-books, or other family documents which might cast sidelights on the romantic story of Western settlement, were deemed objects worthy of acquisition by exercise of the most astute diplomacy. It would be wearisome to give a list of those whom Draper visited in the course of these re- imfortani markablc wanderings which, with but interviews ^^^ lapscs, he made his chief occupa- tion through nearly a quarter of a century, and resumed at intervals for many years after. The Draper Manuscripts 343 Only a few of the most notable can here be mentioned. Perhaps the most important in- terview he ever held was with Major Bland Ballard, of Kentucky, a famous Indian fighter under General George Rogers Clark in the latter's campaigns against the Ohio Indians. Other distinguished border worthies who heaped their treasures at Draper's feet were Major George M. Bedinger, prominent in Ken- tucky as a pioneer and Indian fighter; General Benjamin Whiteman, of Ohio, and Captain James Ward, of Kentucky, two of Kenton's trusted lieutenants ; and General William Hall, a field officer under Jackson in the Creek War, and afterwards Governor of Tennessee. Draper also met in this manner fifteen of George Rogers Clark's fellow-Indian cam- paigners and many of the associates and descendants of Boone, Kenton, Sumter, Sevier, Robertson, Pickens, Crawford, Shelby, Brady, Cleveland, and the Wetzels — all of these, names to conjure with in Western and South- ern history. He also visited and took notes among aged survivors of several Indian tribes — Senecas, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Mohawks, Chickasaws, Catawbas, Wyandots, Shawnees, Delawares, and Potawatomis. Not the least interesting 344 Essays in Western History of these were the venerable Tawanears, or Governor Blacksnake, one of the Seneca war captains at Wyoming, who served as such with the famous Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, and the scholarly Governor William Walker, of the Wyandots. The descendants of Brant among the Canada Mohawks, among whom Draper visited at much length, gave him an Indian name signifying " The Inquirer." Draper once visited at the home of Andrew Jackson, and had a long conversation with the hero of New Orleans. At another time he was the guest of his old-time correspondent, Colonel Richard M. Johnson, who is thought to have killed Tecumseh. Once when in Kentucky, on a hunt for manuscripts, he saw Henry Clay; and in Ohio laid eyes on General William Henry Harrison, — but he had no opportunity to speak to either of these. The period of Draper's greatest activity in the matter of personal interviews was between Arich 1840 and 1879, although in his latter harvest years he also frequently resorted to that method of obtaining materials for history ; while the period of his active correspondence in searching for information was ended only by death. The result of this half-century of rare toil was a rich harvest of collections. The Draper Manuscripts 345 Upon the shelves of the manuscript room in the Wisconsin Historical Library, the Draper Man- uscripts now fill four hundred folio volumes.-^ The geographical field covered, is, in the main, from the Hudson River to the Wabash, from Charleston to Louisville ; and the period, from the year 1742 — McDowell's fight in the Val- ley of Virginia — until the close of the War of 1812-15. Some of the material bears upon the trans-Mississippi region, such as the papers of William Clark and the jour- nal of Sergeant Charles Floyd (Lewis and Clark expedition). The classification is chiefly by the principal border heroes or pioneers concerned, for we have seen that Draper collected with a view solely to using the material for a series of biographies: George M. Bedinger, Daniel Boone, Samuel Brady, Joseph Brant, Daniel Brodhead, George Rogers Clark, Jonathan Clark, William Clark, George and WiUiam Croghan, Josiah Harmar, William Henry Har- ^ In 1857, he computed that his material comprised " some 10,000 foolscap pages of notes of the recollections of warrior- pioneers, either written by themselves, or taken down from their own lips ; and wellnigh 5,000 pages more of original manuscript journals, memorandum books, and old letters written by nearly all the leading border heroes of the West." It was somewhat added to in later years. 34^ Essays in Western History rison, William Irvine, Simon Kenton, Robert Patterson, James Potter, William Preston, David Shepherd, Thomas Sumter, John Cleves Symmes, Tecumseh, and Louis Wetzel. There are six volumes of data relative to the Meck- lenburg declaration of independence; other volumes contain early manuscripts relative to Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and King's Mountain ; numerous volumes are wholly devoted to Draper's interviews with pioneers or their de- scendants in many parts of the border States and the Middle West. It should, indeed, be ex- plained that while this collection is rich in con- temporary documents, in bulk these constitute the lesser part of the Draper Manuscripts, for the old frontier heroes were neither much ad- dicted to the diary habit nor fond of writing letters. Much the larger proportion of the papers are the great collector's interviews and correspondence while seeking information, all of them freely interspersed and enriched with his critical notes. These laborious methods of investigation furnish an interesting and instruc- tive study to historical specialists. In 1 84 1, while in the midst of his life-long task, Draper drifted to Pontotoc, in Northern The Draper Manuscripts 347 Mississippi, where he became part owner and editor of a small weekly journal, the Spirit of . ,,. . the Times} This venture not proving A Mtssts- AC sippi financially successful, at the end of a episode y^^j, j^jg partner considerately pur- chased his interest, giving in payment the deed to a tract of wild land in the neighborhood. There came to Pontotoc, about this time, a young lawyer named Charles H. Larrabee, afterwards a prominent citizen of Wisconsin, where he became a circuit judge and a con- gressman. Larrabee had been a student with Draper at Granville. The legal outlook at Pontotoc not being rich with promise, he united his fortunes with those of his college- mate, and together they moved upon Draper's tract. For about a year the young men lived in a floorless, windowless hut, a dozen miles from Pontotoc, the nearest post-ofFice, raising sweet potatoes and living upon fare of the crudest character. In the summer of 1842 Draper received the offer of a clerkship under a rela- tive who was an Erie Canal superintendent at 1 He left Pontotoc in December, 1843. Journeying leisurely northward, as usual visiting pioneers on the way, he called in March on Andrew Jackson, at the Hermitage. In a letter to The Perry (N. Y.) Democrat, dated Nash- ville, Tenn., March 16, 1844, he describes his visit and re- lates his conversation with the ex-President. 34^ Essays in Western History Buffalo, and retraced his steps to the North, leaving Larrabee in sole possession. But the latter soon had a call to Chicago, and fol- lowed his friend's example, leaving their crop of sweet potatoes ungarnered and their land at the mercy of the first squatter who chanced along. The following year, however, Draper, ill fitted for a clerical life, was back again in , Pontotoc, where he made some inter- iti a haven of esting " finds " in the chests of the refuge Mississippi pionccrs. In 1844, once more adrift in the world, he sought, as a haven of refuge, the Remsen household, then near Baltimore. The Remsens eventually moved to Philadelphia, whither their protege accom- panied them. For eight years thereafter, Draper's principal occupation was the prose- cution of his search for historical data, always collecting and seldom writing up any of his material. Conscientious, as well as ambitious to leave nothing to be said by later writers upon his topics, he declared that he was not willing to begin until to his own satisfaction he had exhausted every possibility of finding more. Within reasonable Hmits his attitude lis commendable; but as a matter of fact, 'Draper had by this time become so imbued The Draper Manuscripts 349 j with the zeal of collecting that he looked i upon the digestion of his material as of { secondary consideration. During his life in Philadelphia, he added miscellaneous printed Americana to the objects ^^^^^^ of his collection, and particularly old in his , newspaper files, for he found that specta y ^.j^ggg latter were, when obtainable, among the most valuable sources of contem- poraneous information on any given topic in ihistory. He thus gathered at the Remsen home a hbrary of prints which came to attract almost as much attention among scholars as had his manuscript possessions. It was a time when in America there were few historical students engaged in original research ; as a specialist in the trans-Alleghany field, Draper stood practically alone. George Bancroft, Hil- dreth, S. G. Drake, Parkman, Sparks, Lossing, and others displayed much interest in the Draper collections, which several of them per- sonally examined and publicly praised. They sent him encouraging letters, urging him to enter upon his proposed work of writing biog- raphies of heroes of the border. In 1854, Lossing went so far as to enter upon a literary co-partnership with Draper for the joint production of a series of such life his- 350 Essays m Western History tories — Boone, George Rogers Clark, Sevier, Robertson, Brady, Kenton, Martin, Crawford, ^ ^ ^ Whitley, the Wetzels, Harmar, St. Co-partner- -' ship with Clair, Wayne, and some others being tossing selected for immediate treatment, each work to be in several large volumes. The titles of the several biographies were agreed upon at a meeting in Madison between Lossing and Draper. But while as a collector Draper was ever in the field, eager, and abounding in shrewd resource, as a writer he was a procras- tinator, and nothing was at the time done. Three years later, he developed renewed in- terest in the plan, and sent broadcast over the country a circular informing the public that the long-promised work was at last to be per- formed ; and yet naught came of it. Nineteen years had now elapsed since Draper had entered upon the full tide of his career as a collector. Up to this time, he had made a collection of material perhaps in all essential points nearly as valuable as it was at his death. His accumulations in after years were chiefly in the direction of minor details. Much of this class of matter, in obtaining which he spent a large part of the last thirty-five years of his life, would be considered as unimportant by historical writers imbued with the modern The Draper Manuscripts 351 spirit and practising modern methods. Draper, however, being by nature an antiquarian, con- sidered no circumstance regarding his heroes as too trivial for collection and preservation. His design was to be encyclopaedic ; he would have his biographies embrace every scrap of attainable information, regardless of its relative merit. More than once, with some sadness he I confessed to the present writer that he felt [himself quite lacking in the sense of historical ; proportion, could not understand what men meant when they talked of historical perspec- tive, and as for generalization he abhorred it. ;Yet his literary style was incisive, and some- times he shone in controversy. " I have wasted my life in puttering," he once lamented, "but I see no help for it; I Fearin ^^"^ writc nothing so long as I fear to'' go to there is a fact, no matter how small, ^^''" as yet ungarnered." Draper not only feared to "go to press," but even refrained from writing up his notes, literally — as he often admitted — from an apprehension that the next mail might bring information which would necessitate a recasting of his matter. At the time of his contract with Lossing, he had completed some twenty voluminous chap- ters of his proposed Life of Boone — perhaps a 352 Essays in Western History third of the number contemplated. It is prob- able that this manuscript was written before he came to Madison ; from its present appearance, it seems certain that he added nothing to it during the succeeding thirty-four years of his life. Of his other projected biographies, it was discovered at his death that he had written no more than a few skeleton chapters, here and there. In January, 1849, the Wisconsin Historical Society had been organized at Madison. It Practically ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^ nominal existence, founds the for there was then no person at its Historical scrvice with the technical skill neces- Society gary to the advancement of an under- taking of this character. Larrabee, Draper's old friend, had drifted to Wisconsin, and was now a circuit judge. He was one of the founders of the Society. In full knowledge of the quality of his friend's labors, he success- fully urged upon his associates the importance of attracting such a specialist to Madison. About the middle of October, 1852, Draper arrived upon the scene. His patron Remsen had died the spring before, and the following year Draper married the widow, who was also his cousin. The historian was then thirty-seven years of age, full of vigor and push, kindly of The Draper Manuscripts 353 disposition, persuasive in argument, devoted to his life-task of collecting, self-denying in the cause, and of unimpeachable character. The story of his really magnificent work as secretary and executive officer of the Wisconsin Historical Society is familiar to all who are in- timately concerned with the study of Western history. It has been told so often, in the pub- lications of that institution and elsewhere, that it does not here require specific treatment. Thirty-three years of his life were in large measure consecrated to the service of the Society. He resigned at the close of the year (1886, turning over to the charge of his suc- y:essor a reference library of national reputation ; [while the ten volumes of Wisconsin Historical Collections which he had edited, are generally I recognized as ranking with the best American *vpublications of this character. But not least important were his untiring labors in the face of sometimes bitter opposition, to secure an assured official support for the institution, which at last, after weary years of striving, he saw placed on a strong financial footing as the trustee of the State. Although the author of numerous pam- phlets, of articles in the Wisconsin Historical Collections^ and in encyclopaedias, of a mono- 23 354 Essays in Western History graph upon collections of autographs of the " Signers," and of scattering chapters of pro- Ki7i^s jected biographies, and the editor of Mountain ^ fg^ minor publications aside from the Collections^ Dr. Draper — the University of Wisconsin had thus honored him — pub- lished but one important historical work: Ki?ig's Moitntain and its Heroes (Cincinnati, i88i). Unfortunately for the publisher and author, the greater part of the edition was soon after its issue consumed by fire, so that few copies are now extant. Aside from the border forays of whites and Indians, the really roman- tic portion of the history of the Revolution in the South is confined to the Whig and Tory warfare of the Carolinas, which was first fully treated in Draper's volume. It was well re- ceived at the time ; but in later years Winsor and others have very properly criticised it as possessing the faults which were conspicuous in the author's methods : a desire to be en- cyclopaedic, and a lack of proper historical perspective. But even with these faults. King's Moimtain is, as a bulky storehouse of informa- tion regarding the Revolutionary War in the South obtained at first hand, a permanently valuable contribution to American historical literature. . - -- The Draper Manuscripts 355 The reason for Dr. Draper's retirement from official life, at the age of seventy-one, was the desire at last to write the numerous biographies which he had projected so many years before. His physical vigor was waning, but his literary ambition was as strong as in youth. Unfortu- nately for himself, he had accumulated so vast a flood of material that at last it Material beyond his was bcyoud his control ; and although control ^^^^ hopeful of soon beginning in earnest, it was plain that he contemplated his task with awe. In his nearly five years of leisure he made no important progress. •' Still puttering," he often mournfully re- pHed, whenever the present writer inquired as to what he was doing. But his countenance would lighten with boyish glee, as he continued, ** Well, I 'm really going to commence on George Rogers Clark in a few days, as soon as I hear from the letters I sent to Kentucky this morning; but I am yet in doubt whether I ought to have a Boston or New York publisher — what is your judgment? " It had ever been the same story— always planning, never doing. For his society he was one of the most prac- tical of men, and his persistent energy was re- warded by almost phenomenal success. But the work of the institution was pressing ; in his 356 Essays in Wester^t History own enterprises he could wait — until, like the patient cat in the fable, he waited too long. On the fifteenth of August, 1 891, the doctor suffered a paralytic stroke, which was the be- ginning of the end. Nevertheless, when partially recovered, he bravely returned to his " puttering," still confident that his projected series of a dozen huge biogra- phies would yet leap from his pen when he was at last ready. Thus, full of hope, although phy- sically feeble, he toiled on until again paralysis laid him low. On the twenty-sixth he passed quietly to the hereafter, his great ambition un- attained, his Carcassonne unreached. Death had rung down the curtain on this tragedy of a life's desire. Of stature short and slight, Dr. Draper was a bundle of nervous activity. Almost to the last. The man his sevcuty-six ycars sat easily on his himself shoulders. Light and rapid of step, he was as agile as many a youth, despite the fact that he was seldom in perfect health. His delicately cut features, which exhibited great firmness of character and the powers of intense mental concentration, readily brightened with the most winning of smiles. By nature and by habit he was a recluse. His existence had largely been passed among his books and The Draper Manuscripts 357 manuscripts ; he cared little for those social alliances and gatherings which delight the average man. Long abstention from general intercourse with those with whom he had no business to transact, made him slow to form new acquaintances, and wrongly gained for him a reputation of being unapproachable. He who had a legitimate errand thither, found hanging without the latch-string of the fire-proof library and working " den," which was hidden in a dense tangle of lilacs and crab-trees in the rear of the bibliophile's home. Access gained, the literary hermit was found to be a most amiable gentleman, a charming and often merry con- versationist ; for few kept better informed on current events, or had at command a richer fund of entertaining reminiscence. To know Dr. Draper was to admire him as a man of generous impulses, who wore his heart upon his sleeve, was the soul of purity and honor, did not understand what duplicity meant, loved children and flowers, and was sympa- thetic to a fault. If not a great man, this gende scholar was in Anemi- "^^^7 dircctious eminently useful to nentiy use- his generation. As the guiding spirit fu career ^^ ^^ histoHcal socicty which he made great, he was in his day incomparable; as 358 Essays in Western History an editor of historical material, he did most excellent service ; and undoubtedly he was the most successful of all collectors of material for American border history. So jealously did he guard his treasures, however, that during his lifetime they Hterally were inaccessible to all save himself. Not unnaturally, from his point of view, he deemed this great mass of docu- ments and notes as his own hard-won quarry, the working of which was to be done in due time. Upon his death, however, the great col- lection was found to have been willed to the archives of the Society which he loved so well — so many bricks and stones for future his- torical architects. Coming to the society in a sadly chaotic condition, — for the doctor's private library was a realm strictly guarded against womankind, and his own methods were the reverse of orderly, — in 1892 they were carefully classified, mounted, and bound, thus making them available for all comers. No doubt students of Western history will always express regret that Draper found it im- Ati en- practicable to give to the world the during Important, many-volumed works for momwien ^yj^j^^]^ from hls youth he had so eagerly planned. For while contemporary documents are alike useful to all, at least he The Draper Manuscripts 359 could himself have best interpreted the multi- tude of notes and interviews which form so large a proportion of his matter; the world has in his death lost forever a mine of informa- tion and a wealth of judgment on controverted points in Western history, which might have illumined his pages. But if more fruitful in printer's ''copy," possibly he might have been less persistent as a collector; and of the two classes of public service, if we were to choose between them, we must admit that the Draper Manuscript Collection will prove through gen- erations to come a far more useful and endur- ing monument to its founder than the shelfful of books which he had proposed to leave as his chiefest legacy. INDEX INDEX ABBOTT, Samuel, American Fur Company employee, 217. Alabama, manuscripts relating to, 346. Alexander, Gen. Milton K., in Black Hawk War, 165, 166, 168- 173, 183, 184, 189. Algonquian Indians, 205, 208, 239. Allouez, Claude, Jesuit missionary, 209, 243-246, 265, 271, 273. American Fur Company, 172, 217, 224, 227, 249, 262-264, 267, 271, 274, 319. 324- — Historical Association Report, A inerican Historical Review, 27. American Home Missionary So- ciety, in Wisconsin, 267. — Mission Board, 267. Anderson, Lieut. Robert, in Black Hawk War, 145. Armstrong, Perry A., Sauks and Black Hawk War, 144. Ashland (Wis.), 12, 236, 273. Assenisipia, proposed state of, 77, 78. Assiniboin Indians, 248. Astor, John Jacob, 224, 227, 262, 263. Atkinson, Gen. Henry, commands troops against Black Hawk, 141- 149, 156, 158, 164-174, 183, 184, 190-194. Ayer, Frederick, Wisconsin mis- sionary, 265, 267, 269, 270. BAD AXE, battle of, 14s, 188- 192, 197, 199. Bailey, Maj. David, m Black Hawk War, 147. Ballard, Maj. Bland W., Kentucky pioneer, 340, 343. Bancroft, George, commends Draper, 349. Baraga, Frederick, Catholic mis- sionary, 270, 274. Bay, Chequamegon, 209, 210; dis- covered, 236 ; map, 273 ; de- scribed, 242 ; Indians, 240, 243- 247.259; posts at, 233, 252-256, 266, 274 ; historic sites, 236, 273, 274; fur-trade, 247, 250-254,259- 264 ; Catholic mission, 245-247, 270-273 ; Protestant mission, 265, 270, 273 ; French commandants, 252-254, 256, 303 ; French post dismantled, 258 ; Radisson and Groseilliers at, 234-240 ; Allouez, 243-246, 271, 273 ; Marquette, 245-247; Cadotte, 261-264; War- rens, 263-265. — , Georgian, 204, 206, 208, 225, 239. — , Green, 9, 102, 103, 233. — , Keweenaw (Mich.), 209, 242. — , St. Charles. See Chequamegon. — , St. James, 234. Bayfield, Lieutenant, 264. — (Wis.), 260, 264, 272. — peninsula (Wis.), 244. Beardstown (111.), 142, 144, 158. Beaubassin, Hertel de, French commandant, 256. Beauharnois, Charles, Marquis de, governor of Canada, 254, 256. " Beaver," Lake Superior vessel, 255- Bedinger, Maj. George M., Ken- tacky pioneer, 343, 345. Bellin's map of Lake Superior, 252, 256. Beloit (Wis.), 166; Free Press, 166, 195. Benton, Francis, discovers lead mines, 309. — , Thomas H., proposes new ter- ritory, 98. Big Foot, Potawatomi chief, 141. Bill Cross Rapids (Wis.), 242. 364 Essays in Western History Bismarck (N. Dak.), 96, 97. Black Hawk ( Makataimeshekia- kiak), Sauk Indian leader, birth, 118; in War of 1812-1815, 122; hostile to Americans, 122-125, 128; makes treaties, 125, 126; influenced by White Cloud, 127, 129; massacres Menominees, 131, 132; recruits forces, X34 ; invades Illinois, 139; attacks Stillman's detachment, 14S-153; harries the border, 159-163 ; retreats to Lake Koshkonong, 167-173; fliglit, 17^^-178; attacks army, 179, iSo; retires, 183-186 ; sues for peace, 187 ; taken captive, 193, 194 ; imprisoned, 194, 195 ; travels in East, 194; death, 195; charac- terized, 1 19-122, 196; Autobiog- raphy, 120, 122, 124-126, 129- 1311 133, i34> 140, 143, i49j 153. 178, 1S2, 1S5, igx. Blue Mounds (Wis.), 142, 160, 162, 164, 183 ; mines at, 309. BDilvin, Nicholas, Indian agent, 322, 32?. Boone, Daniel, Kentucky pioneer, II, 28, 343, 345, 350; Draper's Life,^l\, 352. Boone County (111-), 106. Boonesborough (Ky ), 10. Boone's road ( Ky.), 6, 278. Borup, , fur-trader, 264. Bouiiuet, Gen. Henry, in expedi- tion of 1758, 284. Bouthillier, Frangois, in lead mines, 326. Bowman, Capt. Joseph, accom- panies Clark, 20, 34, 38, 57,62; Jourjial, 47, 51, 55, 58, 6r. Boyd, Charles S., Illinois pioneer, 135- " Boyd Papers," in Wis. Hist. Colls., i8i. Boyd's Grove (111.), 135. Braddock, Gen. Edward, 284, 285, 294. Braddock (Pa.), 279. Braddock's Road, 277, 279-285, 293. — Run (Pa.), 284. Brady, Gen. Hugh, in Black Hawk War, 184. — , Samuel, Kentucky pioneer, 28, 343i 345. 350- Brant, Joseph, Mohawk chief, 29, 66, 344, 345. Breese, Sidney, Early History of Ulinoisi 301. Brodhead, Daniel, pioneer, 345. Brownsville (Pa.), 22, 277-280, 283, 288. Brunson, Alfred, visits La Pointe, 263. Buck, Sauk and Fo.x chief, 326, 327. Buckley, Cornelius, di.scusses Black Hawk War, 166, 195. Buffalo Grove (III), 142. Burd, Col. James, identifies Brad- dock's grave, 284, 285 ; Journal, 290. *Burdine, Lieut. Clark, protects lead miners, 328. Burlington (la.), 195; Gazette, 196. Burnet, Jacob, Notes on Northwest Territory, 85. Burr Oak Grove (Wis.), 162. Butler, James Davie, " Early Ship- ping on Lake Superior," 255. — , Mann, History 0/ Kentucky,^!. Butterfield, Consul W., History of Nicole t, 207. Byron (111.), 138. CADEAU. See Cadotte. Cadillac, Antoine de La- mothe, Sieur de, founded of De- troit, 216, 246; governor of Louisiana, 305 ; searches for mines, 306, 307. — , Jean Baptiste, Wisconsin pioneer, 241, 259-261. — , Jean Baptiste, junior, 261. — , Michel, 259, 261-264, 274 ; daughters of, 263, 265. Cahokia (111.), 12-14, 34-39, 42, 46, 65- Caldwell, Billy, Potawatomi chief, 122. Calve, Joseph, in War of 1812-1815, 314. Campbell, David, governor of Vir- ginia, 3.|o. — , Henry C, "Explorations of Lake Superior," 209; " Pere Menard," 209. _ — , Mrs. John, Wisconsin mission- ary, 265. — , William W., Annals of Try on County, N. Y., 338. Canada, founding of, 205 ; con- quest of, 218, 257, 258 ; boundary of, 81, S3, 204, 234; archives of, 256. Carneil, T. D., in lead trade, 328. Carondelet, Spanish governor of Louisiana, 319. ' Index 365 Carroll, Charles, of CarroUton, signer, 338. Carroll County (Ill.)> 106; lead mines in, 300. Career, Jonathan, Western trav- eller, 239, 244; Travels, 309, 310; map, 309. Cass, Lewis, at Chequamegon Bay, 244, 262 ; at Lockport, 337. Cassville (Wis.), X42. Catawba Indians, visited by Draper, 343. Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Clark's grave in, 71. Chaetar, Winnebago chief, 193. Champlain, Samuel de, founder of Canada, 205, 206, 231. Charlevoix, Pierre Francois Xavier de, Histoire de Nonvelle France, 252, 307- Chequamegon Pomt, 236, 240, 243, 244, 252, 261, 262, 273. Chersonesus, proposed State of, 77, 78. Chestnut Ridge (Pa.), 282. Chicago. 105, i35-i37> Mi, i93> 228 ; Tillies^ 214. — Historical Society, 307. — & Northwestern Railway, 175. Chickasaw Indians, visited by Draper, 343. Chillicothe (Ohio), 66, 83-85, 88. Chingouabe, Chippewa chief, 251, 252. Chippewa, proposed territory of, 9S ; boundaries of, 99, 100. — County (Mich), 93. — Indians, 8, 39, 132, 204, 206, 209, 244, 245, 250, 252, 259-262, 265, 266, 268, 272 ; number of, 255 ; language, 233, 269; early history of, 240-243, 253, 256, 273 ; treaty with, 325 ; removal to Odanah, 269. Chouteau, Pierre, in fur-trade, 312, Christino Indians. See Crees. Cincinnati, fort at, 313. Clark, Gen. George Rogers, i, 3, 6, 17, 72, 219; early hfe, 10, 11; plans expedition, 17, 18; in Vir- ginia, 18; recruits forces, 19-25; Illinois march, 25-28 ; captures Kaskaskia, 28-32, 219; concili- ates habitants, 31-33 ; treats with Spaniards, 36-38; conciliates In- dians, 38-40 ; atteniiDts to capture, 42-44; march to Vincennes, 47- Clark, Gen. Geo. Rogers (c(7«^V). 54 ; letter to inhabitants, 54-56 ; attacks Vincennes, 57-60; cap- tures Vincennes, 61-63 ; re-in- forced, 64, 65 ; returns to Louis- ville, 65; expedition of 1780, 66; fails to capture Detroit, 66; fail- ure of powers, 67 ; proposed for Western exploration, 67, 68; plans filibustering expedition, 6S- 70; Indian campaigns of, 343; later years, 70, 71 ; manuscripts concerning, 345 ; Biography oft 350- Clark, Maj. Jonathan, 62, 345. — , William, 68; papers of, 345- -(111.), 142. Clarksville (Ind.), 70. Clay, Henry, Draper sees, 344- Cleveland, Moses, pioneer, 343. Clinton, DeWitt, at Lockport, 337. Company of the West, for Louisi- ana, 306. Congreg: t^onalists, in Wisconsin, 267-269. Congress of Confederation, plans Western States, 76-79, 82. — of United States, adjusts terri- torial boundaries, 81-93. 96, 101, i04-[09; sells lend mines, 331; A ufials, 96 . Secret Journals, 77. Congressional Documeids, 330. Connecticut cedes Western terri- tory, 80. Cook, Samuel F., Drummond Island, 223. Copper mines, early French, 234, 254-256, 303- Cornstalk, Shawnee chief, 6, 7. Cottage Grove (Wis.), 175. Coureurs de bois, 204, 212,215, 247, 257, 3or, 305- , ... Crawford, William, Indian fighter, 343, 350- Cree (Christino) Indians, 236, 24S. Creek, Boyd's (Wis.), 236. — , Catfish (Mo.), 320. — , Fish (West Va.), it. — , French (Ontario), 206, 225. — , Indian (111.), 136, 157, '60. — , Redstone (Pa.), 278, 280, 288. — , Sycamore (111-), 140, 148, i97" — , Turtle (Pa.), 279, 284, 294. — , Vandervenier (Wis.) 243. — , West Bureau (ill.), 135, 136, 142. —, Will's (Md.), 278, 279, 289. Croghan, Col. George, in War of 1812-15, 222, 345- 2,66 Assays in Western History Croghan, Dr. John, Kentucky pioneer, 340. — , William, Kentucky pioneer, 345. Crow Wing Reservation, 269. Crozat, Sieur Antliony, granted Louisiana, 305, 306, 316. Cruikshank, Ernest, "Black Hawk's record," 122. Cumberland (Md.), 279, 283, 286. — Gap, 6, 278. AD JOE," Illinois pioneer, D 135- Dad Joe's Grove (III), i35- Dakota Indians. See Sioux. Davenport, Col. George, early trader, 324. Davilson, John Nelson, "Missions on Chequamegon Bay," 265, 267, 26S ; Unnamed IVisconsin, 266. — and Struve, History of Illinois, 96. Davis, Jefferson, in Black Hawk War, 144, 145, 194 ; at lead mines, 331. — County (Iowa), 195. — farm (111.), in Black Hawk War, 157, 160. Decorah, One-eyed, Winnebago chief, 193, 194. Defiance (Wis.), 142. Delaware Indians, visited by Draper, 343. De Leyba, Francisco, Spanish gov- ernor of Louisiana, 37. De risle, Guillaume, map of, 252, 305- — , Le Gardeur, searches for mines, 306, 307. De Louvigny, , at Mackinac, 217. Delta County (Mich.), 93. Dement, Maj. John, in Black Hawk War, 161, 167. Denison University (Ohio), 338, 339. Denny, William H., Memoir of Miij. Ebeiiezer Denny^ 30. De Pere (Wis.), 246, 247. De Renault, Philippe Frangois, in Illinois, 306, 307. Detroit, founded, 305 ; French post, 216, 246, 251 ; British post, 8, 12- 14, 27, 40, 63, 225; attack on, planned, 19, 35, 65, 66, 219; American city, 76, 85, 90, 97, 99, 126. De Villiers, Louis Coulon, Sieur, French officer, 288. Dewitt, Abraham B., in Black Hawk War, 144. Diamond Grove (Wis.), 142. D'Iberville, Pierre LeMoyne, Sieur, in Louisiana, 303. Dixon, John, in Black Hawk War, 135- -(111), 105. Dixon's Ferry, 135 ; rendezvous in Black Hawk War, 136, 142, 147, 152, 156, 162, 163, 166, 172, 194. Doddridge, Joseph, border histo- rian, 339. Dodgej Henry, governor of Wis- consin, 106; in Black Hawk War, 160-169, 171-174, 179, 184, 1S9, 191. — County (Wis.), 174. Dodgeville (Wis.), 136, 142. Dorr County (Wis.)^ 93- Doughty, Major , built Fort Washington, 313. Doty, James Duane, early Wiscon- sin leader, 97-101, 262 ; manu- scripts of, 98. Drake, Dr. Daniel, pioneer his- torian, 340. — , S. G., American historian, 349. Draper, Luke, 336, 339. — , Lyman Copeland, ancestors, 335; early life, 335-338 ; interest in the Revolution, 336, 337 ; at Mobile, 338 ; in college, 338, 339 ; designs pioneer biographies, 339, 340; correspondence, 340, 341; itineraries, 341-343 ; interviews with pioneers, 342-344. 346; in- terviews Indian chiefs, 343, 344; in Mississippi, 346-34S ; in Balti- more and Philadelphia, 348, 349; a collector, not a writer, 348, 350, 351; founds Wisconsin Histori- cal Society, 352-355 ; as author, 354; retirement, 355 ; death, 356; characterized, 356, 357; bequeaths collections, 358; Notes. 313; King's Mountain, 354; Draper Manuscripts, 27, 30, 60, 68; de- scribed, 335, 345, 346. Drummond, Robert A., invents blast furnace, 308. Duane, James, congressman from New York, 75, 77. Du Bois, , works lead mines, 314- Dubuque, Julien, works lead mines, 313-315, 317-320, 326 ; gets grant from Spaniards, 219, 331. Index 367 Dubuque (la.), i44, 3oo, 302, 313- — County (la.), lead mines in, 300, 305. Ducharme, Dominique, in War of 1812-15, 314- ^ . Dufour, John James, Swiss emi- grant, 313- Du Luth, Daniel Greysolon, 247, 248, 301. Duluth (Minn.), 247. Dunbar, Col. Richard, in Brad- dock's campaign, 294. Dunbar's Camp (Pa.), 294, 295. Dunleith (Wis.), 314, 320. Dunmore, Lord John Murray, gov- ernor of Virginia, 6, 7. Duralde, Martin Miioney, applies for mining grant, 311. EARLY, Capt. Jacob M., in Black Hawk War, 158. East Meadow Run, 2S6. Edwards, Ninian, governor of Illi- nois, 100, 325 ; Papers, 100. Eldon (la.), 195. Elizabeth (111.), mines near, 315. Elk Grove (Wis.), 142- Equaysayway, Chippewa woman, 261. Ewing, Col. W. L. D., in Black Hawk War, 171, 177? i79) 189. FACENBAKER, Geoffrey, Pennsylvania farmer, 286, 292. Falls of Niagara, 225. — of Ohio, see Louisville. — of St. Anthony, 327. Fayette County (Pa.), History of, 291. Ferry, Rev. William M., Mack- inac clergyman, 268. Fifield, Sam. S., Wisconsin citizen, 236. Fire-arms, Indians learn to use, 300,315. Flint, Timothy, border historian, 339- Florida, expedition against, 69. Floyd, Serj. Q.\id.x\t%, Jottrnal, 345. Fonda, John H., "Reminiscences of Wisconsin," 186. Ford, Thomas, History 0/ Illitiois, 96, 120, 121, 183, 184. — , Worthington C, Writings of Washington, 75. Forman, Maj. Samuel S., Narra- tive^ 312. Forsyth, Maj. Thomas, Wisconsin Indian agent, 327, 328. Fort Armstrong (Rock Island), 125, 135, i4'< "43, 145, 194, i95« — Atkinson (Wis.), 172. — Chartres (111.), 306. — Clark (III), location, 329. — Crawford (Wis.), 133, 144, 146, 180, 181, 331- — Cumberland (Md.), 289. — Dearborn (111.), 137- — Duquesne, 25, 288, 294. — George (Mackinac), 222, 223. — HamiUon (Wis.), 142, 168, 172. — Holmes (Mackinac), 223. — Howard (Wis.), 136. — Jefferson, on the Mississippi, 66. — Madison (la.), 134, 139- — Massac (111-), 25. — Necessity, 279, 2S1, 2S2, 285, 286, 288-292. — Pitt, 5, 22, 23. — Plum River (111-), 162, i66. — Recovery, 82, 84. , — Sackville (Vincennes), surprised, 57, 58; besieged, 58-60; surren- dered, 61-63 ; re-named Patrick Henry, 62. — Sumter, 145. — Union (Wis.), 164. — Wayne (Ind.), 42. — Wilburn (111.), 165. — William (Ont.), 253. — Winnebago (Wis.), 136, 171, 172, 180, 182. Fortress Monroe, 121, 194. Four Lakes (Wis.), 168, 175, 176, 178, 199- Fox Indians, 9, 39> "6, 118, 134, 143, 244, 245 ; habitat, 246, 249, 31S ; war with French, 249 ; wth Chippewas, 253; treaty with, 325; own lead mines, 313, 318, work lead mines, 322-324, 326, 327; in War of 1812-15,314- ^ee also Sauk Indians. Fox's Bluff (Wis.), 163. Fox-Wisconsin portage, 136, 171, 232, 248. Franciscans, at Chequamegon, 272. Franklin, Benjamin, U. S. peace commissioner, 71, 72. Franauelin, Johannes Ludovicus, map of New France,235, 244, 252. Freeport (111.), 105. French, settlements in the North- west, 12, 14; furnish firearms to Indians, 300; life of settlers, 14- 368 Essays in Western History French {continued). i-j, 58, 215, 216, 226, 228; size of grants, 311 ; favor Amer- icans, 32, 33, 54, 56, 65 ; as lead traders, 323, 324, 328, 329. Frontenac, Louis de Baude, Conite de, 252. Frontiersmen, characteristics, 17, 20-22, 137, 321; Indian name for, 28 ; warfare with Indians, 7, 9, 10; French fear, 18, 219; seek new land, 4-7, lo, 11, 72. Fry, Jacob, in Black Hawk War, 144. Frye, Col. Henry, in Black Hawk War, 158, 165, 179. Fur-trade, territory kept for, 3, 72 ; French in, 12-15, 27, 215, 216, 315; British in, 8, 72, 203, 204, 220-227, 256, 286, 305; in Wis- consin, 233, 234, 247-254, 259- 265 ; rivalled by lead mining, 323. See also American Fur Company and Hudson's Bay Company. GAINES, Gen. Edmund P., in Black Hawk War, 130, 131. Galena (111.), 105; named, 331; rendezvous in Black Hawk War, 134-136, 142, 161, 164, 165, 167, 170; mines near, 301- 309, 315, 318, 32i-324> 326, 329; Gazette, 100. Galissoniere, Comte de la, gov- ernor of New France, 256. Genet, Charles E., .expedition of, 68-70. Georgia, Genet's expedition in, 69 ; manuscript relating to, 346. Gibault, Pierre, Kaskaskia priest, 33? 34- Girty, Mike, British agent, 141, 159, 160. _ _ — , Simon, British scout, 66. Gist, Christopher, pioneer scout, 279. Gordon, Capt. Harry, Journal, 310. _ Gosselin, A. Yi..,Jean Ntcolet, 207. Grand Portage (Minn.), 225, 226, 248. Grant County (Wis.), lead mines in, 300 ; History of, 316. Gratiot, Henry, Wisconsin pio- neer, 144, 160, 163. Gratiot's Grove (Wis.), 142. Gravier, Father Jacques, Jesuit missionary, 304, 305. Great Meadow Run (Pa.), 290. — Meadows, 286, 288, 289, 292. Green Bay (Wis.), 12, 15, 97, loi, 181, 210, 213, 225, 311, 328; Jesuit mission at, 233, 245-247 ; Advocate, 214; Sunday Messew g-er, 214, Greenville (Ohio), 83, 84 ; treaty of, 84, 224. ^ Groseilliers, Medard Chouart, Sieur de, French explorer, 207, 209, 213, 300; on Lake Superior, 234- 239, 247 ; in Minnesota, 239, 240 ; returns to Canada, 241 ; deserts to English, 242. See also Radisson. Guis, Monsieur le, describes lead mines, 307-309. Gulf of Mexico, 212, 232. — of St. Lawrence, 232, 240. HALDIMAND, Gen. Freder- ick, governor of Canada, 314. Hall, Benjamin F., border histo- rian, 339. Hall, Rachel, captured by Indians, 160, 164. — , Rev. Sherman, Wisconsin mis- sionary, 265-269. — , Sylvia, captured by Indians, 160, 164. — , Gen. William, governor of Ten- nessee, 343. — , William, Illinois pioneer, 160. Hamilton, Henry, governor at De- troit, 8, 40; councils with In- dians, 9 ; recaptures Vincennes, 40-42 ; attempts capture of Clark, 42-44 ; suspects Vigo, 45 ; sur- prised by Clark, 51, 54-59; besieged by Clark, 58-60 ; treats with Clark, 60, 61 ; surrenders, 61 ; prisoner, 62, 63 ; lieutenant- governor of Quebec, 63 ; gov- ernor of Dominica, 63. — , William S., early lead miner, 142, 168. Hampshire County (Va.), 23. Hand, Gen. Edward, Revolutionary officer, 23. Hanks, Lieut. Porter, commandant at Mackinac, 221, 224. Harmar, Gen. Josiah, pioneer sol- dier, 345, 350- . , , Harney, Maj. William S., m Black Hawk War, 146. Harrison, William Henry, 82, 344, 346. Index 369 Harrodsburg (Ky.), 10. Hebberd, S. S., IVisconsm under French Dovimiott, 249. Helena (Wis. ), 183. Helm, Leonard, Clark's captain, 20, 34, 38,41) 60, 63. Hennepin, Louis, French explorer, 24S ; map of, 301. - (111.). 142. Henry, , at Vincennes, 41. — , Alexander, fur-trader, 255, 258- 260; Travels and Adventures, 246, 258, 259. — , Daniel, describes Clark's cam- paign, 30. — , Maj. James D., in Black Hawk War, 144, 158, 165, 166, 169, 171- 174, 182-184, 189-191. — , Patrick, governor of Virginia, 18, 22, 23, 26, 36, 62-64. Herculaneum (Mo.), shot tower at, 322. Hermitage, Jackson's home, 346. Hildreth, Richard, commends Draper, 349. — , S. P., pioneer, 340. Holderman's Grove (III), 136. Holmes, Maj. Andrew H,, killed at Mackinac, 222. — , Lieut. Reuben, in Black Hawk War, 187. — , W. H., explores Lake Superior, 234- HopwoodCPa.), 281. Hough, Franklin B., American Constitutions, c,\. Houghton Point (Wis.), 240. Hudson's Bay Company, 208, 235, 242, 255. Hulbert, Archer Butler, Historic Highways, 135. Hunt, , fur-trader, 227. Hu7it''s MercJuifits' Magazine, 302. Huron, proposed territory of, 100. — Indians, 258; Jesuit mission to, 208-210, 235, 239, 241-246; vis- ited by Draper, 343. Hustisford (Wis.), 169, 173. Hutchins, Thomas, chart of, 85. ILES, Capt. Elijah, in Black Hawk War, 158. lUinoia, proposed State of, 77, 78. Illinois, under French regime, 17, 207, 306 ; under British regime, 3,24,32; captured by Americans, 28-42 ; erected into a county, 64, 65 ; made a territory, 92, 93 ; Illinois {continued). made a State, 92,95,96; boun- daries of, 99-101, 104-107, no, 166 ; lead mines in, 162, 300, 302, 306-310, 329; in Black Hawk War, 130, 135-166, 193? 198-200; manuscripts relating to, 346. Illinois Indians, 213, 245; leBrn use of firearms, 300. Indiana, under British regime, 3, 40-42, 54-62 ; made a territory, 83, 84, 95 ; territory divided, 86, 92, 93 ; admitted as State, 93 ; settlers of, 137. Indians, hunting grounds of, 3, 6 ; harry the border, 6, 8, 10, 17, 22, 28, 65, 66 ; incited by British, X19, 120, 223, 323, 344; relation to French, 17, 34, 38, 320, 321; Clark's methods with, 38-40, 54- 59, 65, 219. See also the sepa- rate tribes. Iowa, included in Illinois, 306 ; made a territory, 107, no, 195 ; historical archives of, 194, i95- — City, capital of State, 195. — County (Wis.), lead mines in, 300. — Indians, 39. Iroquois Indians, enemies of New France, 216, 234; war with Hurons, 20S-211, 23O1 245. 246- Irvine, William, Revolutionary soldier, 346. Irving, Washington, Astoria, 226. Island, Bass wood, in Chequamegon Bay, 252. — , Bois Blanc, 99, 219. — , Corn, Clark's rendezvous, 24, 70. — , Drummond's, 99, 223. — , La Pointe. See Madelaine. — , Mackinac, 204, 210, 217, 219, 220. —, Madelaine, 240, 241, 249, 252, 257, 260, 262, 266, 274; early names for, 2.52, 256. Islands, Manitoulin, 206, 208, 210, 246. — , Twelve Apostles, 239, 244. Isle La Grosse. See Mackinac. — Ronde. 5^^ Madelaine. — Royale, in Lake Superior, 234. — St. Josephs, 220, 222. T.A.CKER, Edward, Mackinac J missionary, 214. Jackson, Andrew, in Creek War, 343 ; message on admission of 24 370 Essays in Western History Jackson, Andrew {continued). Michigan, 90; visited by Draper, 344. 347- — George E., Missouri miner, 320-322. — (Wis.), 142. James, Maj. Thomas, in Black Hawk War, 144. James, Rev. Woodbridge L., Wis- consin missionary, 268. Jay, John, American peace com- missioner, 71, 72. Jefferson, Thomas, addresses Clark, 67, 68 ; proposes Western States, 77, 78. — (Wis.), 174. — Barracks (St. Louis), 144, 194. — Junction (Wis.), 175. Jesuit missions, 12, 28, 34, 204, 207-211, 213, 216, 219, 220, 233, 240, 242-247, 272. Jesuit Relatio7ts, 208, 235, 243, 244. Jobin, , Frenchman killed, 252. Jo Daviess County (111-)) ioi> 106; lead mines in, 300, 308 ; History ^,316,333- . . . Jogues, Isaac, Jesuit missionary, 207, 209. Johnson, Benjamin, in lead trade, 328. — , Col. James, 147 ; in lead mines, 326, 329. — , Col. Richard M., of Kentucky, 326, 340, 344. Johnston, John, at Chequamegon Bay, 259, 260. Jolliet, Louis, 212, 213, 235, 300. Jones, Col. Gabriel, in Black Hawk War, 179. Jouan, Henri, " Interprete voya- geur au Canada," 207. Joutel, Henri, early French trav- eller, 301. Jumonviile, Joseph Coulon, Sieur de, French officer, 288, 293-295 ; camp of, 2S2, 293, 294. Juneau, Solomon, Milwaukee pioneer, 137. KAMINISTIQUA (Ont.), 253. Kansas City (Mo.), 97. Kaskaskia (111.), early French set- tlement, 12-14, 306, 309; cap- tured by Americans, 24-32, 58, 64, 219 ; habitants aid Americans, 33-36, 44, 47 ; made county seat, 65; lead market, 313. Kellogg's Grove (111.), 135, 142, 161, 166-168. — trail, 135, 329. Kenton, Simon, Indian fighter, 343) 346, 350. Kentucky, settlement of, 6-8, 11; raided, 10, 17, 18, 42, 46; protec- tion for, 66, 289 ; pioneers of, 24, 28, 137, 340, 342 ; Genet's expe- dition in, 69, 70; manuscripts re- lating to, 346. Keokuk, Fox chief, 119, 124, 125, 134) 192, 195- . , . Keweenaw Point (Mich.), 236, 253- ^ . Kickapoo Indians, 57, 244, 245. Kilbourn City (Wis.), 193- Kingsbury, Lieut. Gaines P., in Black Hawk War, 187. King's Mountain, manuscripts re- lating to, 346 ; Draper's book on, Kinzie, Mrs. John H., IVazt Bttn, 180. LABUXIERE, Joseph, attor- ney at St. Louis, 311. Lacassangue, Michael, Louisville merchant, 313. Lac Courte Oreille (Wis.), 12, 241, 262, 264. — Flambeau (Wis.), 12, 264. Lachine Rapids, 206, 213. La Fayette, Marquis de, visits United States, 337. — County (Wis.), 160 : lead mines in, 300, 320; History of, 320, 322, 326, 328. La Hontan, Armand Louis de Delondarce, Baron de, early French traveller, 301. Lake Assiniboin, 226, 241. — Chetek(Wis.), 12. — of the Desert, 102. — Erie, 6, 12, 74, 85, 86, 95, 216. — Geneva (Wis.), 136. — Great Slave, 225. — Horicon (Cranberry Lake, Wis.), 174. — Huron, 12, 76, 95, 99, 203, 205, 214, 216, 246. — Kegonsa (First Lake, Wis ), — 'Koshkonong (Wis.), Black Hawk at, 154, 159, 160, 168-172, 183. — Mendota (Fourth Lake, Wis.), 163, 164, 177. Index 371 Lake Michigan 203, 214, 219, 301 ; explored, 207, 231 ; Indians near, 9; trails from, 136, 137; as a boundary, 76, 81, 84-89, 92, 93, 96-102, 105, 232. — Mills (Wis.), 175- — Monona (Third Lake, Wis.), 176, 177. — Nipissing, 206. — Ontario, 216. — Peoria (111.), lead purchased at, 302. — Pepin (Wis.), 303- — St. Clair, 76, 95. — Sandy, 247. — Shawano (Wis.), 9. — Superior, as a boundary, 103, no, 232 ; Indians of, 8, 240-247, 250 ; e-xplored, 206-209, 235-239 ; copper mines near, 234, 254-256 ; missions on, 242-247 ; com- merce cf, 203, 214, 226, 247-256; map of, 252, 264. — Waubesa (Second Lake, Wis.), 176. — Winnipeg, 226. Lallemant, Jerome, Jesuit mission- ary, 235. La INIothe. See Cadillac. La Motte, Monsieur de, finds lead mines, 306, 309. Langlade, Charles, early Wiscon- sin settler, 12. La Pointe, Story of, 231-274; ori- gin of name, 243, 261 ; locations, 273. See also Bay, Chequamegon. La Potherie, Bacqueville de, French historian, 302. La Prairie du Rocher, 43. La Ronde, Denys de, junior, 254- 256. — , Louis Denys, Sieur de, 252, 254-256. Larrabee, Charles H., Wisconsin citizen, 347, 348? 352- ,. La Salle, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de, 247. -(Ill-), 136. Laurel Hills (Pa.), 280,281. _ _ Law, John, grantee of Louisiana, 306. — , John, Colonial History of Vin- ceujies, 52. Lead mines, 124, 136, 142, 144? 162, 299-332. Le Font, Dr. , Jesuit, at Kas- kaskia, 34- Lena (111.), i6i. Le Sueur, Pierre Charles, early French explorer, 248-252, 303-305. Lewis, Freeman, surveyed Fort Necessity, 290. Lewis and Clark's expedition, 68, Libby, Orin G., " Chronicle of Helena Shot Tower," 184. Lincoln, Abraham, in Black Hawk War, 144, 158. ^ , Linctot, Sieur de, French com- mandant, 253. — , Godefroy, aids Americans, 40. Little Meadows (Pa.), 286. Little Thunder, Winnebago chief. 174. Lodge, Henry Cabot, Story of Revolutioti, 30. Logan, Benjamin, Kentucky pioneer, n. Logan's Station (Ky.), 10. Long, Maj. Thomas, in Black Hawk War, 144. Lossing, Benson J,, American his- torian, 349-352- Louisiana, under French regime, 80, 299-309 ; under Spanish re- gime, 37) 41. 45» 309-3 i4» 319; retroceded to France, 320; pur- chased by United States, 96, 320 ; map of, 305 ; mines in, 299-331. Louisville (Ky.), 20, 23, 35, 36, 64, 65,711313.^ T^ T Louvigny. See De Louvigny. Lucas, Robert, governor of Iowa, 195. Lynn, Capt. , Revolutionary soldier, 23. McBRIDE, David, " Capture of Black Hawk," 193- McCarty, Capt. Richard, in Clark's campaign, 61. McDonald, John, pioneer, 340. McDouall, Col. Robert, command- ant at Mackinac, 223. McDowell, John, Indian fighter, 345. McHenry County (111.), 106. McKee, Alexander, border rene- gade, 66. McKenney, Thomas 1.., History of Ifidian Tribes, 252, 260. Mackenzie, Alexander, explorer, 232. Mackinac, Story of, 203-228 ; me- ridian of, 86, 92, ic-o; French post, 203, 214, 216-218, 248, 255; 372 Essays in Western Histo7y Mackinac, Story of {continued). British, 12-14, 203, 218-220, 314; American, 203, 220-224, 262 ; mis- sions at, 246, 247, 265, 268 ; fur- trade, 211, 215, 224-227, 251. — boats, 146. — County (Mich.)) 93) 102. — Strait, 207, 217 Mackinaw City (Mich.), 204, 217. Macklot, J., early shot-maker, 322. Madison (Wis.), 107, 163, 168, 175, 177-179. Maiden, British at, 120, 123, 126, 129, 132, 136. Margry, Pierre, Dkouvertes et HablissenieiUs des FranQciis, 246, 304. Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit mis- sionary, 210-214, 235, 245-247, 270, 271, 300 ; journa) of, 213, 301. Martin, Col. William, pioneer, 340, 350- " Martin Manuscripts," Canadian Archives, 256. Mason, George, governor of Vir- ginia, 90; Clark's letter to, 19, 22, 30, 50, 64. Massachusetts, cedes Western lands, 80. Matson, Nehemiah, Memories cf Shaubena, 141. Mecklenburg (N. C), Declaration of Independence, 346. Meeker, Dr. Moses, establishes mining colony, 330. Menard, R^ne, Jesuit missionary, 209, 242. Menominee Indians, 9 ; in War of 1812-1815, 314; in Black Hawk War, 131, 132, 141, 181; mission to, 272. Merriam, Adj. , in Black Hawk War, 174. Matropotamia, proposed State of, 77, ?8. Miami Indians, 39, 75, 241;, 302. Michillimackinac. See Mackinac. Michigan, under British regime, 3, 40 ; as territory, 86, 87, 95-98, io8, 136, 142, 154, 157; State pro- posed, 76 ; State erected, 91 ; upper peninsula of, 90-94, 100, 102, 104; boundaries of, 88-104, 236; Indians of, 227; Herald^ 100; Pioneer Collections, 312. Michigania, proposed State of, 77, 78. Middleport (Wis.), 270, 274. Mille Lac region, 236, 240, 248. Miller, John S., early lead miner, 32t, 322. Mills, David, Report on Bounda- ries of Ontario, 301. Milwaukee, 12, 133. Mineral Point (Wis.), 134, 136, 142. Minnesota, explored, 239, 240; as a territory, 109-111; boundaries of, 23s, 247, 248; Indians of, 8, 18 , 188, 250 ; Historical Collec- tions, 233, 240, 241, 243, 249, 250, 252, 253, 256, 258, 259, 261, 262, 264, 265. Missions, Jesuit, 233, 240-247 ; Protestant, 265-270. Missouri, belongs to Illinois, 306 ; lead mines in, 300, 305, 312, 314, 320, 328, 330; boundaries of, 96, 99, 104, 1 10 ; Indian purchase in, 116. Mitchell, John, map, 84, 85. Mohawk Indians, visited by Draper, 343, 344. Monroe County (111), De Renault's grant in, 307. Montreal, 15, 225, 234, 241, 242, 251, 252, 256, 261. Moore, Charles, " Discoveries of Lake Superior," 209. Morgan, Indian chief, 119. Moundsville (111.), 25. Mount Braddock (Pa.), 279. Monntraille County (Dak.), 96. Muir, Samuel C, in lead mines, 326. MuUamphy, John, early Missouri settler, 331. NASHVILLE (Tenn.), 347. Natchez (Miss.), 66. Neapope, Sauk chief, 132, 133, 139, 178, 179, 182, 194, 197. Neill, Edward, History of Minne- sota, 303, 305 ; " History of Ojib- ways," 243, 249, 256, 267. Nemacolin, Delaware Indian, 279 ; his path, 279, 2S0, 286, 288, 289, 294. Neville and Martin, Historic Green Bay, 233. Newark (111.), 136. New France. See Canada. New Orleans, 27, 310, 344. New York, pioneers, 342 ; manu- scripts relating to, 346 ; Colonial Documents, 255, 256; Nation, 226. Niagara, fort at, 251. Index 373 Nicolay and '^T.y, Abraham Lin- coln, 138. Nicolet, Jean, French explorer, 206, 207, 231, 233, 234, 253, 300. Northwest, discovered, 206; taken for France, 208, 249 ; Britisli con- trol in, 224-226 ; conquest of, 3-72. North West Fur Company, 224, 225, 255, 262. Northwest Territory, boundaries, 75,76; organized, 76-82 ; divided into States, 82-1 11. Noiie, Robertel de la, French com- mandant, 253. O'BAIL, Maj. Henry, Senieca chief, 337. Odanah Reservation (Wis.), 269, 273- Ogden, George W., Letters from the West, 312. Ogle County (111.), 106. Ohio, part of Quebec, 3 ; Indian raids from, 65-67 ; State organ- ized, 76, 84-86; iDOundaries of, 88-92, 95, loi, 104, 105 ; pioneers of, 137, 340, 342 ; manuscripts relating to, 346. — Company, 278, 279. Old Mackinaw. See Mackinaw City. Oneida Indians, visited by Draper, 343- ^ ^ Onontio, Indian name for French governor, 252. Ordinance of 1787, 79-82. S4-87, 93, 95, 101-106. Oregon (111.), 105. Osage Indians, 39. Ottawa Indians, 39, 132, 209, 210, 234, 240, 241, 244-246; reserva- tion for, 325. — U11-). 157, 158, 160, 165, 318. PAQUETTE, Pierre, Wisconsin pioneer, 172, 173, 182. Parish, Thomas J., in Black Hawk War, 142. Parish's (Wis.), 142. Parkinson, Col. Daniel L.,in Black Hawk War, 142. Pavkman, Francis. commends Draper, 349 ; Conspiracy of Pontiac, 218; Hnf Century of Confict, 2^q\ Jesuits, 20S. — Club Publications, 20f). Patterson, J. B., edits Black Hawk's Autobiography, 120. Patterson, Robert, pioneer, 346. Payne, , in lead trade, 328. Pearson, Philippe, Jesuit mission- ary, 212. Pelisipia, proposed State of, 77, 78. Penicaut, , journal of, 303, 304. Pennsylvania, 5, 19, 137; as a boundarj', 76, 79, 81 ; manu- scripts relating to, 346 ; Histori- cal Society Publications, 30. Peoria (111.), 135, 142, 329; De Renault's grant near, 307. Peosta, Fox warrior, 313. Perrot, Nicholas, early French ex- plorer, 301 ; lead mines of, 30;;;, 304- Perry (N. Y.), Democrat, 347. Peru (111.), 136, 142, 165. Pheasant Branch (Wis.), 177. Philadelphia, 79. Piankeshaw Indians, 57. Pickaway Plains (Ohio), 7. Pickens, Andrew, South Carolina pioneer, 343. Pictured Rucks of Lake Superior, 236. Pike, Maj. Zebulon M., Expedi- tion, 319, 320. Pirtle, Alfred, Clark'^s Campaign, 47, 55- Pittman, Capt. Philip, Settlements on the Mississi/'/'i, 311, 312. Pittsburg, 277, 288, 313. PIatteville(Wis.), loi, 142. Point aux Pins, Lake Superior, 255- — St. Ignace. See Mackinac. Polvpotamia, proposed State of, 77, 78. Pepe, Nathaniel, Illinois congress- man, 96. Portage des Sioux, 125. Posey, Gen. Alexander, in Black Hawk War, 161, 165-172, 184, 189. Potawatomi Indians, 9, 39, 244- 246; in Black Hawk War, 122, 127, 132, 136, 139, 140, 148-154, 159, 160, 166; treaty with, 325; visited by Draper, 343. Potosi (Mo.), mines near, 306, 309. — (Wis.), mines near, 304. Potter, James, pioneer, 346. Pownall, Thomas, chart by, 85 ; Topographical Description, 310. Prairie du Chien (Wis.), 9, 212 ; French trading post, 12, 15, 40; in Black Hawk War, 126, 132, 374 Essays in Western History Prairie du Chien {contifmed). 144, 146, 181, 1S6, 188, 193 ; lead market, 313, 322, 323, 328. Prairie du Sac (WisJ, 180, 310. Presbyterians, in Wisconsin, 265- 269. Preston, Senator, arranges North- west boundaries, 102. — , William C, pioneer, 340, 346. Price's station (Ky.), 10. Prince Society Publications, 209. Prophet. See White Cloud. /^UASHQUAME, Indian chief, Quebec, founded, 205 ; early ex- plorers start from, 212, 231; In- dians trade at, 250 ; province of, 3. RADISSON, Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur de, French explorer, 207, 209, 213, 247; in Wisconsin, 234,300; on Lake Superior, 235- 239, 243, 244, 273 ; in Minnesoia, 239, 240; returns to Canada, 241 ; deserts to British, 242 ; Jottrnal, 209, 235, 236, 240. See also Groseilliers. Randall, Henry Stephen, Life of fe^erson, 78. Raudin, Sieur de, in fur-trade, 247. Raymbault, Charles, Jesuit mis- sionary, 207, 209. Red Ciiff (Wis ), 248. Redstone. See Brownsville. Red Wing (Minn.), 250. Remsen, Peter A., cotton mer- chant, aids Draper, 338-340, 348, 349; death, 352. Reynolds, Cov. John, in Black Hawk War, 130, 131, 141, 142, 145. 157? 15S, 162, 165, 170; My Own Tii7ies, 121, 131, 146, 151, 157. 163. 171. 172, 1S2, 191. Ritner, Lieut. Joseph, m Black Hawk War, i8r. River, Apple (111.), 135, 142, 161; mines on, 314, 328. — , Arkansas, 225. — , Athabasca, 204, 232. — , Bad (Wis.), 269. — , Bad Axe (Wis.), 186-190. — , Bark (Wis.), 169, 170, 172. — , Big Miami, 66, 75, 81. — , Black (Wis.), 209, 304. — , Blue (Minn.), 304. — , Bois Brule (Wis), 248, 249, 254, 255. River, Buffalo (Wis.), 304. — , Catfish (Wis.), 177. - — , Chicago, 249. — , Chippewa (Wis.), 304. — , Columbia, 204. — , Des Moines, 134, 195. — , Embarrass, 49, 50. — , Fever. See Galena. — , Fox (111), 116. — , — (Wis.), 39, 136, 234, 235, 246. See also Fox- Wisconsin portage. — , Galena, lead mines of, 299, 302, 304, 305, 308, 3095 3155 322-326, 329-331- — , Grant (Wis.), lead mine on, 304. — , Great Kanawha, 23. — , Holston, settlement at, 24. — , Illinois, 40, 116, 135, 136, 141, 142, 154, 306 ; mines on, 307. — , Iron (Mich.), 255. — , Iroquois (111.), 155. — , James (Va. ), 66. — , Joachim (Mo.), 322. — , Kaskaskia (111), 26, 28. — , Kentucky, 82, 313. — , Kishwaukee (111.), 149, 154, 156, i57» 167, 199- — , Mad, 75. — , Maumee, 40, 75, 76, 85, 86, 89. — , Menominee (Wis), 102, 103. — , Meramec (Mo.), lead mines on, 306. — , Milwaukee, 9, 137. — , Mississippi, explored, 207, 212, 2i3> 235, 247, 24S, 300, 304, 305 ; French control, 233 ; French posts on, 250, 303 ; Spanish set- tlements on, 69; Indians on, 9, 39, 65, 118, 123, 131, 134, 139, 140, 166, 174, 180, 185, 197; battle upon, 186, 188; fugitives cross, 191-193 ; Clark on, 25, 66; as a boundary, 79, 80, 95-97, 107- iio, 116, 232; lead-mining on, 299-332 ; commerce on, 143. — , Missouri, 96, 97, 99, 104, 118. — , Monongahela, 277, 278, 28S. — , Montreal, 102, 103, 236. — , Muskingum, 71. — , Ohio, as a boundary, 3, 5, 6, 17, 18, 76, 79, 8i, 82, 92 ; settlements on, 8, 12 ; Clark on, 23, 25, 46, 47 ; voyage down, 278 ; le.id transported on, 313. — , Ottawa, 206, 216, 225. — , Ozarl:, 23. — , Peckatonica (Wis.), battle near, 160. Index 375 River, Pigeon, 226, 232, 251, 253; early name for, 235. — , Platte, 204, 225. — , Platte (Wis.), lead mine on 304- — , Potomac, 278. — , Raisin, battle near, 85. — , Rock, 9, 135, 139) i54> i99 ; Black Hawk's village on, 118, 128, 196 ; Winnebago village, 127, 140, 143; settlements, 141, 165 ; pursuit of Black Hawk, 145, 156-159, 162, 171-175- — , Rum, 248. — , St. Croix, 108, no, 248, 249, 254, 264, 303, 304. ^ . — , St. Francois (Mo.), mines near, 306. — , St. Josephs (Mich.), 1^, 249. — , St. Lawrence, 206,215,241,257. — , St. Louis, no, 247, 248, 251. — , St. Mary, 99, 223. — , Sugar (Wis.), 168. — , Thames, battle on, 122. — , Wabash, 12, 40, 46, 47, 51, 65, 66,80, 81, 126; drowned lands of, 48, 49. — , White Earth, 96, 97, 104. —, Whitewater (Wis. ), 170. — , Wisconsin (Ouisconsin), 9, 154, 199, 234 ; Dalles of, 188, 193 ; survey of, 304; Indians on, 116, 118 ; Menard, 242 ; French post, 302 ; Black Hawk, 170, 177, 180, 183 ; territory named for, 99. — , Youghiogheny, 286. Riviere i la Mine. See Galena. Roads, National (Pa.), 279, 281, 283, 285. Robertson, James, Tennessee pioneer, 343, 350. Rocheblave, Philippe de. com- mandant at Kaskaskia, 27, 30, 31, 33, 36. Rochester (N. Y.), Gem, 338. Rockford (111.), 105, 106. Rock Island (111.), 99. "§. '31, 135, i93> 303, 322; settled, 324. — Island County (111.), 106. Rogers, Lieut. John, in Clark's campaign, 46, 62. Royal India Company of Illinois, 306. ST. ANGE, Louis de Bellerive, Sieur de, commaudant of Illi- nois, 311. St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, governor of St. Clair, Gen. Arthur {contifiued). Northwest Territory, 82, 350 ; Papers, 82. Ste. Genevieve (Mo.), lead market, 312. St. Francis Xavier mission. Green Bay, 246, 247. St. Ignace (Mich.), 211, 214, 217; mission, 247. See also ^IzcVSvxzc. St. Louis (Mo.), 37, 45, 46, 125, 126, 143, 194, 311-313, 319.322- 327; Pastoral Blati, 214. Saint-Lusson, Sieur de, takes pos- session of Northwest, 208, 249,259. St. Paul (Minn.), no. St. Philippe, early Illinois settle- ment, 307. St. Pierre, Paul le Gardeur, Sieur de, French explorer, 253. Sarp, , fur-trader, 312. Saratoga, proposed State of, 77, 78 Sauk Indians, habitat, 9, 39, 40, 118, 119, 128, 136, 244-246, 310, 318; in War of 1812-15, 314; own lead mines, 313-318, 322- 324, 326, 327; treaty with, 325; encroached upon, 124, 128, 131, 197; massacre Menominees, 131, 132 ; raid the border, 166-178 ; battle with, 179, 180 ; seek peace, 1 82, 183; retreat, 183-18S; last battle of, 188-192. See also Black Hawk and Fox Indians. Sauk trail, 136. Sault Ste. Marie, 206-208, 225, 235, 245, 249, 251, 253, 255, 256, 259, 260. Scharf, J. T., Si. Louts, 311, 312. Schoolcraft, Henry B., Narrative, 244, 252, 262 ; Discovery of Sources 0/ Mississippi River, 313 ; View of Lead Mines of Missouri, 314. — County (Mich.), 93. Scotc'i, in fur-trade, 225. Scott, Gen. Winfield, in Black Hawk War, 15S, 193. Seneca Indians, visited by Draper, 343- _ Sevier, John, Tennessee pioneer, 343, 350. Shaubena, Potawatomi chief, 122, 141, 148, ms- Shaw, Capt. John.'lead trader, 323. Shawnee Indians, 6, 122, 343. Shea, John Gilmary, Early Missis- sippi I 'oyages, 303 ; Charlevoix'' 5 Histoire, 307. 37^ JSssays m Western History Shelburne, Lord, on fur-trac!e, 72. Shelby, Isaac, Western pioneer, 343- Shepherd, David, pioneer, 346. Shore's Landing (Wis.), 236. Shot manufacture, 322. Shreeve, Henry, lead trader, 323. Shall, Jesse W., in lead mines, 326. Shullsburg(Wis.), 142.^ Sinclair, Patrick, British officer, 218, 219, 223, 314. Sinsiniwa Mound (Wis. ), 162. Sire, Joseph A., lead merchant, 312. Sioux Indians, habitat, 8, 187, 210, 240 ; war with Chippewas, 244- 248, 253 ; in Black Hawk War, 131, 187, 192, 197; lead mines among, 300. Smith, William R., History of Wisconsin, 163. Smithsonian Institution, 234. Soulard, James G., early traveller, 326. South Carolina, pioneers of, 340 ; manuscripts relating to, 346. — Ottawa (111.). 136, 142. South West Fur Company, 224, SpafEord's Farm (Wis.), 160. Spaniards, on Mississippi, 69; work mines, 314; grant land to Du- buque, 319, 331; befriend Clark, 36-38. . ,. . Sparks, Jared, American historian, 291, 349. " Speedwell," Lake Superior vessel, 255. Spooner, Abigail, Wisconsin mis- sionary, 268. Stambaugh, Col. S. C, in Black Hawk War, i8i. Stephenson, Capt. J. W., in Black Hawk War, 164, 168. — County (111.), 106, 161. Stiilman, Maj. Isaiah, in Black Hawk War, 147-153, 156, 163, 165. Stiilman' s Run. See Creek, Syca- more. Stoddard, Maj. Amos, Sketches of L ouisin7ia ,312. Street, Gen. Joseph, Wisconsin Indian agent, 132, 181, 193, 194. Suggett, , in lead trade, 328. Sully, R. M., paints Black Hawk's portrait, 121. Suite, Benjamin, Melanges, 270. Sumter, Gen. Thomas, pioneer, 343, 346- Sylvania, proposed State of, 77, 78. Symmes, John CI eves, Ohio pio- neer, 346. TALCOTT, Capt. A., surveyor, 85, 89. Tawanears (Governor Blacksnake), Seneca chief, 344. Taylor, Col. Zachary, in Black Hawk War, 146, 169. Tecumseh, 122, 127; death of, 326, 344 ; papers concerning, 346. Tennessee, 66, 329, 340, 342 ; manu- scripts relating to, 346. Thomas, Henry, early Illinois set- tler, 135. — , Col. John, in Black Hawk War, 144. — , Lieut. M., superintendent of lead mines, 330. Thompson, Samuel M., in Black Hawk War, 144. Throckmorton, John, captain of the" Warrior," 186. Thwaites, Reuben Gold, " Boun- daries of Wisconsin," iii ; Hen- nepin's New Discoz'ery, 248 ; Father Ularqiietie, 214; Story of Wisconsin, 303. Timms's Grove (111.), 161. Todd, Andrew, trader in Upper Louisiana, 319. — , Charles S., pioneer, 340. — , John, county-Heutenaut of Illi- nois, 64, 65. Toledo (Ohio), 89. Tommy Jimmy, Seneca chief, 337. Treaties, Ghent, 122, 222, 224 ; Jay, 220, 224, 225 ; Paris, 71, 80, 220. Turner, Frederick Jackson, " Clark Manuscripts," 27 ; '' Corre- spondence of Clark and Genet," 69; " Fur Trade in Wisconsin," 225- Tuscarora Indians, visited by Draper, 343. Two Rivers (Wis.), 12. UNDERWOOD, Joseph R., pioneer, 340. Union (Wis.), 142. Uniontown (Pa.), 279-281, 2S4, 295. United States, supreme court on lead-mining claims, 331, 332. Index 377 VAN METRE, A. P., in lead mines, 326. Vaudreuil, Marquis de, governor of Canada, 217. Venango, Washington visits, 279. Verwyst, Rev. Chrysostom, " His- toric Sites on Chequamegon Bay," 236, 240, 243 ; I\Iissiofui?y Labors of Jhathers Marquette, Mefiard, and Aliouez, 244, 270- 272. Vevay (Ind.), founded, 313. Vigo, Francis, French trader, 45, 46, 313. Vinceniies, 12-14, 18; surrenders to Americans, 34 ; captured by Hainihon, 40-42 ; re-taken by Clark, 45-63, 67, 219; garrisoned, 65 ; seat of government, 83 ; meridian of, 81, 93, Virginia, 5, 6, 10. 70, yi, 342 ; Clark in, i8, 19, 66, 67 ; captures Northwest, 33, 34, 44, 45 ; Ham- ilton sent 10,62-64; cedes terri- tory, 80, 89 ; occupies forks of Ohio, 288; manuscripts relating to, 346. TITABASHA, Sioux chief, 187, Waddam's Grove (111.), 161. Wakefield, John A., History of Black Hawk War, 144, 155, 176, 180, 183, 191, 193. Walker, Gov. William, Wyandot chief, 344. Wallace, ]. ,Illitwis and Louisiana, 305, 308. Wapello, Fox chief, 1 19. Ward, Capt. James, Kentucky pioneer, 343. Warren, Hooper, early editor, lOO. — , Lyman Marcus, early Wiscon- sin settler, 263-265, 267, 270. — , Richard, 263. — , Truman Abraham, early Wis- consin settler, 263, 264. — , William Whipple, 264, 265 ; " History of Ojibways," 233, 240, 258, 259, 261, 262. " Warrior," Mississippi steamer, 186-188, 191, 197. Wars, French and Fox, 249; French and Indian, 288 ; Pontiac's, 259 ; Lord Dunmore's, 6, 7, 11, 71; Revolutionary, 3, 5, 7, 14, 65, 66, 219, 336, 337, 354; with Wars, French and Fox (continued). Creeks, 343 ; of 1812-15, 119, 122, 131, 141, 221, 224, 262, 314, 337, 345 ; Black Hawk, 115-200. Washburn (Wis.), 236, 273. Washburne, E. B., 100, lor, 164, 307 ; Edwards Papers, 325. Washington, George, 11 ; in French and Indian War, 279, 280, 285, 286, 288, 292, 293, 295 ; scores Hamilton, 63 ; ends Genet's ex- pedition, 70; proposes Western States, 75, 76. — , proposed State of, 77, 78. — City, 69, 78, 120, 194. — Springs (Pa.), 282, 293 Watertown (Wis.\ 174. Waubojeeg, Chippewa chief, 260. Wayne, Anthony, 224, 350. Weatherford, Creek cliief, 338. West Augusta (Va.), Clark recruits in, 20. Wetzels, Kentucky pioneers, 28, 343, 345i 350- Wheeler, Edward P., authority on La Pointe, 233, 236. — , Rev. Leonard Hemenway, Wis- consin missionary, 268, 269. Wheeling (W. Va.), 22, 28. White, Hugh L., pioneer, 340. — Cloud ( Prophet), Winnebago chief, 126-129, 132, 133, 139, 140, 143. 193 ; village of, 140, 144, 147, 188, 194. — Crane, Chippewa chief, 261. — Crow (Kaukishkaka), Winne- bago chief, 160, 163, 164, 168- 170, 172. — Fisher. See Waubojeeg. Whiteman, Gen. Benjamin, Ohio pioneer, 343. White Oak Springs (Wis.), 142. Whiteside, Gen. Samuel, in Black Hawk VVar, 145-147, 156, 158. Whitesides County (111.), 106. Whilley, William, Kentucky pio- neer, 350. Whittlesey's Creek (Wis.), 236. Wilburn (111.), 142, 165. Williams, Capt. John, in Clark's campaign, 61. — , M. C., Old Mission Church of Mackinac Island, 228. Williamsburg (Va.), 34, 63. ' ' Willing,' ' Clark's galley, 46,47, 5 1. Wilson, , fur-trader, 227. Winchell, Newton H., Geological Survey of Minnesota, 301. 378 Essays i7t Western History Wingville (Wis.), 142. Winnebago County (Ill.)> 106. — Indians, habitat, 9, 39, 127, 173, 318; language of, 182, 197; in War of 18 12-15, 314, in Black Hawk War, 128, 129, 139, 148, 154, 159, 163, 166-175, 180, 182, 187, 188, 199, 200 ; capture Black Hawk, 193, 194 ; agency of, 322 ; claims of, 325. Winnipeg countiy, 232. Winona (Minn.), 187. Winsor, Justin, criticises Draper, 354 ; Cartier to Frontenac, 305 ; History of A merica^ 306. Winter, , early Illinois settler, Wiota(Wis.), 142, 168. Wisconsin, topography, 232 ; In- dians of, 8, 65, 209, 210, 227. 244, 245, 250, 256, 300 ; under French regime, 12, 207, 231, 233 ; under British regime, 3, 39, 40, 219; organized as territory, 99, loi, 105, no; State formed, 108; legislature of, 106 -no; boun- daries of, 92, 93, 98, 102, 104, Wisconsin {continued.^ 105, 107-110, 236, 247; in Black Hawk War, 136, 142, 162-200; missions in, 242-247, 249, 265- 273; University of, 177, 354; Historical Society, 121, 194, 235, 352, 353; library of, 335, 345. 353 ; Collections, 4, 78, loi, m, 122, 135, 136, 144, 159, 161, 163, 164, 172, 175, 181, 184, 1S6, 193, 207-209, 226, 233, 234, 236, 249, 253, 258, 265, 268, 272, 300, 302, 303, 314, 316, 322, 323, 326,327, 329, 33o> 353 ; Proceedings, 225, 255- — Heights, battle of, 179-181, 184, 197, 199. Withers, Alexander S., border his- torian, 339. Worthington, Capt. Edward, in Clark's campaign, 61, 62. Woodbridge, Adj. W. W.,in Black Hawk War, 174. Wyandot Indians. See Hurons. YELLOW BANKS, 139. i55, 162, 192. Companion volume to " Down Historic JVaterways " On the Storied Ohio AN HISTORICAL PILGRIMAGE OF A THOUSAND MILES IN A SKIFF, FROM REDSTONE TO CAIRO Being a nenv and renjised edition of '■^Afloat on the Ohio,^" njjith ne^w Preface and full-page illustrations from photographs THIS trip was undertaken by Mr. Thwaites some years ago, with the idea of gathering local color for his studies of Western history. The Ohio River was an important factor in the devel- opment of the West. He therefore wished to know intimately the great waterway in its various phases, and there seemed no better way than to make the pilgrimage as nearly as possible in the manner of the pioneer canoeist or flat-boatman himself. The voyage is described with much charm and humor, and with a constant realization of the historical traditions on every side. For the better understanding of these references the author has added a brief sketch of the settle- ment of the Ohio Valley. A selected list of journals of previous travellers has also been added. Uniform njjith " Do^wn Historic ff^ateravajs^' and '< Ho^iv George Rogers Clark IVon the Northwest i2mo. 300 pages, $1.20 net A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers