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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

DOWN HISTORIC WATERWAYS

A Bayou on the Wisconsin River

Down
Historic Waterways
SIX HUNDRED MILES OF
CANOEING UPON ILLINOIS AND
WISCONSIN RIVERS
BY
REUBEN GOLD THWAITES Ml
SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN
EDITOR OF " THE JESUIT RELATIONS," ETC.

Second edition , revised, with
New Preface and with full-page Illustrations from photographs

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1902

Copyright
A. C. McClurg & Co.
1888-1902

PublishedFebruary, 1902.

g 8 iH

Chts Utttle Uolume
IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR
TO HIS WIFE
HIS MESSMATE UPON TWO
OF THE THREE VACATION VOYAGES HEREIN RECORDED
AND HIS FELLOW-VOYAGER DOWN
THE RIVER OF TIME

Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the traveller to stare
at her ; but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion,
silently creating and adorning it, and is free to come and go as the
zephyr. — Thoreau : A Week o?i the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.

THE three canoe voyages recorded in
this little book were undertaken in the
summer of 1887. The volume itself appeared
in 1890. Census reports indicate that during
the twelve years which have elapsed since
Historic Waterways was first published,
there has been a steady growth of trade,
industry, and population within the river
towns of the Rock and Fox ; also, though in
less degree, in the towns upon the Wisconsin.
From the canoeist's point of view, however,
the changes have been unimportant; so that
descriptions written in 1887 practically hold
good to-day. The experiences of the voy
ager of 1902 would not be materially different
from those of predecessors in the earlier
year. In preparing this new edition for the
press, it has not been found necessary to make
radical changes. Numerous verbal corrections
have, however, freely been made ; several full-
page illustrations have been introduced, a
feature lacking in the first issue ; some slight
rearrangement of matter has also been thought
desirable ; and a new cover, more in keeping
with present-day tastes, has replaced the old.
These six hundred miles of canoeing upon
Illinois and Wisconsin waters were at first un
dertaken in the unromantic spirit of historical

10 Preface to the Second Edition.
inquiry. The author's professional studies
at the time seemed to require intimate topo
graphical familiarity with drainage systems
which were the original highways through the
Western country. Coming to them as a stu
dent of history, he remained as a student of
nature; finding no happier avocation than
this feature of his vocation.
In his record of that first summer in the
canoe, he made no attempt to color its homely
incidents, or to picture charms where none
exist. It was intended as a simple, truth
ful narrative of things seen upon what were,
at the time, a series of novel outings through
the heart of the Northwest. Largely inspired
by this book, many another expedition has
since been made through these waters ; until
the three streams have now become the scene,
each summer, of excursions often much more
extended than those herein described. The
author himself has, in later years, explored
numerous other rivers in our Western land,
some of them more important historically,
and many far less peaceful in their flow;
but of all his journeyings, at home or abroad,
by canoe, by wheel, or afloat, none linger
quite so fondly in memory as the voyages
which furnished the theme for HISTORIC
Waterways, — which was, as well, practically
his first book. There is double reason, there
fore, why the preparation of this revised edi
tion is a labor of love.
R. G. T.
Madison, Wis., February, 1902.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface to the Second Edition .... 9
Introduction  r5
%ty Eorft Eiber
CHAPTER I.
The Winding Yahara  31
CHAPTER II.
Barbed- Wire Fences  48
CHAPTER III.
An Illinois Prairie Home  61
CHAPTER IV.
The Half-Way House  74
CHAPTER V.
Grand Detour Folks  86
CHAPTER VI.
An Ancient Mariner  103
CHAPTER VII.
Storm Bound at Erie  117
CHAPTER VIII.
The Last Day Out  129
fJDIje JFox 3&itar (ai &rent 3Sap_)
FIRST LETTER
Smith's Island  143

1 2 Contents.
SECOND LETTER
From Packwaukee to Berlin  160
THIRD LETTER
The Mascoutins  174
FOURTH LETTER
The Land of the Winnebagoes  187
FIFTH LETTER
Locked Through  205
SIXTH LETTER
The Bay Settlement  218
ffifje Wisconsin 3ftifar
CHAPTER I.
Alone in the Wilderness  237
CHAPTER II.
The Last of the Sacs  248
CHAPTER III.
A Panoramic View  262
CHAPTER IV.
Floating Through Fairyland  275
CHAPTER V.
The Discovery of the Mississippi .... 288
TABLE OF DISTANCES  295
INDEX  297

ILLUSTRATIONS

A Bayou on the Wisconsin River Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Fourth Lake, near Madison, Wisconsin . 32
The Rock River at Oregon, Illinois . . 86
The Rock River below Oregon, Illinois 92
The Rock River at "The Oaks" . . . 108
The Fox River, near Depere, Wisconsin 228
The Wisconsin River, near Helena . . 266
Junction of the Wisconsin and Missis
sippi Rivers  290

INTRODUCTION

DOWN
HISTORIC WATERWAYS.

INTRODUCTION.
PROVIDED, reader, you have a goodly
store of patience, stout muscles, a prac
ticed fondness for the oars, a keen love of the
picturesque and curious in nature, a capacity
for remaining good-humored under the most
adverse circumstances, together with a quiet
love for that sort of gypsy life which we call
" roughing it," canoeing may be safely recom
mended to you as one of the most delightful
and healthful of outdoor recreations, as well
as one of the cheapest.
The canoe need not be of birch-bark or
canvas, or of the Rob Roy or Racine pattern.
A plain, substantial, light, open lap-streak
was what we used, — thirteen feet in extreme
length, with three-and-a-half feet beam. It
2

1 8 Down Historic Waterways.
was easily portaged, held two persons com
fortably with seventy-five pounds of baggage,
and drew but five inches, — just enough to let
us over the average shallows without bump
ing. It was serviceable, and stood the rough
carries and innumerable bangs from sunken
rocks and snags along its voyage of six hun
dred miles, without injury. It could carry a
large sprit-sail, and, with an attachable keel,
run close to the wind ; while an awning, de
cided luxury on hot days, was readily hoisted
on a pair of hoops attached to the gunwale on
either side. But perhaps, where there are no
portages necessary, an ordinary flat-bottomed
river punt, built of rough boards, would be as
productive of good results, except as to speed,
— and what matters speed upon such a tour
of observation ?
It is not necessary to go to the Maine lakes
for canoeing purposes ; or to skirt the gloomy
wastes of Labrador, or descend the angry
current of a mountain stream. Here, in the
Mississippi basin, practically boundless oppor
tunities present themselves, at our very doors,
to glide through the heart of a fertile and
picturesque land, to commune with Nature,
to drink in her beauties, to view men and
communities from a novel standpoint, to catch
pictures of life and manners that will always

Introduction. 19
live in one's memory. The traveler by rail
has brief and imperfect glimpses of the land
scape. The canoeist, from his lowly seat
near the surface of the flood, sees the
country practically as it was in pioneer days,
in a state of unalloyed beauty. Each bend in
the stream brings into view a new vista, and
thus the bewitching scene changes as in a
kaleidoscope. The people one meets, the va
riety of landscape one encounters, the simple
adventures of the day, the sensation of being
an explorer, the fresh air and simple diet,
combined with that spirit of calm contented-
ness which overcomes the happy voyager who
casts loose from care, are the never-failing
attractions of such a trip.
To those would-be canoeists who are fond
of the romantic history of our great West, as
well as of delightful scenery, the Fox (of
Green Bay), the Rock, and the Wisconsin,
each with its sharply distinctive features,
will be found among the most interesting of
our neighborhood rivers. And this record of
recent voyages upon them is, I think, fairly
representative of what sights and experiences
await the boatman upon any of the streams
of similar importance in the vast and well-
watered region of the upper Mississippi valley.
Of the three, the Rock river route, through

20 Down Historic Waterways.
the great prairies of Illinois, perhaps presents
the greatest variety of life and scenery. The
Rock has practically two heads : the smaller,
in a rustic stream flowing from the north into
swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger,
in the four lakes at Madison, the charming
capital of Wisconsin, which empty their wat
ers into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara,
which in turn pours into the Rock a short
distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our
course was from Madison almost to the mouth
of the Rock, near Rock Island, 267 miles of
paddling, as the river winds.
The student of history finds the Rock in
teresting to him because of its associations
with the Black Hawk war of 1832. When
the famous Sac warrior " invaded " Illinois,
his path of progress was up the south bank
of that stream. At Prophetstown lived his
evil genius, the crafty White Cloud, and here
the Hawk held council with the Pottawat-
tomies, who, under good Shaubena's influence,
rejected the war pipe. Dixon is famous as
the site of the pioneer ferry over the Rock,
on the line of what was the principal land
highway between Chicago and southern Wis
consin and the Galena mines for a protracted
period in each year. Here, many a notable
party of explorers, military officials, miners,

Introduction. 2 1
and traders have rendezvoused in the olden
time. Here was a rallying-point in 1832, as
well, when Lincoln was a raw-boned militia
man in a scouting corps, and Robert Ander
son, of Fort Sumter fame, Zachary Taylor,
and Jefferson Davis were of the regular army
under bluff old Atkinson. A grove at the
mouth of Stillman's Creek, a Rock River
tributary, near Byron, is the scene of the
actual outbreak of the war. The forest where
Black Hawk camped with the white-loving
Pottawattomies is practically unchanged, and
the open, rolling prairie to the south — on
which Stillman's horsemen acted at first so
treacherously, and afterwards as arrant cow
ards — is still there, a broad pasture-land
miles in length, along the river. The contem
poraneous descriptions of the " battle " field
are readily understandable to-day. Above,
as far as Lake Koshkonong, the river banks
are fraught with interest; for along them the
soldiery followed up the Sac trail, like blood
hounds, and held many an unsatisfactory
parley with the double-faced Winnebagoes.
Rock River scenery combines the rustic,
the romantic, and the picturesque, — prairies,
meadows, ravines, swamps, mountainous
bluffs, eroded palisades, wide stretches of
densely wooded bottoms, heavy upland forests,

22 Down Historic Waterways.
shallows, spits, and rapids. Birds and flowers,
and uncommon plants and vines, delight the
naturalist and the botanist. The many thriv
ing manufacturing cities, — such as Stough-
ton, Janesville, Beloit, Rockford, Rockton,
Dixon, Sterling, and Oregon, — furnish an
abundance of sight-seeing. The small vil
lages — some of them odd, out-of-the-way
places, of rare types — are worthy of study to
the curious in economics and human nature.
The farmers are of many types ; the fisher
men one is thrown into daily communion with
are a class unto themselves ; while millers,
bridge-tenders, boat-renters, and others whose
callings are along-shore, present a variety of
humanity interesting and instructive. The
twenty-odd mill-dam portages, each having
difficulties and incidents of its own, are well
calculated to vary the monotony of the voy
age ; there are more or less dangers connected
with some of the mill-races, while the look
out for snags, bowlders and shallows must be
continuous, sharpening the senses of sight
and sound ; for a tip-over or the utter demoli
tion of the craft may readily follow careless
ness in this direction. The islands in the
Rock are numerous, many of them being
several miles in length, and nearly all heavily
wooded. These frequent divisions of the

Introduction. 2 3
channel often give rise to much perplexity ;
for the ordinary summer stage of water is so
low that a loaded canoe drawing five inches
of water is liable to be stranded in the chan
nel apparently most available.
The Fox and Wisconsin rivers — the for
mer, from Portage to Green Bay, the latter
from Portage to Prairie du Chien — form a
water highway that has been in use by white
men for two and a half centuries. In 1634,
Jean Nicolet, the first explorer of the North
west, passed up the Fox River, to about Berlin,
and then went southward to visit the Illinois.
In the month of June, 1673, Joliet and Mar
quette made their famous tour over the in
terlocked watercourse and discovered the
Mississippi River. After they had shown the
way, a tide of travel set in over these twin
streams, between the Great Lakes and the
great river, — a motley procession of Jesuit
missionaries, explorers, traders, trappers, sol
diers and pioneers. New England was in
its infancy when the Fox and Wisconsin be
came an established highway for enterprising
canoeists. Since the advent of the railway era this
historic channel of communication has fallen
into disuse. The general government has
spent an immense sum in endeavoring to

24 Down Historic Waterways.
render it navigable for the vessels in vogue
to-day, but the result, as a whole, is a failure.
There is no navigation on the Fox worthy of
mention, above Berlin, and even that below is
insignificant and intermittent. On the Wis
consin there is none at all, except for skiffs
and an occasional lumber-raft.
The canoeist of to-day, therefore, will find
solitude and shallows enough on either river.
But he can float, if historically inclined,
through the dusky shadows of the past, for
every turn of the bank has its story, and there
is romance enough to stock a volume.
The upper Fox is rather monotonous.
The river twists and turns through enormous
widespreads, grown up with wild rice and
flecked with water-fowl. These widespreads
occasionally free themselves of vegetable
growth and become lakes, like the Buffalo,
the Puckawa, and the Poygan. There is,
however, much of interest to the student in
natural history ; while such towns as Montello,
Princeton, Berlin, Omro, Winneconne, and
Oshkosh are worthy of visitation. Lake
Winnebago is a notable inland sea, and the
canoeist feels fairly lost, in his little cockle
shell, bobbing about over its great waves.
The lower Fox runs between high, noble
banks, and with frequent rapids, past Neenah,

Introduction. 25
Menasha, Appleton, and other busy manu
facturing cities, down to Green Bay, hoary
with age and classic in her shanty ruins.
The Wisconsin River is the most pictur
esque of the three. Probably the best route is
from the head of the Dells to the mouth ; but
the run from Portage to the mouth is the one
which has the merit of antiquity, and is cer
tainly a long enough jaunt to satisfy the average
tourist. It is a wide, gloomy, mountain-girt
valley, with great sand-bars and thickly-
wooded morasses. Settlement is slight. Por
tage, Prairie du Sac, Sauk City, and Muscoda
are the principal towns. The few villages
are generally from a mile to three miles back,
at the foot of the bluffs, out of the way of the
flood, and the river appears to be but little
used. It is an ideal sketching-ground. The
canoeist with a camera will find occupation
enough in taking views of his surroundings ;
perplexity as to what to choose amid such a
crowd of charming scenes, will be his only
difficulty. Some suggestions to those who may wish
to undertake these or similar river trips may
be advisable. Traveling alone will be found
too dreary. None but a hermit could enjoy
those long stretches of waterway, where one
may float for a day without seeing man or

26 Down Historic Waterways.
animal on the forest-bounded shores, and
where the oppression of solitude is felt with
such force that it requires but a slight stretch
of imagination to carry one's self back in
thought and feeling to the days when the
black-robed members of the Company of
Jesus first penetrated the gloomy wilderness.
Upon the size of the party should depend the
character of the preparations. If the plan is
to spend the nights at farmhouses or village
taverns, then a party of two will be as large as
can secure comfortable quarters, — especially
at a farmhouse, where but one spare bed can
usually be found, while many are the country
inns where the accommodations are equally
limited. If it is intended to tent on the
banks, then the party should be larger; for
two persons unused to this experience would
find it exceedingly lonesome after nightfall,
when visions of river tramps, dissolute fisher
men, and inquisitive hogs and bulls, pass in
review, and the weakness of the little camp
against such formidable odds comes to be
fully recognized. Often, too, the camping-
places are few and far between, and may in
volve a carry of luggage to higher lands
beyond ; on such occasions, the more assist
ance the merrier. But whatever the prep
arations for the night and breakfast, the

Introduction. 2 7
mess-box must be relied upon for dinners
and suppers, for there is no dining-car to be
taken on along these water highways, and
eating-stations are unknown. Unless there
are several towns on the route, of over one
thousand inhabitants, it would be well to
carry sufficient provisions of a simple sort
for the entire trip, for supplies are difficult to
obtain at small villages, and the quality is
apt to be poor. Farmhouses can generally
be depended on for eggs, butter, and milk, —
nothing more. For drinking-water, obtain
able from farm-wells, carry an army canteen,
if you can get one ; if not, a stone jug will do.
The river water is useful only for floating the
canoe, and the offices of the bath. As to per
sonal baggage, fly very light, as a draught
of over six inches would at times work an
estoppel to your progress on any of the three
streams mentioned. In shipping your boat
to any point at which you wish to embark
upon a river, allow two or three days for
freight-train delays.
Be prepared to find canoeing a rough sport.
There is plenty of hard work about it, a good
deal of sunburn and blister. You will be
obliged to wear your old clothes, and may not
be overpleased to meet critical friends in the
river towns you visit. But if you have the

28 Down Historic Waterways.
true spirit of the canoeist, you will win for
your pains an abundance of good air, good
scenery, wholesome exercise, sound sleep, and
something to think about all your life.
R. G. T.

THE ROCK RIVER.

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THE ROCK RIVER.

CHAPTER I.
THE WINDING YAHARA.
IT was a quarter to twelve, Monday morn
ing, the 23d of May, 1887, when we took
seats in our canoe at our own landing-stage
on Third Lake, at Madison, spread an awning
over two hoops, as on a Chinese house-boat,
p.ushed off, waved farewell to a little group of
curious friends, and started on our way to
explore the Rock River of Illinois. W 
wielded the paddle astern, while I took the
oars amidships. Despite the one hundred
pounds of baggage and the warmth emitted
by the glowing sun, — for the season was un
usually advanced, — we made excellent speed,
as we well had need in order to reach the
mouth, a distance of two hundred and eighty

2,2 Down Historic Waterways.
miles as the sinuous river runs, in the seven
days we had allotted to the task.
It was a delightful run across the southern
arm of the lake. There was a light breeze
aft, which gave a graceful upward curvature
to our low-set awning. The great elms and
lindens at charming Lakeside — the home of
the Wisconsin Chautauqua — droop over the
bowlder-studded banks, their masses of green
ery almost sweeping the water. Down in the
deep, cool shadows groups of bass and pick
erel and perch lazily swish ; swarms of " crazy
bugs" ceaselessly swirl around and around,
with no apparent object in life but this
rhythmic motion, by which they wrinkle the
mirror-like surface into concentric circles.
Through occasional openings in the dense
fringe of pendent boughs, glimpses can be had
of park-like glades, studded with columnar
oaks, and stretching upward to hazel-grown
knolls, which rise in irregular succession
beyond the bank. From the thickets comes
the fussy chatter of thrushes and cat-birds,
calling to their young or gossiping with the
orioles, the robins, jays, and red-breasted
grosbeaks, who warble and twitter and scream
and trill from more lofty heights.
A quarter of an hour sent us spinning
across the mouth of Turvill's Bay. At Ott's

If f*W w

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Fourth Lake, near Madison, Wisconsin

The Winding Yahara. 33
Farm, just beyond, the bank rises with sheer
ascent, in layers of crumbly sandstone, a
dozen feet above the water's level. Close-
cropped woodlawn pastures gently slope up
ward to storm-wracked orchards, and long,
dark windbreaks of funereal spruce. Flocks
of sheep, fresh from the shearing, trot along
the banks, winding in and out between the
trees, keeping us company on our way, — their
bleating lambs following at a lope, — now
and then stopping, in their eager, fearful curi
osity, to view our craft, and assuming pic
turesque attitudes, worthy subjects for a
painter's art.
A long, hard pull through close-grown
patches of reeds and lily-pads, encumbered
by thick masses of green scum, brought us to
the outlet of the lake and the head of that
section of the Catfish River which is the
medium through which Third Lake pours
its overflow into Second. The four lakes of
Madison are connected by the Catfish, the
chief Wisconsin tributary of the Rock. Upon
the map this relationship reminds one of
beads strung upon a thread.
As the result of a protracted drought, the
water in the little stream was low, and great
clumps of aquatic weeds came very close to
the surface, threatening, later in the season,
3

34 Down Historic Waterways.
an almost complete stoppage to navigation.
But the effect of the current was at once per
ceptible. It was as if an additional rower had
been taken on. The river, the open stream of
which is some three rods wide at this point,
winds like a serpent between broad marshes,
which must at no far distant period in the
past have been wholly submerged, thus pro
longing the three upper lakes into a continu
ous sheet of water. From a half-mile to a
mile back, on either side, there are low ridges,
doubtless the ancient shores of a narrow lake
that was probably thirty or forty miles in
length. In high water, even now, the
marshes are converted into widespreads,
where the dense tangle of wild rice, reeds, and
rushes does not wholly prevent canoe naviga
tion ; while little mud-bottomed lakes, a quar
ter of a mile or so in diameter, are frequently
met with at all stages. In places, the river,
during a drought, has a depth of not over
eighteen inches. In such stretches, the cur
rent moves swiftly over hard bottoms strewn
with gravel and the whitened sepulchres of
snails and clams. In the widespreads, the
progress is sluggish, the vegetable growth so
crowding in upon the stream as to leave but a
narrow and devious channel, requiring skill to
pilot through ; for in these labyrinthian turn-

The Winding Yahara. 35
ings one is quite liable, if not closely watching
the lazy flood, to push into some vexatious
cul-de-sac, many rods in length, and be
obliged to retrace, with the danger of mistak
ing a branch for the main channel.
In the depths of the tall reeds motherly
mud-hens are clucking, while their mates
squat in the open water, in meditative groups,
rising with a prolonged splash and a whirr as
the canoe approaches within gunshot. Se
cluded among the rushes and cat-tails, nestled
down in little clumps of stubble, are hundreds
of the cup-shaped nests of the red-winged
blackbird, or American starling; the females,
in modest brown, take a rather pensive view
of life, administering to the wants of their
young ; while the bright-hued, talkative males,
perched on swaying stalks, fairly make the air
hum with their cheery trills.
Water-lilies abound everywhere. The blos
soms of the yellow variety (nuphar advena)
are here and there bursting in select groups,
but as a rule the buds are still below the
surface. In the mud lakes, the bottom is
seen through the crystal water to be thickly
studded with great rosettes, two and three
feet in diameter, of corrugated ovate leaves,
of golden russet shade, out of which are shot
upward brilliant green stalks, some bearing

2,6 Down Historic Waterways.
arrow-shaped leaves, and others crowned with
the tight-wrapped buds that will soon open
upon the water level into saffron-hued flowers.
The plate-like leaves of the white variety
(nymphsea tuberosa) already dot the surface,
but the buds are not yet visible. Anchored
by delicate stems to the creeping root-stalks,
buried in the mud below, the leaves, when
first emerging, are of a rich golden brown,
but they are soon frayed by the waves, and
soiled and eaten by myriads of water-bugs,
slugs, and spiders, who make their homes
on these floating islands. Pluck a leaf,
and the many-legged spiders, the roving buc
caneers of these miniature seas, stalk off at
high speed, while the slugs and leeches, in a
spirit of stubborn patriotism, prefer meet
ing death upon their native heath to politic
emigration. By one o'clock we had reached the railway
bridge at the head of Second Lake. Upon
the trestlework were perched three boys and
a man, fishing. They had that listless air and
unkempt appearance which are so character
istic of the little groups of humanity often to
be found on a fair day angling from piers,
bridges, and railway embankments. Men who
imagine the world is allied against them will
loll away a dozen hours a day, throughout an

The Winding Yahara. 37
entire summer season, sitting on the sun-
heated girders of an iron bridge ; yet they
would strike against any system in the work-
a-day world which compelled them to labor
more than eight hours for ten hours' pay.
In going down a long stretch of water high
way, one comes to believe that about one-
quarter of the inhabitants, especially of the
villages, spend their time chiefly in fishing.
On a canoe voyage, the bridge fishermen
and the birds are the classes of animated
nature most frequently met with, the former
presenting perhaps the most curious and
varied specimens. There are fishermen and
fishermen. I never could fancy Izaak Walton
dangling his legs from a railroad bridge,
soaking a worm at the end of a length of
store twine, vainly hoping, as the hours went
listlessly by, that a stray sucker or a diminu
tive catfish would pull the bob under and
score a victory for patience. Now the use of
a boat lifts this sort of thing to the dignity
of a sport.
Second Lake is about three miles long by a
mile in breadth. The shores are here and
there marshy ; but as a rule they are of good,
firm land with occasional rocky bluffs from a
dozen to twenty feet high, rising sheer from
a narrow beach of gravel. As we crossed

38 Down Historic Waterways.
over to gain the lower Catfish, a calm pre
vailed for the most part, and the awning was
a decided comfort. Now and then, however,
a delightful puff came ruffling the water astern,
swelling our canvas roof and noticeably help
ing us along. Light cloudage, blown swiftly
before upper aerial currents, occasionally
obscured the sun, — black, gray, and white
cumuli fantastically shaped and commingled,
while through jagged and rapidly shifting
gaps was to be seen with vivid effect, the
deep blue ether beyond.
The bluffs and glades are well wooded.
The former have escarpments of yellow clay
and grayish sand and gravel ; here and there
have been landslides, where great trees have
fallen with the debris and maintain but a
slender hold amid their new surroundings,
leaning far out over the water, easy victims for
the next tornado. One monarch of the woods
had been thus precipitated into the flood ; on
one side, its trunk and giant branches were
water-soaked and slimy, while those above
were dead and whitened by storm. As we
approached, scores of turtles, sunning them
selves on the unsubmerged portion, suddenly
ducked their heads and slid off their perches
amid a general splash, to hidden grottos
below ; while a solitary king-fisher from his

The Winding Yahara. 39
vantage height on an upper bough hurriedly
rose, and screamed indignance at our rude
entry upon his preserve.
A farmer's lad sitting squat upon his
haunches on the beach, and another, lean
ing over a pasture-fence, holding his head
between his hands, exhibited lamb-like cu
riosity at the awning-decked canoe, as it
glided past their bank. Through openings
in the forest, we caught glimpses of rolling
upland pastures, with sod close-cropped and
smooth as a well-kept lawn ; of gray-blue
fields, recently seeded ; of farmhouses, spa
cious barns, tobacco-curing sheds, — for this
is the heart of the Wisconsin tobacco region,
— and those inevitable signs of rural pros
perity, windmills, spinning around by spurts,
obedient to the breath of the intermittent
May-day zephyr ; while little bays opened up,
on the most distant shore, enchanting vistas
of blue-misted ridges.
At last, after a dreamy pull of two miles
from the lake-head, we rounded a bold head
land of some thirty feet in height, and entered
Catfish Bay. Ice-pushed bowlders strew the
shore, which is here a gentle meadow slope,
based by a gravel beach. A herd of cattle are
contentedly browsing, their movements at
tuned to a symphony of cow-bells dangling

40 Down Historic Waterways.
from the necks of the leaders. The scene is
pre-eminently peaceful.
The Catfish connecting Second Lake with
First, has two entrances, a small flat willow
island dividing them. Through the eastern
channel, which is the deepest, the current
goes down with a rush, the obstruction offered
by numerous bowlders churning it into noisy
rapids ; but the water tames down within a
few rods, and the canoe comes gayly gliding
into the united stream, which now has a
placid current of two miles per hour, — quite
fast enough for canoeing purposes. This
section of the Catfish is much more pictur
esque than the preceding ; the shores are
firmer ; the parallel ridges sometimes closely
shut it in, and the stream, here four or five
rods wide, takes upon itself the characteristics
of the conventional river. The weed and vine
grown banks are oftentimes twenty feet in
height, with as sharp an ascent as can be com
fortably climbed ; and the swift-rushing water
is sometimes fringed with sumachs, elders,
and hazel brush, with here and there willows,
maples, lindens, and oaks. Occasionally the
river apparently ends at the base of a steep,
earthy bluff ; but when that is reached there
is a sudden swerve to the right or left, with
another vista of banks, — sometimes wood-

The Winding Yahara. 41
grown to the water's edge, again with open
ings revealing purplish-brown fields, neatly
harrowed, stretching up to some command
ing, forest-crowned hill-top. The blossoms
of the wild grape burden the air with sweet
scent ; on the deep-shaded banks, amid stones
and cool mosses, the red and yellow colum
bine gracefully nods ; the mandrake, with its
glossy green leaves, grows with tropical luxu
riance ; more in the open, appears in great
profusion, the old maid's nightcap, in purplish
roseate hue ; the sheep-berry shrub is decked
in masses of white blossoms ; the hawthorn
flower is detected by its sickly-sweet scent,
and here and there are luxuriously-flowered
locusts, specimens that have escaped from
cultivation to take up their homes in this bo
tanical wilderness.
There are charming rustic pictures at every
turn, — sleek herds of cattle, droves of fat
hogs, flocks of sheep that have but recently
doffed their winter suits, well- tended fields,
trim-looking wire fences, neat farm-houses
where rows of milkpans glisten upon sunny
drying-benches, farmers and farmers' boys
riding aristocratic-looking sulky drags and
cultivators, — everywhere an air of agricultu
ral luxuriance, rather emphasized by occa
sional log-houses, which repose as honored

42 Down Historic Waterways.
relics by the side of their pretentious succes
sors, sharply contrasting the wide differences
between pioneer life and that of to-day.
The marshes are few ; and they in this
dry season are luxuriant with coarse, glossy
wild grass, — the only hay-crop the far
mer will have this year, — and dotted with
clumps of dead willow-trees, which present
a ghostly appearance, waving their white,
scarred limbs in the freshening breeze. The
most beautiful spot on this section of the
Catfish is a point some eight miles above
Stoughton. The verdure-clad banks are high
and steep. A lanky Norwegian farmer came
down an angling path with a pail-yoke over his
shoulders to get washing-water for his " wo
man," and told us that when this country was
sparsely settled, a third of a century ago,
there was a mill-dam here. That was the day
when the possession of water-power meant
more than it does in this age of steam and
rapid transit, — the day when every mill-site
was supposed to be a nucleus around which a
prosperous village must necessarily grow in
due time. Nothing now remains as a relic of
this particular fond hope but great hollows in
either bank, where the clay for dam-making
purposes has been scooped out, and a few
rotten piles, having a slender hold upon the

The Winding Yahara. 43
bottom, against which drift-wood has lodged,
forming a home for turtles and clumps of semi-
aquatic grasses. W  avers, in a spirit of
enthusiasm, that the Catfish between Second
and First Lakes is quite similar in parts to
the immortal Avon, upon which Shakespeare
canoed in the long-ago. If she is right, then
indeed are the charms of Avon worthy the
praise of the Muses. If the Catfish of to
day is ever to go down to posterity on the
wings of poesy, however, I would wish that it
might be with the more euphonious title of
" Yahara," — the original Winnebago name.
The map-maker who first dropped the liquid
"Yahara" for the rasping " Catfish " had no
soul for music.
Darting under a quaint rustic foot-bridge
made of rough poles, which on its high trestles
stalks over a wide expanse of reedy bog like
a giant " stick-bug," we emerged into First
Lake. The eastern shore, which we skirted,
is a wide, sandy beach, backed by meadows.
The opposite banks, two or three miles away,
present more picturesque outlines. A stately
wild swan kept us company for over a mile,
just out of pistol-shot, and finally took ad
vantage of a patch of rushes to stop and hide.
A small sandstone quarry on the southeast
shore, with a lone worker, attracted our atten-

44 Down Historic Waterways.
tion. There was not a human habitation in
sight, and it seemed odd to see a solitary man
engaged in such labor apparently so far re
moved from the highways of commerce.
The quarryman stuck his crowbar in a crack
horizontally, to serve as a seat, and filled his
pipe as we approached. We hailed him with
inquiries, from the stone pier jutting into the
lake at the foot of the bluff into which he was
burrowing. He replied from his lofty perch,
in rich Norsk brogue, that he shipped stone
by barge to Stoughton, and good-humoredly
added, as he struck a match and lit his bowl
of weed, that he thought himself altogether
too good company to ever get lonesome. We
left the philosopher to enjoy his pipe in peace,
and passed on around the headland.
An iron railway bridge, shut in with high
sides, and painted a dullish red, spans the
Lower Catfish at the outlet of First Lake.
A country boy, with face as dirty as it was
solemn, stood in artistic rags at the base of
an arch, fishing with a bit of hop-twine tied
to the end of a lath ; from a mass of sedge
just behind him a hoarse cry arose at short
intervals. " Hi, Johnny, what 's that making the
noise ? "
" Bird ! " sententiously responded the stoic

The Winding Yahara. 45
youth. He looked as though he had been
bored with a silly question, and kept his eyes
on his task.
" What kind of a bird, Johnny ? "
" D' no ! " rather raspishly. He evidently
thought he was being guyed.
We ran the nose of the canoe into the
reeds. There was a splash, a wild cry of alarm,
and up flew a great bittern. Circling about
until we had passed on, it then drifted down to
its former location near the uninquiring lad,
— where doubtless it had a nest of young,
and had been disturbed in the midst of a lec
ture on domestic discipline.
Wide marshes again appear on either side
of the stream. There are great and small
bitterns at every view ; plovers daintily pick
ing their way over the open bogs, greedily
feeding on countless snails ; wild ducks in
plenty, patiently waiting in the secluded
bayous for the development of their young ;
yellow-headed troopials flitting freely about,
uttering a choking, gulping cry ; while the
pert little wren, with his smart cock-tail,
views the varied scene from his perch on a
lofty rush, jealously keeping watch and ward
over his ball-like castle, with its secret gate,
hung among the reeds below.
But interspersing the marshes there are

46 Down Historic Waterways.
often stretches of firm bank and delightfully
varied glimpses of hillside and wood. Three
miles above Stoughton, we stopped for supper
at the edge of a glade, near a quaint old bridge.
While seated on the smooth sward, beside
our little spread, there came a vigorous rust
ling among the branches of the trees that
overhang the country road which winds down
the opposite slope to the water's edge to take
advantage of the crossing. A gypsy wagon,
with a high, rounded, oil-cloth top soon
emerged from the forest, and was seen to
have been the cause of the disturbance.
Halting at one side of the highway, three
men and a boy jumped out, unhitched the
horses at the pole and the jockeying stock at
the tail-board, and led them down to water.
Two women meanwhile set about getting sup
per, and preparations were made for a night
camp. We confessed to a touch of sympathy
with our new neighbors on the other shore,
for we felt as though gypsying ourselves. The
hoop awning on the canoe certainly had the
general characteristics of a gypsy-wagon
top ; we knew not and cared not where night
might overtake us ; we were dependent on
the country for our provender; were at the
mercy of wind, weather, and the peculiarities
of our chosen highway ; and had deliberately

The Winding Yahara. 47
turned our backs on home for a season of un-
trammeled communion with nature.
It was during a golden sunset that, push
ing on through a great widespread, through
which the channel doubles and twists like a
scotched snake, we came in sight of the little
city of Stoughton. First, the water-works
tower rises above the mass of trees which
embower the settlement. Then, on nearer
approach, through rifts in the woodland we
catch glimpses of some of the best outlying
residences, most of them pretty, with well-
kept grounds. Then come the church-spires,
the ice-houses, the barge-dock, and with a
spurt we sweep alongside the foundry of
Mandt's wagon-works. Depositing our oars,
paddle, blankets, and supplies in the office, the
canoe was pulled up on the grass and pad
locked to a stake. The street lamps were
lighting as we registered at the inn.
Stoughton has about two thousand inhab
itants. A walk about town in the evening,
revealed a number of bright, busy shops,
chiefly kept by Norwegians, who predominate
in this region. Nearly every street appears
to end in one of Mandt's numerous factory
yards, and the wagon-making magnate seems
to control pretty much the entire river front
here.

48 Down Historic Waterways.

CHAPTER II.
BARBED-WIRE FENCES.
WE were off in the morning, after an
early breakfast at the Stoughton inn.
Our host kindly sent down his porter to help
us over the mill-dam, — our first and easiest
portage, and one of the few in which we
received assistance of any kind. Below this,
as below all of the dams on the river, there
are broad shallows. The water in the stream,
being at a low stage, is mainly absorbed in
the mill-race, and the apron spreads the slight
overflow evenly over the width of the bed, so
that there is left a wide expanse of gravel and
rocks below the chute, which is not covered
sufficiently deep for navigating even our little
craft, drawing but five inches when fully
loaded. We soon grounded on the shallows
and I was obliged to get out and tow the
lightened boat to the tail of the race, where
deeper water was henceforth assured. This

Barbed- Wire Fences. 49
experience became quite familiar before the
end of the trip. I had fortunately brought a
pair of rubbers in my satchel, and found them
invaluable as wading-shoes, where the river
bottom is strewn with sharp gravel and slimy
round-heads. Below Stoughton the river winds along in
most graceful curves, for the most part be
tween banks from six to twenty feet high,
with occasional pocket-marshes, in which the
skunk-cabbage luxuriates. The stream is of
ten thickly studded with lily-pads, which the
wind, blowing fresh astern, frequently ruffles
so as to give the appearance of rapids ahead,
inducing caution where none is necessary.
But every half-mile or so there are genuine
little rapids, some of them requiring care to
successfully shoot ; in low water the canoe
goes bumping along over the small moss-
grown rocks, and now and then plumps sol
idly on a big one ; when the stream is turbid,
— as often happens below a pasture, where
the cattle stir up the bank mud, — the danger
of being overturned by scarcely submerged
bowlders is imminent.
There are some decidedly romantic spots,
where little densely-wooded and grape-tangled
glens run off at right angles, leading up to
the bases of commanding hillocks, which they
4

50 Down Historic Waterways.
drain ; or where the noisy little river, five or
six rods wide, goes swishing around the foot
of a precipitous, bush-grown bluff. It is no
ticeable that in such beauty-spots as these are
generally to be found poverty-stricken cabins,
the homes of small fishermen and hunters ;
while the more generous farm-houses seek the
fertile but prosaic openings.
All of a sudden, around a lovely bend, a
barbed-wire fence of four strands savagely dis
puted the passage. A vigorous back-water
stroke alone saved us from going full tilt into
the bayonets of the enemy. We landed, and
there was a council of war. As every stream
in Wisconsin capable of floating a saw-log is
" navigable " in the eye of the law, it is plain
that this obstruction is an illegal one. Being
an illegal fence, it follows that any canoeist is
entitled to clip the wires, if he does not care
to stop and prosecute the fencers for barring
his way. The object of the structure is to
prevent cattle from walking around through
the shallow river into neighboring pastures.
Along the upper Catfish, where boating is
more frequently indulged in, farmers ac
complish the same object by fencing in a few
feet of the stream parallel with the shore.
But below Stoughton, where canoeing is
seldom practiced, the cattle-owners run their

Barbed- Wire Fences. 5 1
fences directly across the river as a measure
of economy. Taking into consideration the
fact that the lower Catfish is seldom used as
a highway, we concluded that we would be
charitable and leave the fences intact, getting
under or over them as best we might. I am
afraid that had we known that twenty-one of
these formidable barriers were before us, the
council would not have agreed on so concili
atory a campaign.
Having taken in our awning and disposed
of our baggage amidships, so that nothing re
mained above the gunwale, W  , kneeling,
took the oars astern, while I knelt in the bow
with the paddle borne like a battering-ram.
Pushing off into the channel we bore down on
the centre of the works, which were strong
and thickly-posted, with wires drawn as tight
as a drum-string. Catching the lower strand
midway between two posts, on the blade end
of the paddle, the speed of the canoe was
checked. Then, seizing that strand with my
right hand, so that the thick-strewn barbs
came between my fingers, I forced it up to
the second strand, and held the two rigidly
together, thus making a slight arch. The
canoe being crowded down into the water by
sheer exercise of muscle, I crouched low in
the bow, at the same time forcing the canoe

52 Down Historic Waterways.
under and forward through the arch. When
half-way through, W  was able similarly to
clutch the wires, and perform the same office
for the stern. This operation, ungraceful but
effective, was frequently repeated during the
day. When the current is swift and the wind
fresh a special exertion is necessary on the
part of the stern oar to keep the craft at right
angles with the fence, — the tendency being,
as soon as the bow is snubbed, to drift along
side and become entangled in the wires, with
the danger of being either badly scratched or
upset. It is with a feeling of no slight relief
that a canoeist emerges from a tussle with a
barbed-wire fence ; and if hands, clothing,
and boat have escaped without a scratch, he
may consider himself fortunate, indeed. Be
fore the day was through, when our twenty-
one fences had been conquered without any
serious accident, it was unanimously voted
that the exercise was not to be recommended
to those weak in muscle or patience.
Eight miles below Stoughton is Dunkirk.
There is a neat frame grist-mill there ; and
up a gentle slope to the right are four or five
weather-beaten farm-houses, in the corners of
the cross-roads. It was an easy portage at
the dam. After pushing through the shallows
below with some difficulty, we ran in under

Barbed Wire Fences. 5 3
the shadow of a substantial wagon-bridge, and
beached. Going up to the corners, we filled
the canteen with ice-cold water from a moss-
grown well, and interviewed the patriarchal
miller, who assured us that "nigh onter a
dozen year ago, Dunkirk had a bigger show
for growin' than Stoughton, but the railroad
went 'round us."
A few miles down stream and we come to
Stebbinsville. The water is backset by a
mill-dam for two miles, forming a small lake.
The course now changing, the wind came
dead ahead, and we rowed down to the dam in
a rolling sea, with much exertion. The river
is six rods wide here, flowing between smooth,
well-rounded, grass-grown banks, from fifteen
to thirty feet in height, the fields on either side
sloping up to wood-crowned ridges. There
are a mill and two houses at Stebbinsville,
and the country round about has a prosperous
appearance. A tall, pleasant-spoken young
miller came across the road-bridge and talked
to us about the crops and the river, while we
made a comfortable portage of five rods, up
the grassy bank and through a close-cropped
pasture, down to a sequestered little bay at
the tail of an abandoned race, where the spray
of the falls spattered us as we reloaded. We
pushed off, with the joint opinion that Steb-

54 Down Historic Waterways.
binsville was a charming little place, with ideal
riverside homes, that would be utterly spoiled
by building the city on its site which the
young man said his father had always hoped
would be established there. A quarter of a
mile below, around the bend, is a disused
mill, thirty feet up, on the right bank. There
is a suspended platform over a ravine, to one
side of the building, and upon its handrail
leaned two dusty millers, who had doubtless
hastened across from the upper mill, to watch
the progress down the little rapids here of
what was indeed a novel craft to these waters.
They waved their caps and gave us a cheery
shout as we quickly disappeared around
another curve ; but while it still rung in our
ears we were suddenly confronted by one of
the tightest fences on the course, and had
neither time nor disposition to return the
salute. And so we slid along, down rapids, through
long stretches of quiet water and scraping
over shallows, plying both oars and paddle,
while now and then "making" a fence and
comparing its savagery with that of the pre
ceding one. Here and there the high vine-clad
banks, from overshadowing us would irregu
larly recede, leaving little meadows, full of
painted-cups, the wild rose-colored phlox and

Barbed- Wire Fences. 55
saxifrage ; or bits of woodland in the dryer
bottoms, radiant, amid the underbrush, with
the daisy, cinque-foil, and puccoon. King
fishers and blue herons abound. Great turtles,
disturbed by the unwonted splash of oars,
slide down high, sunny banks of sand, where
they have been to lay their eggs, and amid a
cloud of dust shuffle off into the water, their
castle of safety. These eggs, so trustfully left
to be hatched by the warmth of the sun, form
toothsome food for coons and skunks, which
in turn fall victims to farmers' lads, — as wit
ness the rows of peltries stretched inside
out on shingles, and tacked up on the sunny
sides of the barns and woodsheds along the
river highway.
As we begin to approach the valley of the
Rock, the hills grow higher, groups of red
cedar appear, the banks of red clay often at
tain the height of fifty or sixty feet, broken
by deep, staring gullies and wooded ravines,
through which little brooklets run, the output
of back-country springs ; while the pocket-
meadows are less* frequent, although more
charmingly diversified as to color and back
ground. We had our mid-day lunch on a pleasant
bank, that had been covered earlier in the
season with hepatica, blood-root, and dicentra,

56 Down Historic Waterways.
and was now resplendent with Solomon's seal,
the dark-purple water-leaf, and graceful maiden
hair ferns, with here and there a dogwood in
full bloom. Behind us were thick woods and
an overlooking ridge ; opposite, a meadow-
glade on which herds of cattle and black hogs
grazed. A bell cow waded into the water,
followed by several other members of the
herd, and the train pensively proceeded in
single file diagonally across the shallow stream
to another feeding-ground below. The leader's
bell had a peculiarly mournful note, and the
scene strongly reminded one of an ecclesias
tical procession.
In the middle of the afternoon the little
village of Fulton was reached. It is a dead-
alive, moss-grown settlement, situated on a
prairie, through which the river has cut a
deep channel. There are a cheese-factory,
a grist-mill, a church, a school-house, three or
four stores, and some twenty-five houses, with
but a solitary boat in sight, and that of the
punt variety. It was recess at the school as
we rowed past, and boys and girls were chiefly
engaged in climbing the trees which cluster
in the little schoolhouse yard. A chorus of
shouts and whistles greeted us from the leafy-
perches, in which we could distinguish " Shoot
the roof ! " — an exclamation called forth by

Barbed- Wire Fences. 57
the awning, which doubtless seemed the chief
feature of our outfit, viewed from the top of
the bank.
At the mill-dam, a dozen lazy, shiftless
fellows were fishing at the foot of the chute,
and stared at our movements with expression
less eyes. The portage was somewhat diffi
cult, being over a high bank, across a rocky
road, and down through a stretch of bog.
When we had completed the carry, W — ¦ — >
waited in the canoe while I went up to the
fishermen for information as to the lay of the
country. "How far is it to the mouth of the Catfish,
my friend ? " I asked the most intelligent
member of the party.
" D 'no ! Never was thar." He jerked in
his bait, to pull off a weed that had become
entangled in it, and from the leer he gave his
comrades it was plain that I had struck the
would-be wag of the village.
" How far do you think it is ? " I insisted,
curious to see how far he would carry his
obstinacy. " Don' think nuthin' 'bout 't ; don' care t'
know." " Did n't you ever hear any one say how
far it is ? " and I sat beside him on the stone
pier, as though I had come to stay.

58 Down Historic Waterways.
"Nah!"" Suppose you were placed in a boat here
and had to float down to the Rock, how long
do you imagine you 'd be ? "
"Aint no man goin' t' place me in no boat !
No siree ! " pugnaciously.
" Don't you ever row ? "
" Nah ! " contemptuously ; " what I want of
a boat ? Bridge 's good 'nough fer us fellers,
a-fishin'." "Whose boat is that, over there, on the
shore ? "
" Schoolmaster's. He 's a dood, he is.
Bridge is n't rich 'nough fer his blood. Boats
is fer doods." And.with this withering re
mark he relapsed into so.intent an observation
of his line that I thought it best to disturb
him no longer. V j-
Below Fulton, the stream is quite swift and
the scenery more rugged, the evidences of
disastrous spring overflows and back-water
from the Rock being visible on every hand.
At five o'clock, we came to a point where the
river divides into three channels, there being
a clump of four small islands. A barbed-wire
fence, the last we were fated to meet, was
stretched across each channel. Selecting the
central mouth, — for this is the delta of the
Catfish, — we shot down with a rush, but were

Barbed-Wire Fences. 59
soon lodged on a sandbank. It required
wading and much pushing and twisting and
towing before we were again off, but in the
length of a few rods more we swung free
into the Rock, which was to be our high
way for over two hundred miles more of
canoe travel.
The Rock River is nearly a quarter of a
mile wide at this point, and comes down with
a majestic sweep from the north, having its
chief source in the gloomily picturesque Lake
Koshkonong. The banks of the river at and
belowthe mouth ofthe Catfish, are quite impos
ing, rising into a succession of graceful, round-
topped mounds, from fifty to one hundred feet
high, and finely wooded except where cleared
for pasture or as the site of farm-buildings.
While the immediate edges of the stream are
generally firm and grass-grown, with occa
sional gravelly beaches, there are frequent
narrow strips of marsh at the bases of the
mounds, especially on the left bank where
innumerable springs send forth trickling rills
to feed the river. A stiff wind up-stream
had broken the surface into white caps, and
more than counteracted the force of the lazy
current, so that progress now depended upon
vigorous exercise at the oars and paddle.
Three miles above Janesville is Pope's

60 Down Historic Waterways.
Springs, a pleasant summer resort, with white
tents and gayly painted cottages commingled.
It is situated in a park-like wood, on the right
bank, while directly opposite are some bold,
rocky cliffs, or palisades, their feet laved in
the stream. We spread our supper cloth on
the edge of a wheat-field, in view of the pretty
scene. The sun was setting behind a bank
of roseate clouds, and shooting up broad,
sharply defined bands of radiance nearly to
the zenith. The wind was blowing cold,
wraps were essential, and we were glad to be
on our way once more, paddling along in the
dying light, past palisades and fields and
meadows, reaching prosperous Janesville, on
her rolling prairie, just as dusk was thickening
into dark.

An Illinois Prairie Home. 61

CHAPTER III.
AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME.
WE had an early start from the hotel
next morning. A prospect of the
situation at the upper Janesville dam, from a
neighboring bridge, revealed the fact that
the mill-race along the left bank afforded the
easiest portage. Reloading our craft at the
boat-renter's staging where it had passed
the night, we darted across the river, under
two low-hung bridges, keeping well out of
the overflow current and entered the race,
making our carry over a steep and rocky
embankment. Below, after passing through the centre of
the city, the river widens considerably, as it
cuts a deep channel through the fertile prairie,
and taking a sudden bend to the southwest,
becomes a lake, formed by back-water from
the lower dam. The wind was now dead
ahead again, and fierce. White caps came

62 Down Historic Waterways.
savagely rolling up stream. The pull down
brought out the rowing muscles to their full
est tension. The canoe at times would ap
pear to scarcely creep along, although oars
and paddle would bend to their work.
The race of the carding-mill, which we
were now approaching, is by the right bank,
the rest of the broad river — fully a third of
a mile wide here — being stemmed by a pon
derous, angling dam, the shorter leg of which
comes dangerously close to the entrance of
the race, which it nearly parallels. Over
head, fifty feet skyward, a great railway bridge
spans the chasm. The disposition of its
piers leaves a rowing channel but two rods
wide, next the shore. Through this a deep,
swift current flows, impelling itself for the
most part over the short leg of the chute, with
a deafening roar. Its backset, however, is
caught in the yawning mouth of the race. It
so happens then that from either side of an
ugly whirling strip of doubting water, parallel
with the shorter chute, the flood bursts forth,
— to the left plunging impetuously over the
apron to be dashed to vapor at its foot ; to
the right madly rushing into the narrow race,
to turn the wheels of the carding-mill half a
mile below. This narrow channel, under the
bridge and next the shore, of which I have

An Illinois Prairie Home. 63
spoken, is the only practicable entrance to
the race.
We had landed above and taken a pano
ramic view of the situation from the deck of
the bridge ; afterward had descended to the
flood-gates at the entrance of the race, for
detailed inspection and measurements. One
of the set of three gates was partly raised, the
bottom being but three feet above the boiling
surface, while the great vertical iron beams
along which the cog-wheels work were not
over four feet apart. It would require steady
hands to guide the canoe to the right of the
whirl, where the flood hesitated between two
destinations, and finally to shoot under the
uplifted gate, which barely gave room in either
height or breadth for the passage of the boat.
But we arrived at the conclusion that the
shoot was far more dangerous in appearance
than in reality, and that it was preferable to a
long and exceedingly irksome portage.
So we determined to make the attempt, and
walked back to the canoe. Disposing our
baggage in the centre, as in the barbed-wire
experience of the day before, W  again took
the oars astern and I the paddle at the bow.
A knot of men on the bridge had been watch
ing our movements with interest, and waved
their hats at us as we came cautiously creeping

64 Down Historic Waterways.
along the shore. We went under the bridge
with a swoop, waited till we were within three
rods of the brink of the thundering fall, and
then strained every muscle in sending the canoe
shooting off at an angle into the waters bound
for the race. We went down to the gate as
if shot out of a cannon, but the little craft was
easily controlled, quickly obeying every stroke
of the paddle. Catching a projecting timber,
it was easy to guide ourselves to the opening.
We lay down in the bottom of the boat and
with uplifted hands clutched the slimy gate ;
slowly, hand over hand, we passed through
under the many internal beams and rods of
the structure, with the boiling flood under us,
making an echoing roar, amid which we were
obliged to fairly shout our directions to each
other. In the last section the release was
given ; we were fairly hurled into daylight on
the surface of the mad torrent, and were many
a rod down the race before we could recover
our seats. The men on the bridge, joined by
others, now fairly yelled themselves hoarse over
the successful close of what was apparently
a hazardous venture, and we waved acknowl
edgments with the paddle, as we glided away
under the willows which overhang the long
and narrow canal. At the isolated mill,
where there is one of the easiest portages on

An Illinois Prairie Home. 65
the route, the hands came flocking by dozens
to the windows to see the craft which had
invaded their quiet domain.
The country toward Beloit becomes more
hilly, especially upon the left bank, along
which runs the Chicago and Northwestern
railway, all the way down from Janesville.
At the Beloit paper-mill, which was reached
at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was found
that owing to the low stage of water one end
of the apron projected above the flood. With
some difficulty as to walking on the slimy
incline, we portaged over the face of the dam
and went down stream through the heart of
the pretty little college town, getting more
or less picturesque back-door views of the
domestic life of the community.
Beloit being on the State line, we had now
entered Illinois. For several miles the river
is placid and shallow, with but a feeble current.
Islands begin to appear, dividing the channel
and somewhat perplexing canoeists, it being
often quite difficult to decide which route is
the best ; as a rule, one is apt to wish
that he had taken some other than the one
selected. The dam at Rockton was reached in a two
hours' pull. It was being repaired, stone for
the purpose being quarried on a neighboring
5

66 Down Historic Waterways.
bank and transported to the scene of action
on a flat-boat. We had been told that we
could save several miles by going down the
race, which cuts the base of a long detour.
But the boss of the dam-menders assured us
that the race was not safe, and that we would
" get in a trap " if we attempted it. Deeming
discretion the better part of valor, with much
difficulty we lifted the canoe over the high,
jagged, stone embankment and through a bit
of tangled swamp to the right, and took the
longest way around. It was four or five miles
by the bend to the village of Rockton, whose
spires we could see at the dam, rising above
a belt of intervening trees. It being our first
detour of note, we were somewhat discouraged
at having had so long a pull for so short a
vantage ; but we became well used to such
experiences long before our journey was
over. It was not altogether consoling to be
informed at Rockton — which is a smart little
manufacturing town of a thousand souls —
that the race was perfectly practicable for
canoes, and the tail portage easy.
Beaching near the base of a fine wagon-
bridge which here spans the Rock, we went
up to a cluster of small houses on the bank
opposite the town, to have some tea steeped,
our prepared stock being by this time ex-

An Illinois Prairie Home. 67
hausted. The people were all employed in
the paper-mills in the village, but one good
woman chanced to be at home for the after
noon, and cheerfully responded to our request
for service. A young, neat, and buxom little
woman she was, though rather sad-eyed and
evidently overworked in the family struggle
for existence. She assured us that she now
adays never went upon the water in an open
boat, for she had " three times been near
drowndid " in her life, which she thought was
" warnin' enough for one body." Inquiry de
veloped that her first " warnin' " consisted of
having been, when she was " a gal down in
Kansis," taken for a row in a leaky boat ;
the water came in half-way up to the thwarts,
and would have eventually swamped the craft
and drowned its occupants, in perhaps half
an hour's time, if her companion had not
luckily bethought himself to run in to shore
and land. Another time, she and her hus
band were out rowing, when a stern-wheel
river steamer came along, and the swell in
her wake washed the row-boat atop of a log
raft, and " she stuck there, ma'am, would ye
believe, and we 'd 'a' drowndid sure, with a
storm a-comin' up, had n't my brother-in-law,
that was then a-courtin' of sister Jane, come
off in a dug-out and took us in." Her last

68 Down Historic Waterways.
and most harrowing experience was in a boat
on the Republican River in Kansas. She and
another woman were out when a storm came
up, and white-capped waves tossed the little
craft about at will ; but fortunately the blow
subsided, and the women regained pluck
enough to take the oars and row home again.
The eyes of the paper-maker's wife were suf
fused with tears, as, seated in her rocking-
chair by the kitchen stove and giving the tea
pot an occasional shake, doubtless to hasten
the brew, she related these thrilling tales of
adventure by flood, and called us to witness
that thrice had Providence directly interposed
in her behalf. We were obliged to acknowl
edge ourselves much impressed with the
gravity of the dangers she had so success
fully passed through. Her sympathy with
the perils which we were braving, in what
she was pleased to call our singular journey,
was so great that the good woman declined
to accept pay for having steeped our tea in a
most excellent manner, and bade us an affect
ing God-speed.
We had our supper, graced with the hot
tea, on a pretty sward at the river end of the
quiet lane just around the corner ; while a
dozen little children in pinafores and short
clothes, perched on a neighboring fence,

An Illinois Prairie Home. 69
watched and discussed us as eagerly as
though we were a circus caravan halting by
the wayside for refreshment. The paper-
maker's wife also came out, just as we were
re-packing for the start, and inspected the
canoe in some detail. Her judgment was
that in her giddiest days as an oarswoman,
she would certainly never have dared to set
foot in such a shell. She watched us off, just
as the sun was disappearing, and the last
Rockton object we saw was our tender
hearted friend standing on the beach at the
end of her lane, both hands shading her eyes,
as she watched us fade away in the gloam
ing. I have no doubt she has long ago given
us up for lost, for her last words were, " I 've
heerd 'em tell it was a riskier river than any
in Kansis, 'tween here an' Missip' ; tek care
ye don't git drowndid ! "
In the soft evening shadows it was cool
enough for heavy wraps. In fact, for the
greater part of the day W  had worn a
light shoulder cape. We had a beautiful
sunset, back of a group of densely timbered
islands. We would have been sorely tempted
to camp out on one of these, but the night
was setting in too cold for sleeping in the
open air, and we had no tent with us.
The twilight was nearly spent, and the

70 Down Historic Waterways.
banks and now frequent islands were so
heavily wooded that on the river it was rap
idly becoming too dark to navigate among
the shallows and devious channels. W 
volunteered to get out and look for a farm
house, for none could be seen from our hollow
way. So she landed and got up into some
prairie wheatfields back away from the bank.
After a half-mile's walk parallel with the river
she sighted a prosperous-looking establish
ment, with a smart windmill, large barns, and
a thrifty orchard, silhouetted against the fast-
fading sunset sky. The signal was given,
and the prow of the canoe was soon resting
on a steep, gravely beach at the mouth of a
ravine. Armed with the paddle, for a pos
sible encounter with dogs, we went up through
the orchard and a timothy-field sopping with
dew, scaled the barnyard fence, passed a big
black dog that growled savagely, but was by
good chance chained to an old mowing-ma
chine, walked up to the kitchen door and
boldly knocked.
No answer. The stars were coming out,
the shadows darkening, night was fairly upon
us, and shelter must be had, if we were ob
liged to sleep in the barn. The dog reared
on his hind legs, and fairly howled with rage.
A row of well-polished, milk-cans on a bench

An Illinois Prairie Home. 71
by the windmill well, and the general air of
thrifty neatness impelled us to persevere. An
old German, with kindly face and bushy white
hair, finally came, cautiously peering out be
neath a candle which he held above his head.
English he had none, and our German was
too fresh from the books to be reliable in
conversation. However, we mustered a few
stereotyped phrases from the " familiar con
versations " in the back of the grammar,
which served to make the old man smile, and
disappearing toward the cattle-sheds he soon
returned with his daughter and son-in-law, a
cheerful young couple who spoke good Eng
lish, and assured us of welcome and a bed.
They had been out milking by lantern-light
when interrupted, and soon rejoined us with
brimming pails.
It did not take long to feel quite at home
with these simple, good-hearted folk. They
had but recently purchased the farm and were
strangers in the community. The old man
lived with his other children at Freeport, and
was there only upon a visit. The young peo
ple, natives of Illinois, were lately married,
their wedding-trip having been made to this
house, where they had at once settled down
to a thrifty career, surrounded with quite
enough comforts for all reasonable demands,

72 Down Historic Waterways
and a few simple luxuries. W  declared
the kitchen to be a model of neatness and
convenience ; and the sitting-room, where we
passed the evening with our modest enter
tainers, — who appeared quite well posted on
current news of general interest, — showed
evidences of being in daily use. They were
devout Catholics, and I was pleased to find
the patriarch drifting down the river of time
with a heartfelt appreciation of the benefits
of democracy, fully cognizant of what Ameri
can institutions had done for him and his.
Immigrating in the noon-tide of life and set
tling in a German neighborhood, he had found
no need and had no inclination to learn our
language. But he had prospered from the
start, had secured for his children a good
education at the common schools, had imbued
them with the spirit of patriotism, had seen
them marry happily and with a bright future,
and at night he never retired without utter
ing a bedside prayer of gratitude that God
had turned his footsteps to blessed America.
As the old man told me his tale, with his
daughter's hands resting lovingly in his while
she served as our interpreter, and contrasted
the hard lot of a German peasant with the in
dependence of thought and speech and action
vouchsafed the German-American farmer, who

An Illinois Prairie Home. 73
can win competence in a state of freedom,
I felt a thrill of patriotism that would have
been the making of a Fourth-of-July orator.
I wished that thousands such as he originally
was, still dragging out an existence in the
fatherland, could have listened to my aged
friend and followed in his footsteps.

74 Down Historic Waterways.

CHAPTER IV.
THE HALF-WAY HOUSE.
THE spin down to Roscoe next morning
was delightful in every respect. The
air was just sharp enough for vigorous exer
cise. These were the pleasantest hours we
had yet spent. The blisters that had troubled
us for the first three days were hardening into
callosities, and arm and back muscles, which
at first were sore from the unusually heavy
strain upon them, at last were strengthened
to their work. Thereafter we felt no physi
cal inconvenience from our self-imposed task.
At night, after a pull of eleven or twelve
hours, relieved only by the time spent in
lunching, in which we hourly alternated at
the oars and paddle, slumber came as a most
welcome visitation, while the morning ever
found us as fresh as at the start. Let those
afflicted with insomnia try this sort of life.
My word for it, they will not be troubled

The Half-Way House. 75
so long as the canoeing continues. Every
muscle of the body moves responsive to each
pull of the oars or sweep of the paddle ; while
the mental faculties are kept continually on
the alert, watching for shallows, snags, and
rapids, in which operation a few days' experi
ence will render one quite expert, though
none the less cautious.
As we get farther down into the Illinois
country, the herds of live-stock increase in
size and number. Cattle may be seen by
hundreds at one view, dotted all over the
neighboring hills and meadows, or dreamily
standing in the cooling stream at sultry noon
day. Sheep, in immense flocks, bleat in deaf
ening unison, the ewes and their young being
particularly demonstrative at our appearance,
and sometimes excitedly following us along
the banks. Droves of black hogs and shoats
are ploughing the sward in their search for
sweet roots, or lying half-buried in the wet
sand. Horses, in familiar groups, quickly
lift their heads in startled wonder as the cano
pied canoe glides silently by, — • then suddenly
wheel, kick up their heels, sound a snort of
alarm, and dash off at a thundering gallop,
clods of turf filling the air behind them.
There are charming groves and parks and
treeless downs, and the river cuts through the

76 Down Historic Waterways.
alluvial soil to a depth of eight and ten feet,
throwing up broad beaches on either side.
At Roscoe, but a few miles below our
morning's starting-point, there is a collection
of three or four neat farm-houses, each with
its spinning windmill.
Latham Station, nine miles below Rockton,
was reached at ten o'clock. The post-office is
called Owen. There is a smart little depot on
the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway
line, two general stores, and a half-dozen cot
tages, with a substantial-looking creamery,
where we obtained buttermilk drawn fresh
from one of the mammoth churns. The con
cern manufactures from three hundred to nine
hundred pounds per day, according to the
season, shipping chiefly to New York city.
Leaning over the hand-rail which fences off
the " making " room, and gossiping with the
young man in charge, I conjured up visions
of the days when, as a boy on the farm, I used
to spend many weary, almost tearful hours,
pounding an old crock churn, in which the
butter would always act like a balky horse
and refuse to "come" until after a long series
of experimental coaxing. Nowadays, rustic
youths luxuriously ride behind the plough, the
harrow, the cultivator, the horse-rake, the hay-
loader, and the self-binding harvester, while

The Half -Way House.

77

the butter-making is farmed out to a factory
where the thing is done by steam. The
farmer's boy of the future will live in a world
darkened only by the frown of the district
schoolmaster and the intermittent round of
stable chores.
At Latham Station we encountered the
first ferry-boat on our trip, — a flat-bottomed
scow with side-rails, attached by ropes and

FARE.

Foot Passengere . .

io cts.

Man & Horse . . .

15 ct.

single Carriage . . .
double " ...

10 c.
15 c

each Passinger . . .

•5c

Night Raites . . Double Fare.

All persons
Are cautioned

Againts useing
this Boat with Out

Permistion from

the Owners

pulleys to a suspended wire cable, and work
ing diagonally, with the force of the current.
A sign conspicuously displayed on the craft
bore the above legend.
78 Down Historic Waterways.
From the time we had entered Illinois,
the large, graceful, white blossoms of the
Pennsylvanian anemone and the pink and
white fringe of the erigeron Canadense had
appeared in great abundance upon the river
banks, while the wild prairie rose lent a deli
cate beauty and fragrance to the scene. On
sandy knolls, where in early spring the anem
one patens and crowfoot violets had thrived
in profusion, were now to be seen the geum
triflorum and the showy yellow puccoon; the
long-flowered puccoon, with its delicate pale
yellow, crape-like blossom, was just putting in
an appearance ; and little white, star-shaped
flowers, which were strangers to us of Wis
consin, fairly dotted the green hillsides, min
gled in striking contrast with dwarf blue mint.
Bevies of great black crows, sitting in the tops
of dead willow-trees or circling around them,
rent the air with sepulchral squawks. Men
and boys were cultivating in the cornfields,
the prevalent drought painfully evidenced by
the clouds of gray dust which enveloped them
and their teams as they stirred up the brittle
earth. There was now a fine breeze astern, and
the awning, abandoned during the head winds
of the day before, was again welcomed as the
sun mounted to the zenith. At 2.30 p. m.,

The Half- Way House. 79
we were in busy Rockford, where the banks
are twenty or twenty-five feet high, with roll
ing prairies stretching backward to the hori
zon, except where here and there a wooded
ridge intervenes. Rockford is the metropolis
of the valley of the Rock. It has twenty-two
thousand inhabitants, with many fine man
sions visible from the river, and evidences
upon every hand of that prosperity which
usually follows in the train of varied manufac
turing enterprises.
There are numerous mills and factories
along both sides of the river, and a protracted
inspection of the portage facilities was neces
sary before we could decide on which bank
to make our carry. The left was chosen.
The portage was somewhat over two ordinary
city blocks in length, up a steep incline and
through a road- way tunnel under a great flour
ing mill. We had made nearly half the dis
tance) and were resting for a moment, when
a mill-driver kindly offered the use of his
wagon, which was gratefully accepted. We
were soon spinning down the tail of the race,
a half-dozen millers waving a " Chautauqua
salute " with as many dusty flour-bags, and in
ten minutes more had left Rockford out of
sight. Several miles below, there are a half-dozen

80 Down Historic Waterways.
forested islands in a bunch, some of them four
or five acres in extent, and we puzzled over
which channel to take, — the best of them
abounding in shallows. The one down which
the current seemed to set the strongest was
selected, but we had not proceeded over half
a mile before the trees on the banks began to
meet in arches overhead, and it was evident
that we were ascending a tributary. It proved
to be the Cherry River, emptying into the
main stream from the east. The wind, now
almost due-west, had driven the waves into
the mouth of the Cherry, so that we mistook
this surface movement for the current. Com
ing to a railway bridge, which we knew from
our map did not cross the Rock, our course
was retraced, and after some difficulty with
snags and gravel-spits, we were once more
upon our proper highway, trending to the
southwest. Supper was eaten upon the edge of a large
island, several miles farther down stream,
in the shade of two wide-spreading locusts.
Opposite are some fine, eroded sandstone pali
sades, which formation had been frequently
met with during the day, — sometimes on
both sides of the river, but generally on the
left bank, which is, as a rule, the most pic
turesque along the entire course.

The Half- Way House. 81
It was still so cold when evening shadows
thickened that camping out, with our meagre
preparations for it, seemed impracticable ; so
we pushed on and kept a sharp lookout for
some friendly farm-house at which to quarter
for the night. The houses in the thickly-
wooded bottoms, however, were generally
quite forbidding in appearance, and the sun
had gone down before we sighted a well-built
stone dwelling amid a clump of graceful ever
greens. It seemed, from the river, to be the
very embodiment of comfortable neatness ; but
upon ascending the gentle slope and fighting
off two or three mangy curs which came
snarling at our heels, we found the structure
merely a relic of gentility. There was scarcely
a whole pane of glass in the house, there were
eight or ten wretchedly dirty and ragged chil
dren, the parents were repulsive in appear
ance and manner, and a glimpse of the interior
presented a picture of squalor which would
have shocked a city missionary. The stately
stone house was a den of the most abject and
shiftless poverty, the like of which one could
seldom see in the slums of a metropolis.
These people were in the midst of a splendid
farming country, had an abundance of pure
air and water at command, and there seemed
to be no excuse for their condition. Drink
6

82 Down Historic Waterways.
and laziness were doubtless the besetting sins
in this uncanny home. Making a pretense of
inquiring the distance to Byron, the next vil
lage below, we hurried from the accursed
spot. A half-hour later we reached the high
bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St.
Paul railway, above Byron, and ran our bow
on a little beach at the base of the left bank,
which is here thirty feet high. A section-
man had a little cabin hard by, and his gaunt,
talkative wife, with a chubby little boy by her
side, had been keenly watching our approach
from her garden-fence. She greeted us with
a shrill but cheery voice as we clambered up
a zigzag path and joined her upon the edge of
the prairie.
" Good ev'nin', folks ! Whar 'n earth d' ye
come from ? "
We enlightened her in a few words.
"Don't mean t' say ye come all the way
from Weesconsin a' down here in that thing ? "
pointing down at the canoe, which certainly
looked quite small, at that depth, in the
dim twilight.
" Certainly ; why not ? "
" Ye '11 git drowndid, an' I 'm not mistakin,
afore ye git to Byron."
" River dangerous, ma'am ? "

The Half -Way House. 83
" Dang'rous ain't no name for 't. There
was a young feller drowndid at this here
bridge las' spring. The young feller he
worked at the bridge-mendin', bein' a car
penter, — he called himself a carpenter, but
he war n't no great fist at carpenterin', an' I
know it, — and he boarded up at Byron. A
'nsurance agint kim 'long and got Rollins, —
the young feller his name was Abe Rollins,
an' he was a bach, — to promise to 'sure his
life for a thousand dollars, which was to go t'
his sister, what takes in washin', an' her man
ran away from her las' year an' nobody knows
where he is, — which I says is good riddance,
but she takes on as though she had los' some
body worth cryin' over : there 's no account-
in' for tastes. The agint says to Rollins to
go over to the doctor's of'c' to git 'xamined
and Rollins says, ' No, I ain't agoin' to git
'xamined till I clean off; I '11 go down an' take
a swim at the bridge and then come back and
strip for the doctor.' An' Rollins he took
his swim and got sucked down inter a hole just
yonder down there, by the openin' of Still
man's Creek, and he was a corpse when they
hauled him out, down off Byron ; an' he riever
hollered once but jist sunk like a stone with
a cramp ; an' his folks never got no 'nsurance
money at all* for lackin' the doctor's c'tifi-

84 Down Historic Waterways.
cate. An' it 's heaps o' folks git drowndid in
this river, an' nobody ever hears of 'em agin ;
an' I would n't no more step foot in that boat
nor the biggest ship on the sea, an' I don't
see how you can do it, ma'am ! "
No doubt the good woman would have
rattled on after this fashion for half the night,
but we felt obliged, owing to the rapidly in
creasing darkness, to interrupt her with geo
graphical inquiries. She assured us that
Byron was distant some five or six miles by
river, with, so far as she had heard, many
shallows, whirlpools, and snags en route;
while by land the village was but a mile and
a quarter across the prairie, from the bridge.
We accordingly made fast for the night
where we had landed, placed our heaviest bag
gage in the tidy kitchen-sitting-room-parlor
of our voluble friend, and trudged off over the
fields to Byron, — a solitary light in a window
and the occasional practice-note of a brass
band, borne to us on the light western breeze,
being our only guides.
After a deal of stumbling over a rough and
ill-defined path, which we could distinguish
by the sense of feeling alone, we finally
reached the exceedingly quiet little village,
and by dint of inquiry from house to house, —
in most of which the denizens seemed pre-

The Half- Way House. 85
paring to retire for the night, — found the inn
which had been recommended by the section-
man's wife as the best in town. It was the
only one. There were several commercial
travelers in the place, and the hostelry was
filled. But the landlord kindly surrendered
to us his own well-appointed chamber, above
an empty store where the village band was
tuning up for Decoration Day. It seemed
appropriate enough that there should be music
to greet us, for we were now one hundred
and thirty-four miles from Madison, and
practically half through our voyage to the
Mississippi.

86 Down Historic Waterways.

CHAPTER V.

GRAND DETOUR FOLKS.

WE tramped back to the bridge in high
spirits next morning, over the flower-
strewn prairie. The section-man's wife was
on hand, with her entire step-laddered brood
of six, to see us off. As we carried down our
traps to the beach and repacked, she kept up
a continuous strain of talk, giving us a most
edifying review of her life, and especially the
particulars of how she and her " man " had
first romantically met, while he was a gravel-
train hand on a far western railroad, and she
the cook in a portable construction-barracks.
Stillman's Creek opens into the Rock from
the east, through a pleasant glade, a few rods
below the bridge. We took a pull up this
historic tributary for a half-mile or more.
It is a muddy stream, some two and a half
rods wide, cutting down for a half-dozen feet
through the black soil. The shores are gen-

The Rock River at Oregon1, Illinois

Grand Detour Folks. 87
erally well fringed with heavy timber, espe
cially upon the northern bank, while the land
to the south and southwest stretches upward,
in gentle slopes, to a picturesque rolling prai
rie, abounding in wooded knolls. It was in
the large grove on the north bank, near its
junction with the Rock, that Black Hawk, in
the month of May, 1832, parleyed with the
Pottawattomies. It was here that on the
14th of that month he learned of the treach
ery of Stillman's militiamen, and at once
made that famous sally with his little band
of forty braves which resulted in the rout of
the cowardly whites, who fled pell-mell over
the prairie toward Dixon, asserting that
Black Hawk and two thousand blood-thirsty
warriors were sweeping northern Illinois with
the besom of destruction. The country round
about appears to have undergone no appre
ciable change in the half-century intervening
between that event and to-day. The topo
graphical descriptions given in contempora
neous accounts of Stillman's flight will hold
good now, and we were readily able to pick
out the points of interest on the old battle
field. Returning to the Rock, we made excellent
progress. The atmosphere was bracing ; and
there being a favoring northwest breeze, our

88 Down Historic Waterways.
awning was stretched over a hoop for a sail.
The banks were now steep inclines of white
sand and gravel. It was like going through
a railroad cut. But in ascending the sides, as
we did occasionally, to secure supplies from
farm-houses or refill our canteen with fresh
water, there were found broad expanses of
rolling prairie. The farm establishments in
crease in number and prosperity. Windmills
may be counted by the scores, the cultiva
tion of enormous cornfields is everywhere in
progress, and cattle are more numerous than
ever. Three or four miles above Oregon the banks
rise to the dignity of hills, which come sweep
ing down " with verdure clad '' to the very
water's edge, and present an inspiring picture,
quite resembling some of the most charming
stretches of the Hudson. At the entrance to
this lovely vista we encountered a logy little
pleasure-steamer anchored in the midst of
the stream, which is here nearly half of a mile
wide, for the river now perceptibly broadens.
The captain, a ponderous old sea-dog, wear
ing a cowboy's hat and having the face of an
operatic pirate, with a huge pipe between
his black teeth, sat lounging on the bulwark,
watching the force of the current, into which
he would listlessly expectorate. He was at

Grand Detour Folks. 89
first inclined to be surly, as we hauled along
side and checked our course ; but gradually
softened down as we drew him out in con
versation, and confided to us that he had in
earlier days " sailed the salt water," a circum
stance of which he seemed very proud. He
also gave us some " pointers on the lay o' the
land," as he called them, for our future guid
ance down the river, — one of which was that
there were " dandy sceneries " below Oregon,
in comparison with which we had thus far
seen nothing worthy of note. As for himself,
he said that his place on the neighboring shore
was connected by telephone with Oregon, and
his steamer frequently transported pleasure
parties to points of interest above the dam.
Ganymede Spring is on the southeast bank,
at the base of a lofty sandstone bluff, a mile or
so above Oregon. From the top of the bluff,
which is ascended by a succession of steep
flights of scaffolding stairs, a comprehensive
bird's-eye view is attainable of one of the
finest river and forest landscapes in the
Mississippi basin. The grounds along the
riverside at the base are laid out in grace
ful carriage drives ; and over the head of
a neatly hewn basin, into which gushes the
copious spring, is a marble slab thus in
scribed : —

90 Down Historic Waterways.

GANYMEDE'S SPRINGS,
named by
Margeret Fuller (Countess D. Ossoli,)
who named this bluff
EAGLE'S NEST,
& beneath the cedars on its crest wrote
" Ganymede to his Eagle,"
July 4, 1843.

Oregon was reached just before noon. A
walk through the business quarter revealed a
thrifty, but oldish-looking town of about two
thousand inhabitants. The portage on the
east side, around a flouring-mill dam, in
volved a hard pull up the gravelly bank thirty
feet high, and a haul of two blocks' length
along a dusty street.
There was a fine stretch of eroded pali
sades in front of the island on which we
lunched. The color effect was admirable, —
patches of gray, brown, white, and old gold,
much corroded with iron. Vines of many
varieties dangle from earth-filled crevices,
and swallows by the hundreds occupy the
dimples neatly hollowed by the action of
the water in some ancient period when the
stream was far broader and deeper than now.
But at times, even in our day, the Rock is

Grand Detour Folks. 9 1
a raging torrent. The condition of the trees
along the river banks and on the thickly-
strewn island pastures, shows that not many
months before it must have been on a wild
rampage, for the great trunks are barked by
the ice to the height of fifteen feet above the
present water-level. Everywhere, on banks
and islands, are the evidences of disastrous
floods, and the ponderous ice-breakers above
the bridges give one an awesome notion of the
condition of affairs at such a time. Farmers
assured us that in the spring of 1887 the
water was at the highest stage ever recorded
in the history of the valley. Many of the
railway bridges barely escaped destruction,
while the numerous river ferries and the low
country bridges in the bayous were destroyed
by scores. The banks were overflowed for
miles together, and back in the country for
long distances, causing the hasty removal
of families and live-stock from the bottoms ;
while ice jams, forming at the heads of the
islands, would break, and the shattered floes
go sweeping down with terrific force, crush
ing the largest trees like reeds, tearing away
fences and buildings, covering islands and
meadows .with deep deposits of . sand and
mud, blazing their way through the forested
banks, and creating sad havoc on every hand.

92 Down Historic Waterways.
We were amply convinced, by the thousands
of broken trees which littered our route,
the snags, the mud-baked islands, the fre
quent stretches of sadly demoralized bank
that had not yet had time, to reweave its
charitable mantle of verdure, that the Rock,
on such a spring " tear," must indeed be a
picture of chaos broken loose. This ex
plained why these hundreds of beautiful and
spacious islands — many of them with charm
ing combinations of forest and hillock and
mea'dow, and occasionally enclosing pretty
ponds blushing with water-lilies — are none
of them inhabited, but devoted to the pasture
of cattle, who swim or ford the intervening
channels, according to the stage of the flood ;
also why the picturesque bottoms on the
main shore are chiefly occupied by the poor
est class of farmers, who eke out their meagre
incomes with the spoils of the gun and
line. It was a quarter of five when we beached
at the upper ferry-landing at Grand Detour.
It is a little, tumble-down village of one or
two small country stores, a church, and a
dozen modest cottages ; there is also, on the
river front, a short row of deserted shops,
their paintless battlement-fronts in a sadly
collapsed condition, while hard by are the

The Rock River below Oregon, Illinois

Grand Detour Folks. 93
ruins of two or three dismantled mills. The
settlement is on a bit of prairie at the base of
the preliminary flourish of the " big bend " of
the Rock, — hence the name, Grand Detour,
a reminiscence of the early French explorers.
The foot of the peninsula is but half a mile
across, while the distance around by river to
the lower ferry, on the other side of the vil
lage is four miles. Having learned that the
bottoms below here were, for a long distance,
peculiarly gloomy and but sparsely inhabited,
we thought it best to pass the night at Grand
Detour. Bespeaking accommodations at the
tavern and post-office combined, we rowed
around the bend to the lower landing, through
some lovely stretches of river scenery, in
which bold palisades and delightful little
meadows predominated.
The walk back to the village was through
a fine park of elms. The stage was just in
from Dixon, with the mail. There was an
eager little knot of villagers in the cheerful
sitting-room of our homelike inn, watching
the stout landlady as she distributed it in
a checker-board rank of glass-faced boxes
fenced off in front of a sunny window. It
did not appear that many of those who over
looked the distribution of the mail had been
favored by their correspondents. They were

94 Down Historic Waterways.
chiefly concerned in seeing who did get letters
and papers, and in " passin' the time o' day,"
as gossiping is called in rural communities.
Seated in a darkened corner, waiting pa
tiently for supper, the announcement of which
was an hour or more in coming, we were much
amused at the mirror of local events which
was unconsciously held up for us by these
loungers of both sexes and all ages, who
fairly filled the room, and oftentimes waxed
hot in controversy.
The central theme of conversation was the
preparations under way for Decoration Day,
which was soon to arrive. Grand Detour
was to be favored with a speaker from Dixon,
— "a reg'lar major from the war, gents, an'
none o' yer m'lish fellers ! " an enthusiastic
old man with a crutch persisted in announc
ing. There were to be services at the church,
and some exercises at the cemetery, where lie
buried the half-dozen honored dead, Grand
Detour's sacrifice upon the altar of the Union.
The burning question seemed to be whether
the village preacher would consent to offer
prayer upon the occasion, if the church choir
insisted on being accompanied on the brand-
new cabinet organ which the congregation
had voted to purchase, but to which the pas
tor and one of the leading deacons were said

Grand Detour Folks. 95
to be bitterly opposed, as smacking of world-
liness and antichrist. Only the evening
before, this deacon, armed with a sledge
hammer and rope, had been seen to go to
the sanctuary in company with his "hired
man," and enter through one of the windows,
which they pried up for the purpose. A good
gossip, who lived hard by, closely watched
such extraordinary proceedings. There was
a great noise within, then some planks were
pitched out of the window, soon followed by
the deacon and his man. The window was
shut down, the planks thrown atop of the
horse-shed roof, and the men disappeared.
Investigation in the morning by the witness
revealed the fact that the choir-seats and the
organ-platform had been torn down and re
moved. Here was a pretty how d' do ! The
wiry, raspy little woman, with her gray finger-
curls and withered, simpering smile, had, with
great forbearance, kept her choice bit of news
to herself till " post-office time." Sitting in
a big rocking-chair close to the delivery win
dow, knitting vigorously on an elongated
stocking, she demurely asserted that she
" never wanted to say nothin' 'gin' nobody,
or to hurt nobody's feelin's," and then de
tailed the entire circumstance to the patrons
of the office as they came in. The excite-

96 Down Historic Waterways.
ment created by the story, which doubtless
lost nothing in the telling, was at fever-heat.
We were sorely tempted to remain over till
Decoration Day, — when, it was freely pre
dicted, there " would be some folks as 'd wish
they 'd never been born," — and see the out
come of this tempest in a teapot. But our
programme, unfortunately, would not admit
of such a diversion.
Others came and went, but the gossipy
little body with the gray curls rocked on,
holding converse with both post-mistress and
public, keeping a keen eye on the character
of the mail matter obtained by the villagers
and neighboring farmers, and freely comment
ing on it all ; so that new-comers were kept
quite well-informed as to the correspondence
of those who had just departed.
A sad-eyed little woman in rusty black
modestly slipped in, and was handed out a
much-creased and begrimed envelope, which
she nervously clutched. She was hurrying
silently away, when the gossip sharply ex
claimed, " Good lands, Cynthi' Prescott! some
folks don't know a body when they meet.
'Spose ye've been hearin' from Jim at last.
I 'd been thinkin' 't was about time ye got a
letter from his hand, ef he war ever gain'
t' write at all. Tell ye, Cynthi' Prescott,

Grand Detour Folks. 97
ye 're too indulgent on that man o' yourn !
Efl — "
But Cynthia Prescott, turning her black,
deep-sunken eyes to her inquisitor, with a
piteous, tearful look, as though stung to the
quick, sidled out backward through the wire-
screen door, which sprung closed with a
vicious bang, and I saw her hurrying down
the village street firmly grasping at her bosom
what the mail had brought her, — possibly a
brutal demand for more money, from a worth
less husband, who was wrecking his life-craft
on some far-away shore.
" Goodness me ! but the Gilberts is a-put-
tin' on style ! " ejaculated the village censor,
as a rather smart young horseman went out
with a bunch of letters, and a little packet
tied up in red twine. " That there was vis'tin'
keerds from the printer's shop in Dixon, an'
cost a dollar ; can't fool me ! There 's some
folks as hev to be leavin' keerds on folks's
centre-tables when they goes makin' calls, for
fear folks will be a-forgettin' their names.
When I go a-callin', I go a-visitin' and take
my work along an' stop an' hev a social cup
o' tea ; an' they ain't a-goin' to forgit for
awhile, that I dropped in on 'em, neither.
This way they hev down in Dixon, what I
hear of, of ringin' at a bell and settin' down
7

98 Down Historic Waterways.
with yer bonnet on and sayin', ' How d' do,'
an' a 'Pretty well, I thank yer,' and jumpin'
up as if the fire bell was ringin' and goin' on
through the whole n'ighberhood as ef ye 're
on springs, an' then a-trancin' back home and
braggin' how many calls ye 've made, — I
ain't got no use for that ; it '11 do for Dixon
folks, what catch the style from Chicargy,
an' they git 't from Paris each year, I 'm told,
but I ain't no use for 't. Mebbe ol' man
Gilbert is made o' money, — his women folks
act so, with all this a-apein' the Clays, who 's
been gettin' visitin' keerds all the way from
Chicargy, which they ordered of a book agint
last fall, with gilt letters an' roses an' sich like
in the corners. An' 'twas Clay's brother-in-
law as tol' me he never did see such carryin's-
on over at the old house, with letter-writin'
paper sopped in cologne, an' lace curtains in
the bed-room winders. An' ye can't tell me
but the Gilberts, too, is a-goin' to the dogs,
with their paper patterns from Dixon, and dress
samples from a big shop in Chicargy, which
I seen from the picture on the envelope was
as big as all Grand Detour, an' both ferry-
landin's thrown in. Grand Detour fashi'ns
ain't good 'nough for some folks, I reckon."
And thus the busy-tongued woman dis
coursed in a vinegary tone upon the character-

Grand Detour Folks. 99
istics of Grand Detour folks, as illustrated by
the nature of the evening mail, frequently
interspersing her remarks with a hearty dis
claimer of anything malicious in her tempera
ment. At last, however, the supper-bell rang ;
the doughty postmistress, who had been re
markably discreet throughout all this village
tirade, having darted in and out between the
kitchen and the office, attending to her dual
duties, locked the postal gate with a snap,
and asked her now solitary patron, " Any
thing I can do for you, Maria ? " The gossip
gathered up her knitting, hastily averred that
she had merely dropped in for her weekly
paper, but now remembered that this was not
the day for it, and ambled off, to reload with
venom for the next day's mail.
After supper we walked about the peaceful,
pretty, grass-grown village. Shearing was in
progress at the barn of the inn, and the streets
were filled with bleating sheep and nodding
billy-goats. The place presented many evi
dences of former prosperity, and we were told
that a dozen years before it had boasted of a
plough factory, two or three flouring-mills, and
a good water-power. But the railroad that it
was expected would come to Grand Detour
had touched Dixon instead, with the result
that the village industries had been removed

100 Down Historic Waterways.
to Dixon, the dam had fallen in, and now there
were less than three hundred inhabitants
between the two ferries.
When one of the store-keepers told me he
had practically no country trade, but that his
customers were the villagers alone, I was led
to inquire what supported these three hundred
people, who had no industries among them,
no river traffic, owing to customary low water
in summer, and who seemed to live on each
other. Many of the villagers, I found, are
laborers who work upon the neighboring
farms and maintain their families here ; a few
are farmers, the corners of whose places run
down to the village ; others there are who
either own or rent or " share " farms in the
vicinity, going out to their work each day,
much of their live stock and crops being
housed at their village homes ; there are half
a dozen retired farmers, who have either sold
out their places or have tenants upon them,
and live in the village for sociability's sake, or
to allow their children the benefit of the ex
cellent local school. Mingled with these peo
ple are a shoemaker, a tailor, a storekeeper,
who live upon the necessities of their neigh
bors. Two fishermen spend the summer
here, in a tent, selling their daily catch to
the villagers and neighboring farmers and

Grand Detour Folks. i o i
occasionally shipping by the daily mail-stage
to Dixon, fourteen miles away. The preacher
and his family are modestly supported ; a
young physician wins a scanty subsistence ;
and for considerably over half the year the
schoolmaster shares with them what honors
and sorrows attach to these positions of rural
eminence. Our pleasant-spoken host was the
driver of the Dixon stage, as well as star-route
mail contractor, adding the conduct of a farm
to his other duties. With his wife as post
mistress, and a pretty, buxom daughter, who
waited on our table and was worth her weight
in gold, Grand Detour folks said that he was
bound to be a millionnaire yet.
As Grand Detour lives, so live thousands
of just such little rural villages all over the
country. Viewed from the railway track or
river channel, they appear to have been once
larger than they are to-day. The sight of
the unpainted houses, the ruined factory, the
empty stores, the grass and weeds in the
street, the lack-lustre eyes of the idlers, may
induce one to imagine that here is the home
of hopeless poverty and despair. But although
the railroad which they expected never came ;
or the railroad which did come went on and
scheduled the place as a flag station; still,
there is a certain inherent vitality here, an

102 Down Historic Waterways.
undefined something that holds these people
together, a certain degree of hopefulness
which cannot rise to the point of ambition, a
serene satisfaction with the things that are.
Grand Detour folks, and folks like them,
are as blissfully content as the denizens of
Chicago.

An Ancient Mariner. 103

CHAPTER VI.
AN ANCIENT MARINER.
THE clock in a neighboring kitchen was
striking six, as we reached the lower
ferry-landing. The grass in the streets and
under the old elms was as wet with dew as
though there had been a heavy shower during
the night. The village fishermen were just
pulling in to the little pier, returning from
an early morning trip to their " traut-lines "
down stream. In a long wooden cage, which
they towed astern, was a fifty-pound sturgeon,
together with several large cat-fish. They
kindly hauled their cage ashore, to show us
the monsters, which they said would prob
ably be shipped, alive, to a Chicago restau
rant which they occasionally furnished with
curiosities in their line. These fishermen
were rough-looking fellows in their battered
hats and ragged, dirty overcoats, with faces
sadly in need of water and a shave. They

104 Down Historic Waterways.
had a sad, pinched-up appearance as well, as
though the dense fog, which was but just now
yielding to the influence of the sun, had pen
etrated their bones and given them the chills.
On engaging them in friendly conversation
about their calling, they exhibited good man
ners and some knowledge of the outer world.
Their business, they said, was precarious and,
as we could well see, involved much expos
ure and hardship. Sometimes it meant a
start at midnight, often amid rainstorms, fogs,
or chilling weather, with a hard pull back
again up-stream, — for their lines were all of
them below Grand Detour ; but to return
with an empty boat, sometimes their luck,
was harder yet. Knocking about in this way,
all of the year around, — for their winters
were similarly spent upon the lower waters
and bayous of the Mississippi, — neither of
them was ever thoroughly well. One was
consumptively inclined, he told me, and being
an old soldier, was receiving a small pension.
A claim agent had him in hand, however, and
his thoughts ran largely upon the prospects
of an increase by special legislation. He
seemed to have but little doubt that he would
ultimately succeed. When he came into this
looked-for fortune, he said, he would " quit
knockin' 'round an' killin' myself fishin',"

An Ancient Mariner. 105
settle down in Grand Detour for the balance
of his days, raising his own "garden sass,
pigs, and cow ; " and some fine day would
make a trip in his boat to the " old home
in Injianny, whar I was raised an' 'listed in
the war." His face fairly gleamed with pleas
ure as he thus dwelt upon the flowers of
fancy which the pension agent had cultivated
within him ; and W  sympathetically ex
claimed, when we had swung into the stream
and bidden farewell to these men who fol
lowed the calling of the apostles, that were
she a congressman she would certainly vote
for the fisherman's claim, and make happy
one more heart in Grand Detour.
Now commences the Great Bend of the
Rock River. The water circuit is fourteen
miles, the distance gained being but six by
land. The stream is broad and shallow,
between palisades densely surmounted with
trees and covered thick with vines ; great
willow islands freely intersperse the course ;
everywhere are evidences of ice-floes, which
have blazed the trees and strewn the islands
with fallen trunks and driftwood, — a tornado
could not have created more general havoc.
The visible houses, few of them inviting in
appearance, are miles apart. As had been
foretold at the village, the outlook for lodg-

106 Down Historic Waterways.
ings in this dismal region is not at all encour
aging. It was well that we had stopped at
Grand Detour.
Below the bend, where the country is more
open, though the banks are still deep-cut, the
highway to Dixon skirts the river, and for sev
eral miles we kept company with the stage.
Dixon was sighted at 10 o'clock. A circus
had pitched its tents upon the northern bank,
just above the dam, near where we landed for
the carry, and a crowd of small boys came
swarming down the bank to gaze upon us,
possibly imagining, at first, that our outfit was
a part of the show. They accompanied us, at
a respectful distance, as we pulled the canoe
up a grassy incline and down through the
vine-clad arches of a picturesque old ruin of
a mill. Below the dam, we rowed over to the
town, about where the famous pioneer ferry
used to be. It was in the spring of 1826 that
John Boles opened a trail from Peoria to
Galena, by the way of the present locality of
Dixon, thus shortening a trail which had been
started by one Kellogg the year before, but
crossed the Rock a few miles above. The
site of Dixon at once sprang into wide popu
larity as a crossing-place, Indians being em
ployed to do the ferrying. Their manner
was simple. Lashing two canoes abreast, the

An Ancient Mariner. 107
wheels of one side of a wagon were placed in
one canoe and the opposite wheels in the
other. The horses were made to swim be
hind. In 1827 a Peoria man named Begordis
erected a small shanty here and had half
finished a ferry-boat when the Indians, not
favoring competition, burned the craft on its
stocks and advised Begordis to return to
Peoria ; being a wise man, he returned. The
next year, Joe Ogie, a Frenchman, one of a
race that the red men loved, and having a
squaw for his wife, was permitted to build a
scow, and thenceforth Indians were no longer
needed there as common carriers. By the
time of the Black Hawk war, Dixon, from
whom the subsequent settlement was named,
ran the ferry, and the crossing station had
henceforth a name in history. A trail in those
early days was quite as important as a railroad
is to-day ; settlements sprang up along the im
proved " Kellogg's trail," and Dixon was the
centre of interest in all northern Illinois. In
deed, it being for years the only point where
the river could be crossed by ferry, Dixon was
as important a landmark to the settlers of the
southern half of Wisconsin who desired to go
to Chicago, as any within their own territory.1
1 See Mrs. Kinzie's " Wau-Bun " for a description of the
difficulties of travel in " the early day," via Dixon's Ferry.

io8 Down Historic Waterways.
The Dixon of to-day shelters four thousand
inhabitants and has two or three busy mills ;
although it is noticeable that along the water-
power there are some half-dozen mill proper
ties that have been burned, torn down, or
deserted, which does not look well for the
manufacturing prospects of the place. The
land along the river banks is a flat prairie
some half-mile in width, with rolling country
beyond, sprinkled with oak groves. The
banks are of black, sandy loam, from twelve
to twenty feet high, based with sandy beaches.
The shores are now and then cut with deep
ravines, at the mouths of which are fine,
gravelly beaches, sometimes forming consid
erable spits. These indicate that the dry,
barren gullies, the gutters of the hillocks,
while innocent enough in a drought, some
times rise to the dignity of torrents and sud
denly pour great volumes of drainage into the
rapidly filling river, — so often described in
the journals of early travelers through this
region, as "the dark and raging Rock." This
sort of scenery, varied by occasional limestone
palisades, — the interesting and picturesque
feature of the Rock, from which it derived
its name at the hands of the aborigines, —
extends down to beyond Sterling.
This city, reached at 3.50 p. m., is a busy

The Rock River at "The Oaks"

An Ancient Mariner. 109
place of ten thousand inhabitants, engaged
in miscellaneous manufactures. Our port
age was over the south and dry end of the
dam. We were helped by three or four bright,
intelligent boys, who were themselves carry
ing over a punt, preparatory to a fishing ex
pedition below. Amid the hundreds of boys
whom we met at our various portages, these
well-bred Sterling lads were the only ones
who even offered their assistance. Very
likely, however, the reason may be traced to
the fact that this was Saturday, and a school
holiday. The boys at the week-day carries
were the riff-raff, who are allowed to loaf upon
the river-banks when they should be at their
school-room desks.
While mechanically pulling a " fisherman's
stroke" down stream I was dreamily reflect
ing upon the necessity of enforced popular
education, when W  , vigilant at the steers
man's post, mischievously broke in upon the
brown study with, "Como's next station!
Twenty minutes for supper ! "
And sure enough, it was a quarter past six,
and there was Como nestled upon the edge of
the high prairie-bank. I went up into the
hamlet to purchase a quart of milk for supper,
and found it a little dead-alive community of
perhaps one hundred and twenty-five people.

no Down Historic Waterways.
There is the brick shell of a fire-gutted fac
tory, with several abandoned stores, a dozen
houses from which the paint had long since
scaled, a rather smart-looking schoolhouse,
and two brick dwellings of ancient .pattern, —
the homes of well-to-do farmers ; while here
and there were grass-grown depressions, which
I was told were once the cellars of houses
that had been moved away. On the return
to the beach a bevy of open-mouthed women
and children accompanied me, plying questions
with a simplicity so rare that there was no
thought of impertinence. W  was talking
with the old gray-haired ferryman, who had
been transporting a team across as we had
landed beside his staging. The old man
had stayed behind, avowedly to mend his boat,
with a stone for a hammer, but it was quite
apparent that curiosity kept him, rather than
the needs of his scow. He confided to us
that Como — which was indeed prettily situ
ated upon a bend of the river — had once been
a prosperous town. But the railroad went to
some rival place, and — the familiar story —
the dam at Como rotted, and the village fell
into its present dilapidated state. It is the
fate of many a small but ambitious town
upon a river. Settled originally because of
the river highway, the railroads — that have

An Ancient Mariner. in
nearly killed the business of water transpor
tation — did not care to go there because it
was too far out of the short-cut path selected
by the engineers between two more promi
nent points. Thus the community is " side
tracked," — to use a bit of railway slang ; and
a side-tracked town becomes in the new civili
zation — which cares nothing for the rivers,
but clusters along the iron ways — a town
"as dead as a door-nail."
We had supper on a high bank just out
of sight of Como. By the time we had
reached a point three or four miles below the
village it was growing dark, and time to hunt
for shelter. While I walked, or rather ran,
along the north bank looking for a farm-house,
W  guided the canoe down a particularly
rapid current. It was really too dark to prose
cute the search with convenience. I was
several times misled by clumps of trees, and
fruitlessly climbed over board or crawled under
barbed-wire fences, and often stumbled along
the dusty highway which at times skirted the
bank. It was over a mile before an undoubt
ed windmill appeared, dimly silhouetted against
the blackening sky above a dense growth of
river-timber a quarter of a mile down the
stream. A whistle, and W  shot the craft
into the mouth of a black ravine, and clam-

1 1 2 Down Historic Waterways.
bered up the bank, at the serious risk of torn
clothing from the thicket of blackberry-vines
and locust saplings which covered it. To
gether we emerged upon the highway, deter
mined to seek the windmill on foot ; for it
would have been impossible to sight the place
from the river, which was now, from the over
hanging trees on both shores and islands, as
dark as a cavern. Just as we stepped upon
the narrow road — which we were only able
to distinguish because the dust was lighter in
color than the vegetation — a farm-wagon
came rumbling along over a neighboring cul
vert, and rolled into view from behind a fringe
of bushes. The horses jumped and snorted
as they suddenly sighted our dark forms, and
began to plunge. The women gave a mild
shriek, and awakened a small child which one
of them carried in her arms. I essayed to
snatch the bits of the frightened horses to pre
vent them from running away, for the women
had dropped the lines, while W  called
out asking if there was a good farm-house
where the windmill was. The team quieted
down under a few soothing strokes ; but the
women persisted in screaming and uttering
incoherent imprecations in German, while
the child fairly roared. So I returned the
lines to the woman in charge, and we bade

An Ancient Mariner. 1 1 3
them " Guten Nacht." As they whipped up
their animals and hurried away, with fearful
backward glances, it suddenly occurred to us
that we had been taken for footpads.
We were so much amused at our adventure,
as we walked along, almost groping our way,
that we failed to notice a farm-gate on the
river side of the road, until a chorus of dogs,
just over the fence, arrested our attention.
A half-dozen human voices were at once heard
calling back the animals. A light shone in
thin streaks through a black fringe of lilac-
bushes, and in front of these was the gate.
Opening the creaky structure, we advanced
cautiously up what we felt to be a gravel walk,
under an arch of evergreens and lilacs, with
the paddle ready as a club, in case of another
dog outbreak. But there was no need of it,
and we soon emerged into a flood of light,
which proceeded from a shadeless lamp within
an open window.
It was a spacious white farm-house. Upon
the " stoop " of an L were standing, in atti
tudes of expectancy, a stout, well-fed, though
rather sinister-expressioned elderly man, with
a long gray beard, and his raw-boned, over
worked wife, with two fair but dissatisfied-
looking daughters, and several sons, ranging
from twelve to twenty years. A few moments

114 Down Historic Waterways.
of explanation dispelled the suspicious look
with which we had been greeted, and it was
soon agreed that we should, for a considera
tion, be entertained for the night and over
Sunday ; although the good woman protested
that her house was " topsy-turvy, all torn up "
with house-cleaning, — which excuse, by the
way, had become quite familiar by this time,
having been current at every house we had
thus far entered upon our journey.
Bringing our canoe down to the farmer's
bank and hauling it up into the bushes, we
returned through the orchard to the house,
laden with baggage. Our host proved to be
a voluble story-teller. His tales, often Mun-
chausenese, were inclined to be ghastly, and
he had an o'erweening fondness for inconse
quential detail, like some authors of serial
tales, who write against space and tax the pa
tience of their readers to its utmost endurance.
But while one may skip the dreary pages of
the novelist, the circumstantial story-teller
must be borne with patiently, though the
hours lag with leaden heels. In earlier days
the old man had been something of a traveler,
having journeyed to Illinois by steamboat
on the upper lakes, from "ol' York State;"
another time he went down the Mississippi
River to Natchez, working his way as a deck

An Ancient Mariner. 1 1 5
hand ; but the crowning event of his career
was his having, as a driver, accompanied
a cattle-train to New York city. A few
years ago he tumbled down a well and was
hauled up something of a cripple ; so that his
occupation chiefly consists in sitting around
the house in an easy-chair, or entertaining the
crowd at the cross-roads store with sturdy tales
of his adventures by land and sea, spiced with
vigorous opinions on questions of politics and
theology. The garrulity of age, a powerful
imagination, and a boasting disposition are
his chief stock in trade.
Propped up in his great chair, with one leg
resting upon a lounge and the other aiding
his iron-ferruled cane in pounding the floor
by way of punctuating his remarks, " that
ancient mariner "
" Held us with his glittering eye;
We could not choose but hear."
His tales were chiefly of shooting and stab
bing scrapes, drownings and hangings that he
claimed to have seen, dwelling upon each
incident with a blood-curdling particularity
worthy of the reporter of a sensational metro
politan journal. The ancient man must have
fairly walked in blood through the greater part
of his days ; while from the number of corpses

116 Down Historic Waterways.
that had been fished out of the river, at the
head of a certain island at the foot of his or
chard, and "laid out" in his best bedroom by
the coroner, we began to feel as though we
had engaged quarters at a morgue. It was
painfully evident that these recitals were
" chestnuts " in the house of our entertainer.
The poor old lady had a tired-out, unhappy
appearance, the dissatisfied-looking daughters
yawned, and the sons talked, sotto voce, on
farm matters and neighborhood gossip.
Finally, we tore away, much to the relief of
every one but the host, and were ushered with
much ceremony into the ghostly bed-chamber,
the scene of so many coroner's inquests. I
must confess to uncanny dreams that night,
— confused visions of Rock River giving up
innumerable corpses, which I was compelled
to assist in " laying out " upon the very bed I
occupied.

Storm-Bound at Erie. 117

CHAPTER VII.
STORM-BOUND AT ERIE.
WE were somewhat jaded by the time
Monday morning came, for Sunday
brought not only no relief, but repetitions of
many of the most horrible of these " tales of
a wayside inn." It was with no slight sense
of relief that we paid our modest bill and at
last broke away from such ghastly associa
tions. An involuntary shudder overcame me,
as we passed the head of the island at the
foot of our host's orchard, which he had de
scribed as a catch-basin for human floaters.
Our course still lay among large, densely
wooded islands, — many of them wholly given
up to maples and willows, — and deep cuts
through sun-baked mudbanks, the color of
adobe ; but occasionally there are low, gloomy
bottoms, heavily forested, and strewn with
flood-wood, while beyond the land rises gradu
ally into prairie stretches. In the bottoms

1 1 8 Down Historic Waterways.
the trees are filled with flocks of birds, — -
crows, hawks, blackbirds, with stately blue
herons and agile plovers foraging on the long
gravel-spits which frequently jut far into the
stream ; ducks are frequently seen sailing
near the shores ; while divers silently dart
and plunge ahead of the canoe, safely out of
gunshot reach. A head wind this morning
made rowing more difficult, by counteracting
the influence of the current.
We were at Lyndon at eleven o'clock.
There is a population of about two hundred,
clustered around a red paper-mill. The latter
made a pretty picture standing out on the
bold bank, backed by a number of huge stacks
of golden straw. We met here the first
rapids worthy of record ; also an old, aban
doned mill-dam, in the last stages of decay,
stretching its whitened skeleton across the
stream, a harbor for driftwood. Near the
south bank the framework has been entirely
swept away for a space several rods in width,
and through this opening the pent-up current
fiercely sweeps. We went through the centre
of the channel thus made, with a swoop that
gave us an impetus which soon carried our
vessel out of sight of Lyndon and its paper-mill
and straw-stacks.
Prophetstown, five miles below, is prettily

Storm-Bound at Erie. 119
situated in an oak grove on the southern
bank. Only the gables of a few bouses can
be seen from the river, whose banks of yellow
clay and brown mud are here twenty-five feet
high. During the first third of the present
century, this place was the site of a Winne
bago village, whose chief was White Cloud,
a shrewd, sinister savage, half Winnebago
and half Sac, who claimed to be a prophet.
He was Black Hawk's evil genius during the
uprising of 1832, and in many ways was one
of the most remarkable aborigines known to
Illinois history. It was at " the prophet's
town," as White Cloud's village was known
in pioneer days, that Black Hawk rested upon
his ill-fated journey up the Rock, and from
here, at the instigation of the wizard, he bade
the United States soldiery defiance.
There are rapids, almost continually, from
a mile above Prophetstown to Erie, ten miles
below. The river bed here has a sharper
descent than customary, and is thickly strewn
with bowlders ; many of them were visible
above the surface, at the low stage of water
which we found, but for the greater part they
were covered for two or three inches. What
with these impediments, the snags that had
been left as the legacy of last spring's flood,
and the frequent sand-banks and gravel-spits,

120 Down Historic Waterways.
navigation was attended by many difficulties
and some dangers.
Four or five miles below Prophetstown, a
lone fisherman, engaged in examining a "traut-
line" stretched between one of the numerous
gloomy islands and the mainland, kindly in
formed us of a mile-long cut-off, the mouth of
which was now in view, that would save us
several miles of rowing. Here, the high
banks had receded, with several miles of
heavily wooded, boggy bottoms intervening.
Floods had held high carnival, and the aspect
of the country was wild and deserted. The
cut-off was an ugly looking channel ; but
where our informant had gone through, with
his unwieldy hulk, we considered it safe to ven
ture with a canoe, so readily responsive to the
slightest paddle-stroke. The current had torn
for itself a jagged bed through the heart of a
dense and moss-grown forest. It was a scene
of weird desolation, rack and ruin upon every
hand. The muddy torrent, at a velocity of
fully eight miles an hour, went eddying and
whirling and darting and roaring among the
gnarled and blackened stumps, the prostrate
trees, the twisted roots, the huge bowlders
which studded its course. The stream was
not wide enough for the oars ; the paddle was
the sole reliance. With eyes strained for

Storm-Bound at Erie. 121
obstructions, we turned and twisted through
the labyrinth, jumping along at a breakneck
speed ; and, when we finally rejoined the main
river below, were grateful enough, for the run
had been filled with continuous possibilities
of a disastrous smash-up, miles away from any
human habitation.
The thunder-storm which had been threat
ening since early morning, soon burst upon
us with a preliminary wind blast, followed by
drenching rain. Running ashore on the lee
bank, we wrapped the canvas awning around
the baggage, and made for a thick clump of
trees on the top of an island mudbank, where
we stood buttoned to the neck in rubber coats.
A vigorous " Halloo ! " came sounding over
the water. Looking up, we saw for the first
time a small tent on the opposite shore, a
quarter of a mile away, in front of which was
a man shouting to us and beckoning us over.
It was getting uncomfortably muddy under
the trees, which had not long sufficed as an
umbrella, and the rubber coats were not war
ranted to withstand a deluge, so we accepted
the invitation with alacrity and paddled over
through the pelting storm.
Our host was a young fisherman, who
helped us and our luggage up the slimy bank
to his canvas quarters, which we found to be

122 Down Historic Waterways.
dry, although odorous of fish. While the
storm raged without, the young man, who was
a simple-hearted fellow, confided to us the de
tails of his brief career. He had been mar
ried but a year, he said ; his little cabin lay a
quarter of a mile back in the woods, and, so
as to be convenient to his lines, he was camp
ing on his own wood-lot ; the greater part of
his time was spent in fishing or hunting, ac
cording to the season, and peddling the
product in neighboring towns, while upon a
few acres of clearing he raised "garden truck"
for his household, which had recently become
enriched by the addition of an infant son.
The phenomenal powers of observation dis
played by this first-born youth were reported
with much detail by the fond father, who sat
crouched upon a boat-sail in one corner of
the little tent, his head between his knees, and
smoking vile tobacco in a blackened clay pipe.
It seemed that his wife was a ferryman's
daughter, and her father had besought his
son-in-law to follow the same steady calling.
To be sure, our host declared, ferries on the
Rock River netted their owners from $400 to
$800 a year, which he considered a goodly
sum, and his father-in-law had offered to pur
chase an established plant for him. But the
young fellow said that ferrying was a dog's

Storm-Bound at Erie. 123
life, and "kept a feller home like barn chores ;"
he preferred to fish and hunt, earning far less
but retaining independence of movement, so
rejected the offer and settled down, avowedly
for life, in his present precarious occupation.
As a result, the indignant old man had for
bidden him to again enter the parental ferry-
house until he agreed to accept his proposals,
and there was henceforth to be a standing
family quarrel. The fisherman having ap
pealed to my judgment, I endeavored with
mild caution to argue him out of his position
on the score of consideration for his wife and
little one ; but he was not to be gainsaid,
and firmly, though with admirable good na
ture, persisted in defending his roving ten
dencies. In the course of our conversation
I learned that the ferrymen, who are more
numerous on the lower than on the upper
Rock, pay an annual license fee of five dollars
each, in consideration of which they are guar
antied a monopoly of the business at their
stands, no other line being allowed within one
mile of an existing ferry.
Within an hour and a half the storm had
apparently passed over, and we continued our
journey. But after supper another shower
and a stiff head wind came up, and we were
well bedraggled by the time a ferry-landing

124 Down Historic Waterways.
near the little village of Erie was reached.
The bottoms are here a mile or two in width,
with occasional openings in the woods, where
small fields are cultivated by the poorer class
of farmers, who were last spring much dam
aged by the flood which swept this entire
country. The ferryman, a good-natured young ath
lete, was landing a farm-wagon and team as
we pulled in upon the muddy roadway.
When questioned about quarters, he smiled
and pointing to his little cabin, a few rods
pff in the bushes, said, — " We 've four peo
ple to sleep in two rooms ; it 's sure we can't
take ye ; I 'd like to, otherwise. But Erie 's
only a mile away."
We assured him that with these muddy
swamp roads, and in our wet condition, noth
ing but absolute necessity would induce us to
take a mile's tramp. The parley ended in our
being directed to a small farm-house a quarter
of a mile inland, where luckless travelers, be
lated on the dreary bottoms, were occasionally
kept. Making the canoe fast for the night,
we strung our baggage-packs upon the paddle
which we carried between us, and set out
along a devious way, through a driving mist
which blackened the twilight into dusk, to
find this place of public entertainment.

Storm-Bound at Erie. 125
It is a little, one-story, dilapidated farm
house, standing a short distance from the
country road, amid a clump of poplar trees.
Forcing our way through the hingeless gate,
the violent removal of which threatened the
immediate destruction of several lengths of
rickety fence, we walked up to the open front
door and applied for shelter.
" Yes, ma'am ; we sometimes keeps tavern,
ma'am," replied a large, greasy-looking, black-
haired woman of some forty years, as, her
hands folded within her up-turned apron, she
courtesied to W  .
We were at once shown into a frowsy
apartment which served as parlor, sitting-room
and parental dormitory. There was huddled
together an odd, slouchy combination of arti
cles of shabby furniture and cheap decorations,
peculiar, in the country, to all three classes of
rooms, the evidences of poverty, shiftlessness,
and untasteful pretentiousness upon every
side. A huge, wheezy old cabinet organ was
set diagonally in one corner, and upon this, as
we entered, a young woman was pounding
and paddling with much vigor, while giving
us sidelong glances of curiosity. She was a
neighbor, on an evening visit, decked out in
a smart jockey-cap, with a green ostrich tip
and bright blue ribbons, and gay in a new

126 Down Historic Waterways.
calico dress, — a yellow field thickly planted
to purple pineapples. A jaunty, forward crea
ture, in pimples and curls, she rattled away
through a Moody and Sankey hymn-book, the
wheezes and groans of the antique instrument
coming in like mournful ejaculations from the
amen corner at a successful revival. Having
exhausted her stock of tunes, she wheeled
around upon her stool, and after declaring to
her half-dozen admiring auditors that her
hands were " as tired as after the mornin's
milkin' " abruptly accosted W  : " Ma'am,
kin ye play on the orgin ? "
W  confessed her inability, chiefly from
lack of practice in the art of incessantly
working the pedals.
" That's the trick o' the hul business, ma'am,
is the blowin'. It's all in gettin' the bellers to
work even like. There's a good many what
kin learn the playin' part of it without no
teacher ; but there has to be lessons to learn
the bellers. Don't ye have no orgin, when
ye 're at home ? " she asked sharply, as if to
guage the social standing of the new guest.
W  modestly confessed to never having
possessed such an instrument.
"Down in these parts," rejoined the young
woman, as she "worked the bellers" into a
strain or two of " Hold the Fort," apparently

Storm-Bound at Erie. 127
to show how easy it came to trained feet, " no
house is now considered quite up to the fashi'n
as ain't got a orgin." The rain being now
over, she soon departed, evidently much dis
gusted at W  's lack of musical culture.
The bed-chamber into which we were shown
was a marvel. It opened off the main room
and was, doubtless, originally a cupboard.
Seven feet square, with a broad, roped bedstead
occupying the entire length, a bedside space
of but two feet wide was left. Much of this
being filled with butter firkins, chains, a trunk,
and a miscellaneous riff-raff of household
lumber, the standing-room was restricted to
two feet square, necessitating the use of the
bed as a dressing-place, after the fashion of a
sleeping-car bunk. This cubby-hole of a room
was also the wardrobe for the women of
the household, the walls above the bed being
hung nearly two feet deep with the oddest col
lection of calico and gingham gowns, bustles,
hoopskirts, hats, bonnets, and winter under
wear I think I had ever laid eyes on.
Much of this condition of affairs was not
known, however, until next morning ; for it was
as dark as Egypt within, except for a few faint
rays of light which came straggling through
the cracks in the board partition separating
us from the sitting-room candle. We had no

128 Down Historic Waterways.
sooner crossed the threshold of our little box
than the creaky old cleat door was gently
closed upon us and buttoned by our hostess
upon the outside, as the only means of keep
ing it shut ; and we were left free to grope
about among these mysteries as best we
might. We had hardly recovered from our
astonishment at thus being locked into a dark
hole the size of a fashionable lady's trunk,
and were quietly laughing over this odd ad
venture, when the landlady applied her mouth
to a crack and shouted, as if she would have
waked the dead : " Hi, there ! Ye 'd better
shet the winder to keep the bugs out ! " A
few minutes later, returning to the crack, she
added, " Ef ye's cold in the night, jest haul
down some o' them clothes atop o' ye which
ye '11 find on the wall."
Repressing our mirth, we assured our good
hostess that we would have a due regard for
our personal safety. The window, not at first
discernible, proved to be a hole in the wall,
some two feet square, which brought in little
enough fresh air, at the best. It was fortu
nate that the night was cool, although our
hostess's best gowns were not needed to sup
plement the horse-blankets under which we
slept the sleep of weary canoeists.

The Last Day Out. 129

CHAPTER VIII.
THE LAST DAY OUT.
THE following day opened brightly. We
had breakfast in the tavern kitchen, en
famille. The husband, whom we had not
met before, was a short, smooth-faced, voluble,
overgrown-boy sort of man. The mother was
dumpy, coarse, and good-natured. They had
a greasy, easy-tempered daughter of eigh
teen, with a frowsy head, and a face like a full
moon ; while the heir of the household, some
what younger, was a gaping, grinning youth
of the Simple Simon order, who shovelled
mashed potatoes into his mouth alternately
with knife and fork, and took bites of bread
large enough for a ravenous dog. The old
grandmother, with a face like parchment and
one gleaming eye, sat in a low rocking-chair
by the stove, crooning over a corn-cob pipe
and using the wood-box for a cuspadore. She
had a vinegary, slangy tongue, and being
9

130 Down Historic Waterways.
somewhat deaf, would break in upon the con
versation with remarks sharper than they
were pat.
With our host, a glib and rapid talker in a
swaggering tone, one could not but be much
amused, as he exhibited a degree of self-ap
preciation that was decidedly refreshing. He
had been a veteran in the War of the Rebel
lion, he proudly assured us, and pointed with
his knife to his discharge-paper, which was
hung up in an old looking-glass frame by the
side of the clock.
" Gemmen," — he invariably thus addressed
us, as though we were a coterie of checker-
players at a village grocery, — " Gemmen,
when I seen how them Johnny Rebs was a usin'
our boys in them prison pens down thar at
Andersonville and Libbie and 'roun' thar,
I jist says to myself, says I, ' Joe, my boy,
you go now an' do some 'n' fer yer country ;
a crack shot like you is, Joe,' says I to myself,
' as kin hit a duck on the wing, every time,
an' no mistake, ought n't ter be a-lyin 'roun'
home an' doin' no'hun to put down the re
bellion ; it 's a shame,' says I, ' when our boys
is a-suff'r'n' down thar on Mason 'n' Dixie's
line ; ' an' so I jined, an' I stuck her out, gem
men, till the thing was done ; they ain't no
coward 'bout me, ef I hev the sayin' of it ! "

The Last Day Out. 131
"Were you wounded, sir ?" asked W  ,
sympathetically. " No, I wa' n't hurt at all, — that is, so to
speak, wounded. But thar were a sort of a
doctor feller 'round here las' winter, a-stoppin'
at Erie ; an' he called at my place, an' he
says, ' No'hun the matter wi' you, a-growin'
out o' the war ? ' says he ; an' I says, ' No'hun
that I know'd on,' says I, — ' I 'm a-eatin' my
reg'l'r victuals whin I don't have the shakes,'
says I. ' Ah ! ' says he, ' you 've the shakes ? '
he says ; ' an' don't you know you ketched 'em
in the war ? ' 'I ketched 'em a-gettin' m'lairy
in the bottoms,' says I, ' a-duck-shootin', in
which I kin hit a bird on the wing every time
an' no mistake,' says I. ' Now,' he says, 'hold
on a minute ; you did n't hev shakes afore the
war ? ' says he. ' Not as much,' I says, not
knowin' what the feller was drivin' at, ' but
some ; I was a kid then, and kids don't shake
much,' says I. ' Hold up ! hold up !' he says,
' you 're wrong, an' ye know it ; ye don't hev
no mem'ry goin' back so far about phys'cal
conditions,' says he. Well, gemmen, sure
'nough, when I kem to think things over,
and talk it up with the doctor chap, I 'lowed
he was right. Then he let on he was a claim
agint, an' I let him try his hand on workin'
up a pension for me, for he says I wa'n't to

132 Down Historic Waterways.
pay no'hun 'less the thing went through. But
I hearn tell, down at Erie, that they is a-goin'
agin these private claims nowadays at Wash-
in'ton, an' I don't know what my show is.
But I ought to hev a pension, an' no mis
take, gemmen. They wa'n't no fellers did
harder work 'n me in the war, ef I do say it
myself." W  ventured to ask what battles our
host had been in.
" Well, I wa'n't in no reg'lar battle, —that
is, right in one. Thar was a few of us de
tailed ter tek keer of gov'ment prop'ty near
C'lumby, South Car'liny, when Wape Ha'mp-
tin was a-burnin' things down thar. We
was four miles away from the fightin,' an'
I was jest a-achin' to git in thar. What I
wanted was to git a bead on ol' Wade him
self, — an' ef I do say it myself, the ol' man
would 'a' hunted his hole, gemmen. When I
get a sight on a duck, gemmen, that duck' s
mine, an' no mistake. An' ef I'd 'a' sighted
Wade Hamptin, then good-by Wade ! I tol'
the cap'n what I wanted, but he said as how
I was more use a-takin' keer of the supplies.
That cap'n had n't no enterprise 'bout him.
Things would 'a' been different at C'lumby,
ef I 'd had my way, an' don't ye forgit it !
There was heaps o' blood spilt unnecessary

The Last Day Out. 1 33
by us boys, a-fightin' to save the ol' flag, —
an' we 're willin' to do it agin, gemmen, an'
no mistake ! "
The old woman had been listening eagerly
to this narrative, evidently quite proud of her
boy's achievements, but not hearing all that
had been said. She now broke out, in shrill,
high notes, —
"Joe ought ter 'a' had a pension, he had, wi'
his chills 'tracted in the war. He wuk'd hard,
Joe did, a hul ten months, doin' calvary ser
vice, the last year o' the war ; an' he kem
nigh onter shootin' ol' Wade Hamptin, an'
a-makin' a name for himself, an' p'raps a good
office with a title an' all that ; only they kep'
him back with the ammernition wagin, 'count
o' the kurnil's jealousy, — for Joe is a dead
shot, ma'am, if I 'm his mother as says it, and
keeps the family in ducks half the year 'roun',
an' the kurnil know'd Joe was a-bilin' over to
git to the front."
" Ah ! you were in the cavalry service,
then ? " I said to our landlord, by way of help
ing along the conversation.
There was a momentary silence, broken by
Simple Simon, who wiped his knife on his
tongue, and made a wild attack on the butter
dish. " Pa, he druv a mule team for gov'ment ;

134 Down Historic Waterways.
an' we got a picter in the album, tuk of him
when he were just a-goin' inter battle, with a
big ammernition wagin on behind. Pa, in
the picter, is a-ridin' o' one o' the mules, an'
any one 'd know him right off."
This sudden revelation of the strength of
the veteran's claim to glory and a pension,
put a damper upon his reminiscences of the
war ; and giving the innocent Simon a savage
leer, he soon contrived to turn the conversa
tion upon his wonderful exploits in duck-
shooting and fishing — industries in the
pursuit of which be, with so many of his
fellow-farmers on the bottoms, appeared to be
more eager than in tilling the soil.
It was quite evident that the breakfast we
were eating was a special spread in honor of
probably the only guests the quondam tavern
had had these many months. Canoeists
must not be too particular about the fare set
before them ; but on this occasion we were
able to swallow but a few mouthfuls of the
repast and our lunch-basket was drawn on
as soon as we were once more afloat. It is a
great pity that so many farmers' wives are
the wretched cooks they are. With an abun
dance of good materials already about them,
and rare opportunities for readily acquiring
more, tens of thousands of rural dames do

Tke Last Day Out. 135
manage to prepare astonishingly inedible meals,
— sour, doughy bread ; potatoes which, if
boiled, are but half cooked, and if mashed, are
floated with abominable butter or pastey flour
gravy ; salt pork either swimming in a bowl
of grease or fried to a leathery chip ; tea
and coffee extremely weak or strong enough
to kill an ox, as chance may dictate, and inev
itably adulterated beyond recognition ; eggs
that are spoiled by being fried to the consis
tency of rubber, in a pan of fat deep enough
to float doughnuts ; while the biscuits are
yellow and bitter with saleratus. This bill of
fare, warranted to destroy the best of appe
tites, will be recognized by too many of my
readers as that to be found at the average
American farm-house, although we all doubt
less know of some pleasant exceptions, which
only prove the rule. We establish public
cooking-schools in our cities, and economists
like Edward Atkinson and hygienists like
the late Dio Lewis assiduously explain to
the metropolitan poor their processes of mak
ing a tempting meal at small cost; but our
most crying need in this country to-day is a
training-school for rural housewives, where
they may be taught to evolve a respect
able and economical spread out of the great
abundance with which they are surrounded.

136 Down Historic Waterways.
It is no wonder that country boys drift to the
cities, where they can obtain properly cooked
food and live like rational beings.
The river continues to widen as we ap
proach the junction with the Mississippi, —
thirty-nine miles below Erie, — and to assume
the characteristics of the great river into
which it pours its flood. The islands increase
in number and in size, some of them being
over a mile in length by a quarter of a
mile in breadth ; the bottoms frequently re
solve themselves into wide morasses, thickly
studded with great elms, maples, and cotton-
woods, among which the spring flood has
wrought direful destruction. The scene be
comes peculiarly desolate and mournful, often
giving one the impression of being far removed
from civilization, threading the course of some
hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the
deep fringe of forest and morass on foot,
however, and smiling prairies are found be
yond, stretching to the horizon and cut up
into prosperous farms. The river is here
from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad,
but the shallows and snags, are as numerous
as ever and navigation is continually attended
with some danger of being either grounded or
capsized. Now and then the banks become firmer,

The Last Day Out. 137
with charming vistas of high, wooded hills
coming down to the water's edge ; broad
savannas intervene, decked out with varie
gated flora, prominent being the elsewhere
rare atragene Americana, the spider-wort, the
little blue lobelia, and the cup-weed. These
savannas are apparently overflowed in times
of exceptionally high water ; and there are
evidences that the stream has occasionally
changed its course, through the sunbaked
banks of ashy-gray mud, in years long past.
At Cleveland, a staid little village on an
open plain, which we reached soon after the
dinner-hour, there is an unused mill-dam go
ing to decay. In the centre, the main current
has washed out a breadth of three or four
rods, through which the pent-up stream
rushes with a roar and a hundred whirlpools.
It is an ugly crevasse, but a careful examina
tion showed the passage to be feasible, so we
retreated an eighth of a mile up-stream, took
our bearings, and went through with a speed
that nearly took our breath away and appeared
to greatly astonish a half-dozen fishermen idly
angling from the dilapidated apron on either
side. It was like going through Cleveland on
the fast mail.
Fourteen miles above the mouth of the
Rock, is the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy

138 Down Historic Waterways.
railroad bridge, with Carbon Cliff on the
north and Coloma on the south, each one
mile from the river. The day had been dark,
with occasional slight showers and a stiff head
wind, so that progress had been slow. We
began to deem it worth while to inquire about
the condition of affairs at the mouth. Under
the bridge, sitting on a bowlder at the base
of the north abutment, an intelligent-appearing
man in a yellow oiled-cloth suit, accompanied
by a bright-eyed lad, peacefully fished. Stop
ping to question them, we found them both
well-informed as to the railway time-tables of
the vicinity and the topography of the lower
river. They told us that the scenery for the
next fourteen miles was similar, in its dark
desolation, to that which we had passed
through during the day ; also that owing to
the great number of islands and the labyrinth
of channels both in the Rock and on the east
side of the Mississippi, we should find it
practically impossible to know when we had
reached the latter ; we should doubtless pro
ceed several miles below the mouth of the
Rock before we noticed that the current was
setting persistently south, and then would
have an exceedingly difficult task in retracing
our course and pulling up-stream to our des
tination, Rock Island, which is six miles

The Last Day Out. 1 39
north of the delta of the Rock. They strongly
advised our going into Rock Island by rail.
The present landing was the last chance to
strike a railway, except at Milan, twelve miles.
below. It was now so late that we could not
hope to reach Milan before dark ; there were
no stopping-places en route, and Milan was
farther from Rock Island than either Carbon
Cliff or Coloma, with less frequent railway
service. For these and other reasons, we decided to
accept this advice, and to ship from Coloma.
Taking a final spurt down to a ferry-landing
a quarter of a mile beyond, on the south
bank, we beached our canoe at 5.05 p. m.,
having voyaged two hundred and sixty-seven
miles in somewhat less than seven days and
a half. Leaving W  to gossip with the
ferryman's wife, who came down to the bank
with an armful of smiling twins, to view a
craft so strange to her vision, I went up into
the country to engage a team to take our
boat upon its last portage. After having
been gruffly refused by a churlish farmer,
who doubtless recognized no difference be
tween a canoeist and a tramp, I struck a bar
gain with a negro cultivating a cornfield with
a span of coal-black mules, and in half an
hour he was at the ferry-landing with a

140 Down Historic Waterways.
wagon. Washing out the canoe and chain
ing in the oars and paddle, we lifted it into
the wagon-box, piled our baggage on top, and
set off over the hills and fields to Coloma,
W  and I trudging behind the dray, ankle
deep in mud, for the late rains had well moist
ened the black prairie soil. It was a unique
and picturesque procession.
In less than an hour we were in Rock Isl
and, and our canoe was on its way by freight
to Portage, preparatory to my tour with our
friend the Doctor, — down the Fox River of
Green Bay.

THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN
BAY).

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THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY).

FIRST LETTER.
smith's island.
Packwaukee, Wis., June 7, 1887.
MY dear W  : It was 2.25 p. m. yes
terday when the Doctor and I launched
the old canoe upon the tan-colored water of
the government canal at Portage, and pointed
her nose in the direction of the historic Fox.
You will remember that the canal traverses
the low sandy plain which separates the Fox
from the Wisconsin on a line very nearly
parallel to where tradition locates Barth's and
Lecuyer's wagon-portage a hundred years
ago. It was a profitable business in the
olden days, when the Fox- Wisconsin highway
was extensively patronized, to thus transport
river craft over this mile and a half of bog.

144 Down Historic Waterways.
The toll1 collected by these French Creoles
and their successors down to the days of
Paquette added materially to the cost of goods
and peltries. In times of exceptionally high
water the Wisconsin overflowed into the Fox,
which is ordinarily five feet lower than the
former, and canoes could readily cross the
portage afloat, quite independent of the for
warding agents. In this generation the Wis
consin is kept to her bounds by levees ; but
the government canal furnishes a free high
way. The railroads have spoiled water-navi
gation, however ; and the canal, like the most
of the Fox and Wisconsin river-improvement,
is fast relapsing into a costly relic. The tim
bered sides are rotting, the peat and sand are
bulging them in, the locks are shaky and worm-
eaten, and several moss-covered barges and a
stranded old ruin of a steamboat turned out to
grass tell a sad story of official abandonment.
The scenic effects from the canal are not
enlivening. There is a wide expanse of
bog, relieved by some grass-grown railway
side-tracks and the forlorn freight-depot of
the Wisconsin Central road. A few bat
tered sheds yet remain of old Fort Winne
bago on a lonesome hillock near where the
1 Ten dollars per boat, and fifty cents per 100 lbs. of
goods.

Smith's Island. 145
canal joins the Fox ; while beyond to the
north as far as the eye can reach there is a
stretch of wild-rice swamp, through which the
government dredges have scooped a narrow
channel, about as picturesque as a cranberry-
marsh drain.
Life at Fort Winnebago during the second
quarter of this century must have been lone
some indeed, its nearest neighbors being Forts
Crawford and Howard, each nearly two hun
dred miles away. A mile or two to the south
west is a pretty wooded ridge, girting the
Wisconsin River, upon which the city of Por
tage is now situated. Then it was a forest,
and the camping-ground of Winnebagoes, who
hung around the post in the half-threatening
attitude of beggars who might make trouble
if not adequately bribed with gifts. The fort
was erected in 1828-29 at the solicitation of
John Jacob Astor (the American Fur Com
pany), to protect his trade against encroach
ments from these Winnebago rascals, who had
become quite impudent during the Red Bird
disturbance at Prairie du Chien, in 1827. Jef
ferson Davis was one of the three first-lieu
tenants in the original garrison, in which
Harney, of Mexican war fame, was a captain.
Davis was detailed to the charge of a squad
sent to cut timbers for the fort in a Wiscon-

146 Down Historic Waterways.
sin River pinery just above the portage, and
thus became one of the pioneer lumbermen of
Wisconsin. It is related, too, that Davis,
who was an amateur cabinet-maker, designed
some very odd wardrobes and other pieces of
furniture for the officers' chambers, which
were the wonder and admiration of every
occupant for years to come.1 In 1853, when
Secretary of War, the whilom subaltern is
sued an order for the sale of the fort so
intimately connected with his army career,
and its crazy buildings henceforth became
tenements. For a dozen miles beyond the Fox River
end of the canal the river, as I have before
said, is dredged out through the swamp like a
big ditch. The artificial banks of sand and
peat which line it are generally well grown
with mare's-tail, beautiful clumps of wild
roses, purple vetch, great beds of sensitive
ferns, and masses of Pennsylvania anemone,
while the pools are decked with water-anem
one. Nature is doing her best to hide the
deformities wrought by man. The valley is
generally about a mile in width, ridges of
wooded knolls hemming in the broad expanse
of reeds and rice and willow clumps. Occa-
1 Described in Mrs. Kinzie's *' Wau-Bun,'' which gives
many interesting reminiscences of life at the old post.

Smith 's Island. 147
sionally the engineers have allowed the ditch
to swerve in graceful lines and to hug closely
the firmer soil in the lower benches of the
knolls, where the banks of red and yellow clay
attain a height of ten or a dozen feet, crowned
with oaks and elms or pleasant glades. A mod
est farm-house now and then appears upon
such a shore, with the front yard running
down to the water's edge.
The afternoon shadows are lengthening,
and farmers' boys are leading their horses
down to drink, after the day's labor in the
fields. Black and yellow collies are gathering
in the cows, — some of them soberly and
quickly corral obedient herds, while others
yelp and snap at the heads of the affrighted
animals, and in the noise and confusion seem
to make but little progress. Collies have
human-like infirmities.
We had supper at seven o'clock, under a
tree which overhangs a weedy bank, with
a high pasture back of us, sloping up to a
wooded hill, at the base of which is a cluster
of three neatly painted farm-houses, whose
dogs bayed at us from the distance, but did
not venture to approach. A half-hour later,
the sun's setting warned us that quarters for
the night must soon be secured. Stopping
at the base of a boggy pasture-wood, we as-

148 Down Historic Waterways.
cended through a sterile field, accursed with
sheep-sorrel, and through gaps in several crazy
fences, to what had seemed to us from the
river a comfortable, repose-inviting house,
commandingly situated on a hill-top among
the trees. Near approach revealed a scene
of desolation. The barriers were down, two
spare-ribbed horses were nipping a scant sup
per among the weeds in a dark corner of an
otherwise deserted barn-yard, the window-
sashes were generally paneless, the porch was
in a state of collapse, sand-burrs choked the
paths, and to our knock at the kitchen door
the only response was a hollow echo. The de
serted house looked uncanny in the gloaming,
and we retired to our boat wondering what
evil spell had been cast over the place, and
whether the horses in the barn-yard had been
deliberately left behind to die of starvation.
The river now takes upon itself many devi
ous windings in a great widespread over two
miles broad. The government engineers have
here left it in all its original crookedness, and
the twists and turns are as fantastic and com
plicated as those of the Teutonic pretzel in its
native land. As the twilight thickened, great
swarms of lake-flies rose from the sedges and
beat their way up-stream, the noise of their
multitudinous wings being at times like the

Smith's Island. 149
roar of a neighboring waterfall, as they formed
a ceaselessly moving canopy over our heads.
It was noticeable that the flies kept very
closely to the windings of the river, as if
guided only by the glittering flood beneath
them. The mass of the procession kept its
way up the stream, and upon the outskirts
could be seen a few individuals, apparently
larger than the average, flying back and forth
as if marshaling the host.
Two miles below the deserted house, we
stopped opposite another marshy bank, where
a rude skiff lay tied to a shaky fence project
ing far out into the reeds. Pushing our way
in, we beached in the slimy shore-mud and
scrambled upon the land, where the tall grass
was now as sloppy with dew as though it had
been rained upon. It was getting quite dark
now, but through a cleft in the hills the moon
was seen to be just rising above a cloud-
bathed horizon, and a small house, neat-look
ing, though destitute of paint, was sharply
silhouetted against the lightening sky, at the
head of a gentle slope. By the time we had
waded through a quarter of a mile of thriving
timothy we were wet to the skin below the
knees and dusted all over with pollen.
Seven children, mostly boys, and gently step-
laddered down from fourteen years, greeted

150 Down Historic Waterways.
us at the summit with a loud " Hello ! " in
shrill unison. They stood in a huddle by
the woodpile, holding down and admonishing
a very mild-looking collie, which they evi
dently imagined was filled with an overween
ing desire instantly to devour us. " Hello
there ! who be ye ? " shouted the oldest lad and
the spokesman of the party. He was a tall,
spare boy, and by the light of the rising
moon we could see he was sharp-featured,
good-natured, and intelligent.
" Well," said the Doctor, bantering, " that 's
what we 'd like to know. You tell us who
you are, and we '11 tell you who we are. Now
that 's fair, is n't it ? "
" Yes, sir," replied the boy, respectfully, as
he touched his rimless straw hat; " our
name 's Smith ; all 'cept that boy there,"
pointing to a sturdy little twelve-year-old,
" an' he 's a Bixby, he is."
" The Smith family 's a big one, I should
say," the Doctor remarked, as he audibly
counted the party.
" Oh, this ain't all on 'em, sir ; there 's two
in the house, a-hidin' 'cause o' strangers, be
sides the baby, which ma and pa has with
'em inter Packwaukee, a-shoppin'. This is
Smith's Island, sir. Did n't ye ever hear o'
Smith's Island ? "

Smith's Island. 151
We acknowledged our ignorance, up to
this time, of the existence of any such feature
in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad,
now joined by the others, who had by this
time vanquished their bashfulness and all
wanted to talk at once, assured us that we
were actually on Smith's Island ; that Smith's
Island had an area of one hundred acres, was
surrounded on the east by the river, and every
where else by either a bayou or a marsh that
had to be crossed with a boat in the spring;
that there were three families of Smiths there,
and this group represented but one branch of
the clan.
" We 're all Smiths, sir, but this boy, who's
a Bixby ; an' he 's our cousin and only a-
visitin'." After having gained a thorough knowledge
of the topography and population of Smith's
Island, we ventured to ask whether it was pre
sumable that the parental Smiths, when they
returned home from the village, would be wil
ling to entertain us for the night.
" Guess not, sir," replied the spokesman,
the idea appearing to strike him humorously ;
" there 's so many of us now, sir, that we 're
packed in pretty close, an' the Bixby boy has
to sleep atop o' the orgin. But I think Uncle
Jim might ; he kept a tramp over night once,

152 Down Historic Waterways.
an' give him his breakfus', too, in the bar
gain." The prospect as to Uncle Jim was certainly
encouraging, and it was now too late to go
farther. It seemed necessary to stop on
Smith's Island for the night, even if we were
restricted to quartering in the corn-crib which
the Smith boy kindly put at our disposal in
case of Uncle Jim's refusal, — with the addi
tional inducement that he would lend us the
collie for company and to " keep off rats,"
which he intimated were phenomenally nu
merous on this swamp-girt hill.
The entire troop of urchins accompanied us
down to the bank to make fast for the night,
and helped us up with our baggage to the
corn-crib, where we disturbed a large family
of hens which were using the airy structure
as a summer dormitory. Then, with the two
oldest boys as pilots, we set off along the
ridge to find the domicile of Uncle Jim, who
had established a reputation for hospitality by
having once entertained a way-worn tramp.
The moon had now swung clear of the
trees on the edge of the river basin, and
gleamed through a great rift in the blue-
black clouds, investing the landscape with a
luminous glow. Along the eastern horizon a
dark forest-girt ridge hemmed in the reedy

Smith's Island. 153
widespread, through which the gleaming Fox
twisted and doubled upon itself like a silvery
serpent in agony. The Indians, who have an
eye to the picturesque in Nature, tell us that
once a monster snake lay down for the night
in the swamp between the portage and the lake
of the Winnebagoes. The dew accumulated
upon it as it lay, and when the morning came
it wriggled and shook the water from its back,
and disappeared down the river which it had
thus created in its nocturnal bed. I had
never fully appreciated the aptness of the
legend until last night, when I had that
bird's-eye view of the valley of the Fox
from the summit of Smith's Island. To our
left, the timothy-field sloped gracefully dowrt
to the sedgy couch of the serpent; to our
right, there were pastures and oak openings,
with glimpses of the moonlit bayou below,
across which a dark line led to a forest, — the
narrow roadway leading from Smith's to the
outer world. At the edge of a small wood-
lot our guides stopped, telling us to keep on
along the path, over two stiles and through a
barn-yard gate, till we saw a light ; the light
would be Uncle Jim's.
A cloud was by this time overcasting the
moon, and a distant rumble told us that the
night would be stormy. Groping our way

154 Down Historic Waterways.
through the copse, we passed the barriers,
and, according to promise, the blinding light
of a kerosene lamp standing on the ledge
of an open window burst upon us. Then a
door opened, and the form of a tall, stalwart
man stood upon the threshold, a striking
silhouette. It was ' Uncle Jim peering into
the darkness, for he had heard footsteps in
the yard. We were greeted cordially on the
porch, and shown into a cosey sitting-room,
where Uncle Jim had been reading his weekly
paper, and Uncle Jim's wife, smiling sweetly
amid her curl-papers, was engaged on a bit of
crochet. Charmingly hospitable people they
are. They have been married but a year or
two, are without children, and have a pleasant
cottage furnished simply but in excellent taste.
Such delightful little homes are rare in the
country, and the Doctor could n't help telling
Uncle Jim so, whereat the latter was very
properly pleased. Uncle Jim is a fine-look
ing, manly fellow, six feet two in his stock
ings, he told us ; and his pretty, blooming
wife, though young, has the fine manners of
the olden school. We were earnestly invited
to stop for the night before we had fairly
stated our case, and in five minutes were
talking on politics, general news, and agri
culture, as though we had always lived on

Smith's Island. 155
Smith's Island and had just dropped in for an
evening's chat. I am sure you would have
enjoyed it, W  , it was such a contrast to
our night at the Erie tavern, — only a week
ago, though it seems a month. One sees
and feels so much, canoeing, that the days
are like weeks of ordinary travel. Two hun
dred miles by river are more full of the
essence of life than two thousand by rail.
We had an excellent bed and an appetizing
breakfast. The flood-gates of heaven had
been opened during the night, and Smith's
Island shaken to its peaty foundations by
great thunder-peals. Uncle Jim was happy,
for the pasturage would be improved, and the
corn crop would have a " show." Uncle
Jim's wife said there would now be milk
enough to make butter for market ; and the
hens would do better, for somehow they never
would lay regularly during the drought we
had been experiencing. And so we talked
on while the " clearing showers " lasted. I
told Uncle Jim that I was surprised to see
him raising anything at all in what was ap
parently sand. He acknowledged that the
soil was light, and inclined to blow away on
the slightest aerial provocation, but he never
theless managed to get twenty bushels of
wheat to the acre, and the lowlands gave him

156 Down Historic Waterways.
an abundance of hay and pasturage. He was
decidedly in favor of mixed crops, himself,
and was gradually getting into the stock line,
as he wanted a crop that could " walk itself
into market." The Doctor inquired about
the health of the neighborhood, which he
found to be excellent. He is much of a gal
lant, you know ; and Uncle Jim's wife was
pleasantly flustered when, in his most win
ning tones, the disciple of ^Esculapius de
clared that the climate that could produce
such splendid complexions as hers — and
Uncle Jim's — must indeed be rated as avail
able for a sanitarium.
By a quarter to eight o'clock this morning
the storm had ceased, and the eastern sky
brightened. Our kind friends bade us a cheery
farewell, we retraced our steps to the corn-
crib, the Smith boys helped us down with
our load, and just as our watches touched
eight we shoved off into the stream, and were
once more afloat upon the serpentine trail.
These great wild-rice widespreads —
sloughs, the natives call them — are doubt
less the beds of ancient lakes. In coursing
through them, the bayous, the cul-de-sacs, are
so frequent, and the stream switches off upon
such unexpected tangents, that it is sometimes
perplexing to ascertain which body of sluggish

Smith's Island. 157
water is the main channel. Marquette found
this out when he ascended the Fox in 1673.
Pie says, in his relation of the voyage, " The
way is so cut up by marshes and little lakes
that it is easy to go astray, especially as the
river is so covered with wild oats [wild rice]
that you can hardly discover the channel ;
hence, we had good need of our two guides."
Little bog-islands, heavily grown with as
pens and willows, occasionally dot the seas of
rice. They often fairly hum with the varied
notes of the red-winged blackbird, the rusty
grackle, and our American robin, while whis
tling plovers are seen upon the mud-spits,
snapping up the choicest of the snails. And
such bullfrogs ! I have not heard their like
since, when a boy, living on the verge of a
New England pond, I imagined their hollow
rumble of a roundelay to bear the burden of
" Paddy, go 'round ! Go 'round and 'round ! "
This in accordance with a local tradition
which says that Paddy, coming home one
night o'erfull of the " craithur," came to the
edge of the pond, which stopped his progress^
The friendly frogs, who themselves enjoy A
soaking, advised him to go around the ob
struction ; and as the wild refrain kept on,
Paddy did indeed " go 'round, and 'round " till
morning and his better-half found him, a foot-

158 Down Historic Waterways.
sore and a soberer man. They tell us that
on the Fox River the frogs say, " Judge
Arndt ! Arndt ! Judge Arndt ! " Old Judge
Arndt was one of the celebrities in the early
days at Green Bay; he was a fur-trader, and
accustomed, with his crew of voyageurs, to
navigate the Fox and Wisconsin with heavily
laden canoes and Mackinac boats. A French
man, he had a gastronomic affection for frogs'
legs, and many a branch of the house of Rana
was cast into mourning in the neighborhood
of his nightly camps. The story goes, there
fore, that unto this time whenever a boat is
seen upon the river, sentinel frogs give out
the signal cry of "Judge Arndt !" by way of
deadly warning to their kind. Certain it is
that the valley of the upper Fox, by day or
by night, is resonant with the bellow of the
amphibious bull. It is not always "Judge
Arndt ! " but occasionally, as if miles and
miles away, one hears a sudden twanging
note, like that of the finger-snapped bass
string of a violin ; whereas the customary
refrain may be likened to the deep reverbera
tions of the bass-viol. Add the countless
chatter and whistle of the birds, the ear-
piercing hum of the cicada, and the muffled
chimes from scores of sheep and cow bells
on the hillside pastures, and we have an

Smith's Island. 159
orchestral accompaniment upon our voyage
that could be fully appreciated only in a
Chinese theatre.
In the pockets and the sloughs, we find
thousands of yellow and white water-lilies,
and sometimes progress is impeded by masses
of creeping root-stalks which have been torn
from their muddy bed by the upheaval of the
ice, and now float about in great rafts, firmly
anchored by the few whose extremities are
still imbedded in the ooze.
Fishing-boats were also occasionally met
with this morning, occupied by Packwaukee
people ; for in the widespreads just above this
village, the pickerel thrives mightily off the
swarms of perch who love these reedy seas;
and the weighty sturgeon often swallows a
hook and gives his captor many a frenzied
tug before he consents to enter the "live-box"
which floats behind each craft.

160 Down Historic Waterways.

SECOND LETTER.
FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN.
Berlin, Wis., June 8, 1887.
MY dear W  : Packwaukee is twenty-
five miles by river below Portage, and
at the head of Buffalo Lake. It is a tumble
down little place, with about one hundred
inhabitants, half of whom appeared to be
engaged in fishing. A branch of the Wis
consin Central Railway, running south from
Stevens Point to Portage, passes through
the town, with a spur track running along the
north shore of the lake to Montello, seven
miles east. Regular trains stop at Pack
waukee, while the engine draws a pony train
out to Montello to pick up the custom of
that thriving village. Packwaukee apparently
had great pretensions once, with her battle
ment-fronts and verandaed inn ; but that day
has long passed, and a picturesque float-bridge,
mossy and decayed, remains the sole point of

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 1 6 1
artistic interest. A dozen boys were angling
from its battered hand-rail, as we painfully
crept with our craft through a small culvert
where the abutment had been washed out by
the stream. We emerged covered with cob
webs and sawdust, to be met by boys eagerly
soliciting us to purchase their fish. The
Doctor, somewhat annoyed by their perti
nacity as he vigorously dusted himself with
his handkerchief, declared, in the vernacular
of the river, that we were " clean busted ; " and
I have no doubt the lads believed his mild
fib, for we looked just then as though we had
seen hard times in our day.
Our general course had hitherto been north
ward, but was now eastward for a few miles and
afterward southeastward as far as Marquette.
Buffalo Lake is seven miles long by from a
third to three quarters of a mile broad. The
banks are for the most part sandy, and from
five to fifty feet high. The river here merely
fills its bed ; being deeper, the wild rice and
reeds do not grow upon its skirts. Were there
a half-dozen more feet of water, the Fox
would be a chain of lakes from Portage to
Oshkosh. As it is, we have Buffalo, Puck-
awa, and Grand Butte des Morts, which are
among the prettiest ofthe inland seas of Wis
consin. The knolls about Buffalo Lake are
ii

1 62 Down Historic Waterways.
pleasant, round-topped elevations, for the most
part wooded, and between them are little
prairies, generally sandy, but occasionally
covered with dark loam.
The day had, by noon, developed into one
of the hottest of the season. The run down
Buffalo Lake was a torrid experience long to be
remembered. The air was motionless, the
sky without clouds ; we had good need of our
awning. The Doctor, who is always experi
menting, picked up a flat stone on the beach,
so warm as to burn his fingers, and tried to
fry an egg upon it by simple solar heat, but
the venture failed and a burning-glass was
needed to complete the operation.
Montello occupies a position at the foot of
the lake, commanding the entire sheet of water.
The knoll upon which the village is for the
most part built is nearly one hundred feet
high, and the thin spire of an old white
church pitched upon the summit is a landmark
readily discernible in Packwaukee, seven miles
distant. There is a government lock at Mon
tello, and a small water-power. A levee pro
tects from overflow a portion ofthe town which
is situated somewhat below the lake level.
The government pays the lock-keepers thirty
dollars per month for about eight months in
the year, and house-rent the year round.

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 163
Tollage is no longer required, and the keep
ers are obliged by the regulations of the engi
neering department to open the gates for all
comers, even a saw-log. But the services of
the keepers are so seldom required in these
days that we find they are not to be easily
roused from their slumbers, and it is easier
and quicker to make the portage at the aver
age up-river lock. Our carry at Montello was
two and a half rods, over a sandy bank, where
a solitary small boy, who had been catching
crayfish with a dip-net, carefully examined
our outfit and propounded the inquiry, " Be
you fellers on the guv'ment job?"
Below the lock for three or four miles, the
river is again a mere canal, but the rigid banks
of dredge-trash are for the most part covered
with a thrifty vegetation, and have assumed
charms of their own. This stage passed, and
the river resumes a natural appearance, — a
placid stream, with now and then a slough, or
perhaps banks of peat and sand, ten feet high
and fairly well hung with trees and shrubs.
As we approach the head of Lake Puckawa,
the widespreads broaden, with rows of hills
two or three miles back, on either side, — the
river mowing a narrow swath through the
expanse of reeds and flags and rice which
unites their bases. Where the widespread

164 Down Historic Waterways.
becomes a pond, and the lake commences,
there is a sandbar, the dregs of the upper
channel. A government dredge-machine was
at work, cutting out a water-way through the
obstruction, — or, rather, had been at work,
for it was seven o'clock by this time, the men
had finished their supper, and were enjoying
themselves upon the neat deck of the board
ing-house barge, in a neighboring bayou,
smoking their pipes and reading newspapers.
It was a comfortable picture.
A stern-wheel freight steamer, big and cum
bersome, came slowly into the mouth of the
channel as we left it, bound up, for Montello.
As we glided along her side, a safe distance
from the great wheelbarrow paddle, she
loomed above us, dark and awesome, like a
whale overlooking a minnow. It was the " T.
S. Chittenden," wood-laden. The " Chitten
den " and the " Ellen Hardy " are the only boats
navigating the upper Fox this season, above
Berlin. Their trips are supposed to be semi-
weekly, but as a matter of fact they dodge
around, all the way from Winneconne to
Montello, picking up what freight they can
and making a through trip perhaps once a
week. It is poor picking, I am told, and the
profits but barely pay for maintaining the
service.

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 165
There now being no place to land, without
the great labor of poling the canoe through the
dense reed swamp to the sides, we had sup
per on board, — the Doctor deftly spreading a
bit of canvas on the bottom between us, for
a cloth, and attractively displaying our lunch
to the best advantage. I leisurely paddled
meanwhile, occasionally resting to take a
mouthful or to sip of the lemonade, in the
preparation of which the Doctor is such an
adept. And thus we drifted down Lake Puck
awa, amid the delightful sunset glow and the
long twilight which followed, — the Doctor,
cake in one hand and a glass of lemonade in
the other, becoming quite animated in a de
tailed description of a patient he had seen in
a Vienna hospital, whose food was introduced
through a slit in his throat. The Doctor is
an enthusiast in his profession, and would stop
to advise St. Peter, at the gate, to try his
method for treating locksmith-palsy.
We noticed a great number of black terns
as we progressed, perched upon snags at the
head of the lake. They are fearless birds,
and would allow us to drift within paddle's
length before they would rise and, slowly
wheeling around our heads, settle again upon
their roosts, as soon as we had passed on.
Lake Puckawa is eight miles long by per-

1 66 Down Historic Waterways.
haps two miles wide, running west and east.
Five miles down the eastern shore, the quaint
little village of Marquette is situated on a
pleasant slope which overlooks the lake from
end to end. Marquette is on the site of an
Indian fur-trading camp, this lake being for
many years a favorite resort of the Winne
bagoes. There are about three hundred in
habitants there, and it is something of a
mystery as to how they all gain a living;
for the town is dying, if not already dead, —
about the only bit of life noticeable there
being a rather pretty club-house owned by a
party of Chicago gentlemen, who come to
Lake Puckawa twice a year to shoot ducks,
it being one of the best sporting- grounds in
the State. That is to say, they have hereto
fore come twice a year, but the villagers were
bewailing the passage by the legislature, last
winter, of a bill prohibiting spring shooting,
thus cutting off the business of Marquette by
one half. Marquette, like so many other
dead river-towns, appears to have been at one
time a community of some importance.
There are two deserted saw-mills and two or
three abandoned warehouses, all boarded up
and falling into decay, while nearly every
store-building in the place has shutters nailed
over the windows, and a once substantial side-

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 167
walk has become such a rotten snare that the
natives use the grass-grown street for a foot
path. The good people are so tenacious of
the rights of visiting sportsmen that there is
no angling, I was told, except by visitors, and
we inquired in vain for fish at the dilapidated
little hotel where we slept and breakfasted.
At the hostlery we were welcomed with
open arms, and the landlady's boy, who offi
ciated as clerk, porter, and chambermaid,
assured us that the village schoolmaster had
been the only guest for six weeks past.
It is certainly a quiet spot. The Doctor,
who knows all about these things, diagnosed
the lake and declared it to be a fine field for
fly-fishing. He had waxed so enthusiastic
over the numbers of nesting ducks which we
disturbed as we came down through the reeds,
in the early evening, that I had all I could do
to keep him from breaking the new game law,
although he stoutly declared that revolvers
did n't count. The postmaster — a pleasant
old gentleman in spectacles, who also keeps
the drug store, deals in ammunition, groceries,
and shoes, and is an agent for agricultural
machinery — got very friendly with the Doc
tor, and confided to him the fact that if the
latter would come next fall to Markesan, ten
miles distant, over the sands, and telephone

1 68 Down Historic Waterways.
up that he was there, a team would be sent
down for him ; then, with the postmaster for
a guide, fish and fowl would soon be obliged
to seek cover. It is needless to add that
the Doctor struck a bargain with the post
master and promised to be on hand without
fail. I never saw our good friend so wild
with delight, and the postmaster became as
happy as if he had just concluded a cash
contract for a car-load of ammunition.
The schoolmaster, a very accommodating
young man, helped us down to the beach this
morning with our load. Anticipating numer
ous lakes and widespreads, where we might
gain advantage of the wind, we had brought
a sprit sail along, together with a temporary
keel. The sail helped us frequently yester
day, especially in Buffalo Lake, but the wind
had died down after we passed Montello. This
morning, however, there was a good breeze
again, but quartering, and the keel became
essential. This we now attached to our craft,
and it was nearly seven o'clock before we were
off, although we had had breakfast at 5.30.
The " Ellen Hardy " was at the dock, load
ing with wheat for Princeton. She is a
trimmer, faster craft than the " Chittenden."
The engineer told us that the present stage
of water Was but two and a half feet in the

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 169
upper Fox, this year and last being the driest
on record. He informed us that the freight
business was "having the spots knocked off it "
by the railroads, and there was hardly enough
to make it worth while getting up steam.
Three miles down is the mouth of the lake.
There being two outlets around a large marsh,
we were somewhat confused in trying to find
the proper channel. We ascertained, after
going a mile and a half out of our way to
the south, that the northern extremity of the
marsh is the one to steer for. The river con
tinues to wind along between marshy shores,
although occasionally hugging a high bank of
red clay or skirting a knoll of shifting sand ;
now and then these knolls rise to the dignity
of hills, red with sorrel and sparsely covered
with scrubby pines and oaks.
It was noon when we reached the lock
above Princeton. The lock-keeper, a remark
ably round-shouldered German, is a pleasant,
gossipy fellow, fond of his long pipe and his
very fat frau. Upon invitation, we made our
selves quite at home in the lock-house, a pleas
ant little brick structure in a plot of made
land, the entire establishment having that
rather stiffly-neat, ship-shape appearance pe
culiar to life-saving stations, navy-yards, and
military barracks. The good frau steeped for

1 70 Down Historic Waterways.
us a pot of tea, and in other ways helped us
to grace our dinner, which we spread on a
bench under a grape arbor, by the side of the
yawning stone basin of the lock.
The "Ellen Hardy," which had left Marquette
nearly an hour later than we, came along
while we were at dinner, waking the echoes
with three prolonged steam groans. We took
advantage of the circumstance to lock through
in her company. This was our first experi
ence of the sort, so we were naturally rather
timid as we brushed her great paddle, going
in, and stole along under her overhanging
deck, for she quite filled the lock. The cap
tain kindly allowed the liliputian to glide
through in advance of his steamer, however,
when the gates were once more opened, and
we felt, as we shot out, as though we had
emerged from the belly of a monster.
Beaching again, below the lock, we returned
to finish our dinner. The keeper asked for a
ride to Princeton village, three miles below,
and we admitted him to our circle, — pipe,
market-basket and all, though it caused the
canoe to sink uncomfortably near to the gun
wale. Going down, our voluble friend talked
very freely about his affairs. He said that
his pay of $30 per month ran from about the
middle of April to the first of December, and

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 171
averaged him, the year round, about $20 and
house-rent. He had but little to do, and got
along very comfortably on the twenty-five
acres of marsh-land which the government
owned, by raising pigs and cows, a few vege
tables, and hay enough for his stock. He ad
mitted that this was "a heap better" than he
could do in the fatherland.
" I shoost dell you, mine frient," he said to
me, as he grinned and refilled his pipe, " dot
Shermany vos a nice guntry, and Bismarck
he vos a grade feller, und I vos brout I vos a
Sherman ; but I dells mine vooman vot I dells
you, — I mooch rahder read aboud 'em in mine
Sherman newsbaper, dan vot I voot leef dere
myself, already. I roon avay vrom dem con-
scrip' fellers, und I shoost never seed de time
vot I voot go back again. In dot ol' guntry,
I vos nuttings boot a beasant feller ; unt in
dis guntry I vos a goov'ment off'cer, vich
makes grade diff'rence, already."
He chuckled a good deal to himself when
asked what he thought about the Fox-Wis
consin river-improvement, but finally said that
government must spend its surplus some way,
— if not in this, it would in another, — and
he could not object to a scheme which gave
him his bread and butter. He said that the
improvement operations scattered a good deal

172 Down Historic Waterways.
of money throughout the valley, for labor and
supplies, but expressed his doubts as to the
ultimate national value of the work, unless the
shifting Wisconsin River, thus far unnavigable
for steamers, should be canalled from the por
tage to its mouth. He is an honest fellow,
and appears to utilize his abundance of leisure
in reading the newspapers.
At Princeton village, — a thriving country
town on a steep bank, with unkempt back
yards running down to and defiling the river,
— we again came across the " Ellen Hardy."
She was unloading her light cargo of wheat
as we arrived, and left Princeton an eighth of
a mile behind us. We now had a pleasant
little race to White River lock, seven miles be
low. With sail set, and paddles to help, we
led her easily as far as the lock. But we
thought to gain time by portaging over the
dam, and she gained a lead of at least a mile,
although we frequently caught sight of her
towering white hull across the widespreads,
by dint of standing on the thwarts and peering
over the tall walls of wild rice which shut us
in as closely as though we had been canoeing
in a railroad cut.
It had been fair and cloudy by turns to-day,
but delightfully cool, — a wonderful improve
ment on yesterday, when we fairly sweltered,

From Packwaukee to Berlin. 173
coming down Buffalo Lake. In the middle of
the afternoon, below White River, a thunder
storm overtook us in a widespread several
miles in extent. Seeking a willow island
which abutted on the channel, we made a tent
of the sail and stood the brief storm quite
comfortably. We then pushed on, and,
rubber-coated, weathered the few clearing
showers in the boat, for we were anxious to
reach Berlin by evening.
At Berlin lock, twelve miles below White
River, we portaged the dam, and, getting into
a two-mile current, ate our supper on board.
The river now begins to have firmer banks,
and to approach the ridges upon the southern
rim of its basin.
We reached Berlin in the twilight, the land
scape of hill and meadow being softened in
the golden glow. The better portion of this
beautiful little city of forty-five hundred in
habitants is situated on a ridge, closely skirted
by the river, with the poorer quarters on the
flats spreading away on either side. There
are many charming homes and the main
business street has an air of active prosperity.
We went into dock alongside of the " Ellen
Hardy."

174 Down Historic Waterways.

THIRD LETTER.

THE MASCOUTINS.

Oshkosh, Wis., June 9, 1887.
MY dear W  : As we passed out of
Berlin this morning, a government
dredger was at work by the river-side. We
paused on our paddles for some time, to watch
the workings of the ingenious mechanism.
There was something demoniac in the action
of the monster, as it craned its jointed neck
amid a quick chorus of jerky puffs from the
engine and an accompaniment of rattling
chains. Reaching far out over the bubbling
water, it would open its great iron jaws with
a savage clank and, pausing a moment to
gather its energies, dive swiftly into the roily
depth ; after swaying to and fro as if strug
gling with its prey, it soon reappeared, bearing
in its filthy maw a ton or two of blue-black
ooze, the water escaping through its teeth in

The Mascoutins. 175
a score of hissing torrents ; then, turning aside
to the heap of dredge-trash, suddenly vomited
forth the foul-smelling mess, and returned for
another charge. It was a singularly fascinat
ing sight, though wofully uncanny.
From Berlin down to Omro, pleasant prairie
slopes come down at intervals to the water's
edge, on the south bank ; the feature of the
north side being wide expanses of bog, the
home of the cranberry, for which this region
is famous. The best marshes, however, are
the pockets, back among the ridges ; from
these, great drainage-ditches, with flooding
gates, come furrowing through the peat, in
dark lines as straight as an arrow, and empty
into the river. It was somewhere about here,
nearer Berlin than Omro, — but exactly where,
no man now knoweth, — that the ancient
Indian " nation " of the Mascoutins was lo
cated over two centuries ago ; their neighbors,
if not their village comrades, being the Miamis
and the Kickapoos. Champlain, the intrepid
founder of Quebec, had heard of their warring
disposition as early as 1615. In 1634 Jean
Nicolet, the first white man known to have set
foot upon territory now included in the State of
Wisconsin, came in a bark canoe as far up the
Fox River as the Mascoutins, and after stop
ping a time with them, journeyed southward

176 Down Historic Waterways.
to the country of the Illinois.1 Allouez and
his companions also came hither in 1670, and
the good father, in the official report of his ad
venturous canoeing trip, says the fort of these
people was located a French league (2.4 Eng
lish miles) " over beautiful prairies " to the
south of the river. Joliet and Marquette, on
their way to discover the Mississippi River,
arrived at the fort of the Mascoutins on June 7,
1673, and the latter gives this graceful sketch
of the oak openings hereabouts, which have
not meanwhile perceptibly changed their char
acteristics : " I felt no little pleasure in be
holding the position of this town ; the view
is beautiful and very picturesque, for from the
eminence on which it is perched, the eye dis
covers on every side prairies spreading away
beyond its reach, interspersed with thickets
or groves of lofty trees."
The Mascoutins are now a lost tribe. As
the result of warring habits, they in turn were
crowded to the wall, and a generation after
Marquette's visit the banks of their river knew
them no more ; the Foxes, from whom the
stream ultimately took its name, were then
predominant, and long continued the masters
of the highway.
1 Butterfield's " Discovery of the Northwest " (Cincin
nati, 1861).

The Mascoutins. 177
Sacramento — "as dead as a door-nail,
sir " — lies sprawled out over a pleasant
riverside slope to the south. There is the
customary air of faded grandeur at Sacra
mento, — big hopes gone to decay ; battle
ment-fronts, houseless cellars, a universal
lack of paint. The railroads, the real high
ways of our present civilization, have killed
these little river towns that are away from
the track, and they will never be resurrected.
The day of inland water navigation, except
for canoeists, is nearing its close. Settle
ment clings to the neighborhood of the rails,
and generally avoids rivers as an obstruction
to free transit. The towns that have to be
reached by a country ferry are rotting, — they
are off the line of progress. Sacramento
boasts a spouting well by the river-bank, a
mammoth village ash-leach, and fond memo
ries of the day when it was " a bigger town
than Berlin." As we stood in the spray of
the fountain, filling our canteen with the
purest and coldest of water, I speculated upon
the strong probability of Sacramento being on
the identical bank where the Jesuits beached
their canoes to walk across country to the
old Indian village. And the Doctor, apt to
be irreverent as to aboriginal lore, suggested
that the defunct Sacramento should have

178 Down Historic Waterways.
written over its gate this motto : " Gone to
join the Mascoutins ! "
Eureka, a few miles farther down, is also
paintless, and her river-front is artistic with
the crumbling ruins of two or three long-
deserted saw-mills. A new Eureka appears,
however, to be slowly building up, to one
side of the dead little hamlet, — for there are
a smart steam flouring-mill and a model little
cheese-factory in full swing here. The cheese
man, an accommodating young fellow who ap
peared quite up to the times, and is a direct
shipper to the London market, took a just
pride in showing us over his establishment,
and stocked our mess-box with samples of his
best brands.
Omro spreads over a sandy plain, upon
both sides of the river, — an excellent wagon-
bridge crossing the stream near that of the
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway.
Omro, which is the headquarters of the
Wisconsin Spiritualists, who have quite a
settlement hereabouts, is growing somewhat,
after a long period of stagnation, having at
present a population of fifteen hundred.
The " Ellen Hardy," which had now caught
up with us, after chasing the canoe from
Berlin down, went through the draw in our
company. As the crew rolled off a small

The Mascoutins. 1 79
consignment of freight, the captain — a raw-
boned, red-faced, and thoroughly good-humored
man — leaned out of the pilot-house window
and pleasantly chaffed us about our lowly
conveyance. The conversation ended by his
offering to give us a " lift " through the great
Winneconne widespread, to the point where
the Wolf joins the Fox, nine or ten miles
below. The " Ellen " was bound for Winne
conne and other points up the Wolf, so could
help us no farther. Of course we accepted
the kindly offer, and fastening our painter to a
belaying-pin on the " Ellen's " port, scrambled
up to the freight-deck just as the pilot-bell
rang " Forward ! " in the smoky little engine-
room far aft.
While I went aloft to enjoy the bird's-eye
view obtainable from the pilot-house, the
Doctor discussed fishing with the engineer,
whom he found on closer acquaintance to be
a rare, though much-begrimed philosopher.
This engineer is a wizened-up little man,
with a face like a prematurely dried apple,
but his eyes gleam with a kindly light, and
he is an inveterate angler. We had noticed
him at every stopping stage, — his head,
shoulders, and arms reaching, out of the ab
breviated rear window of his caboose, — dang
ling a line astern. The Doctor learned that

180 Down Historic Waterways.
this was his invariable habit. He kept
the cook's galley in fish, and utilized each
leisure half-hour in the pursuit of his favorite
amusement. The engineer, good man, had
fished, he said, in nearly every known sea,
and the Doctor declared that he " could many
a wondrous fish-tale unfold." In fact, the
Doctor declared him to be the most interest
ing character he had ever met with, outside
of a hospital, and said he should surely report
to his favorite medical journal this remarkable
case of abnormal persistency in an art, amid
the most discouraging physical surroundings.
He thought the man's brain should be dis
sected, in the cause of science.
The Wolf, which has its rise 150 miles
nor'-nor'west of Green Bay, in a Forest-county
lakelet, and takes generous, south-trending
curves away down to Lake Poygan, is prop
erly the noble stream which pours into Lake
Winnebago from the northwest, and then,
with a mighty rush, forces its way northeast
ward to the Great Lakes, along the base of
the watershed which parallels the western
coast of Lake Michigan and terminates in the
islands beyond Death's Door. The Jesuit
fathers, in seeking the Mississippi, traced
this river above Lake Winnebago, and on
reaching the great widespread at the head

The Mascoutins.

iSi

of the Grand Butte des Morts, where the
tributary flowing from the southwest empties
its lazy' flood into the rushing Fox, pursued
that tributary to the portage and erroneously
called their highway by one name, from Green
Bay to the carry. Thus the long-unexplored
main river, above the junction, came to be
treated on the maps as a tributary, and to be
dubbed the Wolf. This geographical mis
take has been so long persisted in that cor
rection becomes impracticable, and we must
continue to style the branch the trunk.
This has been a delightful day ; the heav
ens were clear and blue, and a gentle north
easter fanned our faces in the pilot-house,
from which vantage-point, nearly thirty feet
above the river-level, there was obtainable a
bird's-eye view well worthy of canvas. The
wild-rice bog, through which the Fox, here
not over thirty yards wide, twists like the
snapper of a whip, is from ten to fifteen miles
wide, — a sea of living green, across which
the breeze sends a regular succession of
waves, losing themselves upon the far-distant
shores. Upon the northwestern horizon, the
Wolf comes stealing down at the base of a
range of wooded hills. To the west, a flash
ing line tells where Lake Poygan " holds her
mirror to the sun." The tall smoke-stacks of

1 82 Down Historic Waterways.
the Winneconne saw-mills occupy the mid
dle ground westward. To the east, in the
centre of the picture, one catches glimpses of
the consolidated stream, as its goodly flood
quickly glides southeasterly, on a short spurt
toward the Grand Butte des Morts, at the
head of which is the old fur-trading village
of the same name. Far southeastward, be
low the lake, there is just discernible the
great brick chimney of a mammoth planing-
mill, — an Algoma landmark, — and just be
hind that the black cloud resting above the
Oshkosh factories. It is a broad, bounteous
sweep of level landscape, — monotonous, of
course, but imposing from mere immensity.
At the union of the rivers we bade farewell
to our friend the captain ; and the Doctor
secured a promise from the engineer to send
in his photograph to the hospital with which
the former is connected. The " Ellen Hardy "
stopped her engine as we cast off. In an
other minute, the great stern-wheel began to
splash again, and we were bobbing up and
down on the bubbly swell, waving farewell
to our fellow-travelers and turning our prow
to the southeast, while the roving " Ellen "
shaped her course to Winneconne, where a
cargo of laths, destined for Princeton, awaited
her arrival.

The Mascoutins. 183
The low ridge which forms the eastern
bank of the Wolf, down to the junction, soon
slopes off to the northeast, in the direction
of Appleton, leaving a broad, level plain, of
great fertility, between it and Lakes Grand
Butte des Morts and Winnebago. On this
plain are built the cities of Oshkosh, Neenah,
and Menasha. Across it, the northeaster,
freshening to a lively breeze, had full sweep,
and stirred up the Grand Butte des Morts
into a wild display of opposition to our prog
ress. Serried ranks of white-caps came
sweeping across the lake, beating on our port
bow, and the little sail, almost bursting with
fulness, careened the canoe to the gunwale,
as it swept gayly along through the foam.
The paddles were necessary to keep her well
abreast of the tide, and there was exercise
enough in the operation to prevent drowsi
ness. The spray flew like a drizzling summer
shower, but our baggage and stores were well
covered down, and the weather was too warm
for a body dampener to be uncomfortable.
We passed the dark, gloomy, tumbled-
down, but picturesque village of Butte des
Morts, just before entering the lake. Of the
twenty-five or so houses in the place, all but
two or three are guiltless of paint. There is
a quaintness about the simple architecture,

184 Down Historic Waterways.
which gives Butte des Morts a distinctive ap
pearance. To the initiated, it betokens the
remains of an old fur-trading post ; and this
was the genesis of Butte des Morts. It was
in 1 81 8 that Augustin Grignon and James
Porlier, men intimately connected with the
history of the French-Indian fur-trade in
Wisconsin, set up their shanty dwellings and
warehouses on a little lakeside knoll a mile be
low the present village, which was founded by
their voyageurs on the site of an old Menom-
onee town and cemetery. Some of these
post-buildings, together with the remains of
the watch-tower, from which the traders ob
tained long advance notice of the approach
of travelers, red or white, are still standing.
As we sped by, I pointed out to the Doctor
the location of these venerable relics, which
I had, with proper enthusiasm, carefully in
spected fully a dozen summers before, and he
suggested that the knowledge of the approach
of a possible customer, byr means of the tower,
gave the traders an excellent opportunity to
mark up the goods.
James Porlier's son and successor, Louis
B. Porlier, now an aged man, is the present
occupant of the establishment, which is one
of the oldest landmarks in Wisconsin ; and
there, also, died the famous Augustin Grignon,

The Mascoutins. 185
historian of his clan. Butte des Morts, in
the early day of the northwest, was some
thing more than a trading-post. Situated
near the union of the upper Fox and the
Wolf, it was the rallying-point for both val
leys,'— long before Appleton, Neenah, Men-
asha or Oshkosh were known, or any of the
towns on the upper Fox. It was the only
white man's stopping-place between the port
age and Kaukauna. The mail trail between
Green Bay and the portage crossed here, —
for strange to say, the great south-stretching
widespread, which lies like a map before the
village, was in those days firm enough for a
horse to traverse with safety ; while to-day a
boat can be pushed anywhere between the
rushes and rice, and it is par excellence the
great breeding-ground of this section for
muskrats and water-fowl. A scow-ferry was
maintained in pioneer times for the benefit of
the mail-carrier and other travelers. Butte
des Morts is mentioned in most of the jour
nals left us by travelers over the Fox- Wis
consin watercourse, previous to 1835, anc^
here several important Indian treaties were
consummated by government commissioners.
It is somewhat over fifteen miles from the
mouth of the Wolf to Oshkosh. The run
down the lake seemed unusually protracted,

1 86 Down Historic Waterways.
for the city was clearly in sight the entire
way, and the distance, over the flat expanse,
was deceptive. Algoma, now a portion of
Oshkosh, was something of a settlement long
before the lower town began to grow. But
the latter finally overtook and swallowed the
original hamlet. Algoma is now chiefly de
voted to the homes of the employees in the
great planing and saw-milling establishments
of Philetus Sawyer, Wisconsin's senior United
States senator, and the wealthy Paine Brothers.
The residences of these lumber kings are on
a slope to the north of the iron wagon-bridge,
under which we swept as the booming whis
tles of the busy locality, in unison with a noisy
chorus of steam-gongs farther down the river,
sounded the hour of six. Through the gant
let of the mills, with their outlying rafts, their
lines of piling, and their great yards of newly
sawn lumber, we sped quickly on. A half-
hour later, we were turning up into a peaceful
little dock alongside the south approach to
the St. Paul railway-bridge, the canoe's quar
ters for the night. The sun was just plunging
below the clear-cut prairie horizon, as we
walked across the fields to the home of our
expectant friends.

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 187

FOURTH LETTER.
THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES.
Appleton, Wis., June 10, 1887.
MY DEAR W  : We had a late start
to-day from Oshkosh. It was half-
past nine o'clock by the time we had reloaded
our traps, pushed off from the railway em
bankment, and received the God-speed of
M  , who had come down to see us off.
The busy town, with its twenty-two thousand
thrifty people, was all astir. The factories
and the mills were resonant with the clang
and rattle of industry, and across the two
wagon-bridges of the city proper there were
continual streams of traffic.
I suppose that Oshkosh is, in its way, as
widely known throughout this country as al
most any city in it. The name is strikingly
outlandish, being equaled only by Kalamazoo,
and furnishes the butt of many a newspaper
joke and comic rhyme. Old chief Oshkosh,

188 Down Historic Waterways.
whose cognomen signifies " brave " in Me-
nomonee speech, was the head man of his
dusky tribe, a half-century ago. He was a
doughty, wrinkled hero, o'er fond of fire-water,
and wore a battered silk hat for a crown.
About 1840, when the settlement here was
four years old, the Government offered to
establish a post-office if the inhabitants would
unite on a name for the place. The whites
favored Athens, but the Indians, half-breeds,
and traders round about Butte des Morts,
wanted their friend Oshkosh immortalized, so
they came down to the new settlement in
force, and the election being a free-for-all,
carried the day. It is said that the Grignons
were so anxious in behalf of the Menomonee
sachem that they had a number of squaws
array themselves in trousers and cast ballots
like the bucks. And it was fortunate, as
events proved, that the election turned out
as it did, for the oddity of the name has
been a permanent advertisement for a very
bright community. Oshkosh, as hackneyed
"Athens," would have been lost to fame.
Nobody would think of going to "Athens" to
" have fun with the boys."
The morning air was as clear as a bell, — a
pleasant northeast zephyr, coming in off the
body of the lake, slightly ruffling the surface

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 189
and reducing the temperature to a delightful
tone. The wind not being fair, the sail was use
less, so we paddled along through the broad
river, into the lake and northward past a fisher
men's colony, rows of great ice-houses, the
water-works park, and beautiful lake-shore
residences, to Garlic Island. It was half-past
twelve, p. M., when we tied up at the crazy
pier which projects from this islet of the
loud-smelling vegetable. A half-century ago
Garlic Island was the home of Iowatuk, the
beautiful aboriginal relict of a French fur-
trader, — an Indian princess, the old settlers
called her ; at all events, she is reputed to
have been a most exemplary person, well-
possessed of this world's goods, as well as a
large family of half-breed children. The
island is charmingly situated, a half-mile or
more out from the main land, opposite the
Northern Insane Hospital ; it is a forest of
ancient elms, surrounded by a bowlder-strewn
beach of some three quarters of a mile in
length, and occupied by a summer-hotel es
tablishment. The name " Garlic Island " does
not sound very well for a fashionable resort,
so the insular territory has been dubbed
" Island Park " of late ; but "Garlic" has good
staying qualities, and I doubt if they can ever
efface the objectionable pioneer title.

190 Down Historic Waterways.
We had our dinner on the sward near the
pier, convenient to a pump, and were enter
tained by watching the approach of a little
steam-launch, loaded with a party of " resort-
ers" who had doubtless been shopping in
Oshkosh, the smoke from whose chimneys
rose above the tree-tops, five miles to the
southwest. There were some of the usual
types, — the languid Southern woman, with
her two pouting boys in charge of a rather
savage-looking colored nurse, who dragged
the little fellows out over the gang-plank, one
in each hand, as though they had been bags
of flour ; a fashionable dame, from some
northern metropolis, all ribbons and furbe
lows, starch and whalebones, accompanied by
her willowy daughter of twenty, almost her
counterpart as to dress, with a pert young
miss of fourteen, in abbreviated gown and
overgrown hat, bringing up the rear with the
family pug ; a dawdling young Anglo-maniac
sucked the handle of his cane and looked
sweetly on the society girl, whose papa, ap
parently a tired-out broker, in a well made
business costume and a wretched straw hat,
stayed behind to treat the skipper to a prime
cigar and arrange for a fishing excursion.
There is a fine view from the island. The
hills and cliffs of Calumet County, a dozen

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 191
miles to the east, are dimly visible. Toward
Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the
lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point
runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of
the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like
shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well-
kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately
elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach,
studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which ex
tends northward to Neenah. The view to
the north and northeast is delightfully hazy,
being now dark with delicate fringes of forest
which cap the occasional limestone promon
tories, and again losing itself in a watery
sky-line. We had two pleasant hours at this island-
home of the lovely Iowatuk, walking around
it on the bowldered beach, and reclining in
the shade of the grand old elms. By the time
we were ready to resume our voyage, the
wind had died down, the lake was as smooth
as a marble slab, and the sun's rays reflected
from it converted the atmosphere to the tem
perature of a bake-oven. No sooner had we
pushed out beyond the deep shadows of the
trees than it seemed as though we had at one
paddle-stroke shot into the waters of a tropic
sea. The awning was at once raised, and
served somewhat to mitigate our sufferings,

192 Down Historic Waterways.
but the dazzling reflection was there still, to
the great discomfort of our eyes.
After two miles of distress, a bank of light
but sharply broken clouds appeared on the
northeastern horizon, and soon a gentle breeze
brought blessed relief. In a few minutes
more, ripples danced upon our starboard quar
ter, and then the awning had to come down,
for it filled like a fixed sail and counteracted
the effect of the paddles. The Doctor, who,
you know full well, never paddles when he
can sail, insisted on running up into the wind
and spreading the canvas. He was just in
time, for a squall struck us as he was adjust
ing the boom sprit, and nearly sent him over
board while attempting to regain his seat.
Little black squalls now rapidly succeeded
each other, the wind freshening between the
gusts ; and the Doctor, who was the sailing-
master, had to exercise rare vigilance, for the
breeze was rapidly developing into a young
gale, and the ripples had now grown to be by
far the largest waves our little craft had yet
encountered. The situation began to be
somewhat serious, as the clouds thickened
and the white-caps broke upon the west beach
with a sullen roar. We therefore deemed it
advisable to run into a little harbor to the lee
of a wooded spit, and hold council.

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 193
It was a wild, storm-tossed headland, two
thirds of the distance down from the island,
and the spit was but one of its many points.
We landed and made an extended exploration,
deeming it possible that we might be obliged
to pass the night here ; but the result of our
discoveries was to discourage any such pro
ject. For a half-mile back or more the forest
proved to be a tangled swamp, filled with
fallen timber and sink-holes, while quick
sands lined the harbor where the canoe
peacefully rested behind an outlying fringe of
gnarled elms. We wandered up and down the
gravelly beach, in the spray of the breakers,
scrambling over great bowlders and overhang
ing trunks whose foundations had been sapped
by storm-driven floods ; but everywhere was
the same hard, forbidding scene of desolation,
with the angry surface of the lake and the
canopy of wind-clouds filling out a picture
which, the Doctor suggested, could have only
been satisfactorily executed in water-colors.
In the course of our wanderings, which
were sadly destructive to clothes and shoe-
leather, we had some comical adventures.
The Doctor hasn't got over laughing about
one of them yet. We came to an apparently
shallow lagoon, perhaps three rods wide and a
dozen long, beyond which we desired to pene-
13

194 Down Historic Waterways.
trate. It was bedded with sand and covered
with green slime. The Doctor had, just be
fore, divested himself of shoes and stockings
and rolled his trousers above his knees, in an
enthusiastic hunt for a particularly ponderous
frog, which he desired to pickle in the cause
of science. He playfully offered to carry me
across the pool on his back, and thus save me
the trouble of imitating his style of undress.
With some misgivings as to the result, I
finally mounted. We progressed favorably
as far as the centre, when suddenly I felt my
transport sinking ; he gave a desperate lunge
as the water suddenly reached his waist, I
sprang forward over his head, and losing my
balance, sprawled out flat upon the slimy
water. I hardly know how we reached firm
ground again, but when we did, we were a
sorry-looking pair, as you can well imagine.
The Doctor thought it high sport, as he
wrung out his clothes and spread them upon a
bowlder to dry, and I tried hard to join in his
boisterous hilarity ; but somehow, as I scraped
the gluey slime from my only canoeing suit,
with a bit of old drift shingle, and contempla
ted the soppy condition of my wardrobe, I
know there must have been a tinge of sad
ness in my gaze. It was too much like being
shipwrecked on a desert island.

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 195
As we sat, clad in rubber coats, sunning
ourselves on the lee side of a fallen tree and
waiting for our garments to again become
wearable, the Doctor read to me an article
from his medical journal, describing a novel
surgical operation on somebody's splintered
backbone, copiously illustrating the selection
with vivid reports of his own hospital obser
vations in that direction. This sort of thing
was well calculated to send the shivers down
one's spinal column, but the Doctor certainly
made the theme quite interesting and the
half-hour necessary to the drying process
soon passed.
By this time it was plain to be seen that
the velocity of the wind was not going to
increase before sundown, although it had not
slacked. We determined to try the sea again,
and pushed out through the breakers, with
sail close-hauled and baggage canvased.
Taking a bold offing into the teeth of the
gale, we ran out well into the lower lake, and
then, on a port tack, had a fine run down to
Doty's Island, which divides the lower Fox
into two channels. The city of Neenah, noted
for its flouring and paper mills, is built upon
both sides of the southern channel, or Neenah
River; Menasha, with several factories, but
apparently less prosperous than the other,

196 Down Historic Waterways.
guards the north channel, — the twin cities
dividing the island between them. The gov
ernment lock is at Menasha, while at Neenah
there is a fine water-power, with a fall of
twelve or fifteen feet, — the "Winnebago
Rapids " of olden time.
It was into Neenah channel that we came
flying so gayly, before the wind. There is a
fine park on the mainland shore, with a smartly
painted summer hotel and half a dozen pretty
cottages that would do credit to a seaside re
sort. To the right the island is studded with
picturesque old elms, shading a closely cropped
turf, upon which cattle peacefully graze, while
here and there among the trees are old-fash
ioned white cottages, with green blinds, quite
after the style of a sleepy New-England vil
lage, — a charming scene of semi-rustic life;
while to seaward Lake Winnebago tosses and
rolls, almost to the horizon.
Doty's is an historic landmark. The rapids
here necessitated a portage, and from the
earliest times there have been Indian villages
on the island, more or less permanent in char
acter, — Menomonee, Fox, and Winnebago in
turn. As white traffic over the Fox- Wiscon
sin watercourse grew, so grew the importance
of this village, whatever the tribe of its in
habitants ; for the bucks found employment in

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 197
helping the empty boats over the rapids and
in "toting" the goods over the portage-trail.
The Foxes overreached themselves by setting
up as toll-gatherers. It is related — but his
torians are somewhat misty as to the details
— that in the winter of 1706-7 a French
captain, Marin by name, was sent out by the
governor of New France to chastise the black
mailers. At the head of a large party of
French Creoles and half-breeds, he ascended
the lower Fox on snowshoes, surprising the
aborigines in their principal village, here at
Winnebago Rapids, and slaughtering them by
the hundreds. Afterward, this same Marin
conducted a summer expedition against the
Foxes. His boats were filled with armed
men and covered down with oilcloth, as
traders were wont to treat their goods en
voyage, to escape a wetting. Only two men
were visible in each boat, paddling and steer
ing. Nearly fifteen hundred dusky tax-
gatherers were discovered squatting on the
beach at the foot of the rapids, awaiting the
arrival of the flotilla. The canoes were
ranged along the shore. Upon a signal being
given, the coverings were thrown off and
volley after volley of hot lead poured into
the mob of unsuspecting savages, a swivel-
gun in Marin's boat aiding in the slaughter.

198 Down Historic Waterways.
Tradition has it that over a thousand Foxes
fell in that brutal assault. In 1716 another
captain of New France, named De Louvigny,
is reported to have stormed the audacious
Foxes. They had not, it seems, been exter
minated by previous massacres, for five hun
dred warriors and three thousand squaws are
alleged to have been collected within a pali
saded fort, somewhere in the neighborhood
of these rapids. De Louvigny is credited
with having captured the fort after a three
days' siege, but granted the enemy the honors
of war. Twelve years later the Foxes had
again become so troublesome as to need chas
tisement. This time the agent chosen to
command the expedition was De Lignery,
among whose lieutenants was the noted
Charles de Langlade, Wisconsin's first white
settler. But the redskins had become wise,
after their fashion, and fled before the French
men, who found the villages on the Fox,
lower and upper, deserted. The invaders
burned every wigwam and cornfield in sight,
from Green Bay to the portage. This expedi
tion appears to have been followed by others,
until the Foxes, with the allied Sacs, fled the
valley, never to return. Much of this is
traditionary. The widening of the Fox below Doty's

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 199
Island was called Lac Petit Butte des Morts,
— "Lake Little Hill of the Dead," to dis
tinguish it from the " Great Hill of the Dead,"
above Oshkosh.
It has long been claimed that the thousands
of Foxes who at various times fell victims to
these massacres in behalf of the French fur-
trade were buried in great pits at Petit Butte
des Morts, — near Winnebago Rapids. But
modern investigators lean to the opinion that
the " little hill of the dead " was merely an
ordinary Indian cemetery, and the mound or
mounds there are prehistoric tumuli, common
enough in the neighborhood of Wisconsin
lakes. A like conclusion, also, has been ar
rived at in regard to the Grand Butte des
Morts. However, this is something that the
archaeological committee must settle among
themselves. The Winnebagoes succeeded the Foxes,
and Doty's Island became the seat of their
power. The master spirit among them for a
quarter of a century previous to the fall of
New France was a French fur-trader named
De Korra or De Cora, who had a Winnebago
" princess " for a squaw. They had a numer
ous progeny, which De Korra left to his wife's
charge when called to serve under Montcalm
in the defence of Quebec. He was killed in

200 Down Historic Waterways.
a sortie, and Madame De Korra and her
brood relapsed into barbarism. One half of
the Winnebagoes now living are descendants,
more or less direct, of this sturdy old fur-
trader, and bear his name, which is also per
petuated, with varied orthography, in many a
northwestern stream and hamlet. During
the first third of the present century Hoo-
Tschope, or Four Legs, was the dusky mag
nate at this Winnebago capital.1 Four Legs
was a cunning rascal, well known to the earli
est pioneers, but he at last fell a victim to his
greatest enemy, the bottle. Last month I
was visiting among the Winnebagoes around
Black River Falls. Desiring to have a " talk "
with Walking Cloud, a wizened-faced red
skin of some seventy-two years, I went out
with my interpreters over the hills and
through the valley of the Black, nearly a
dozen miles, before I found him and his
squatting in their wigwams at the base of
a bold bluff, fronted by a lovely bit of vale.
Cloud's decrepit squaw, blind in one eye
and wofully garrulous, hobbled up to us, and
sinking to her knees in front of me, held out
a dirty, bony hand, with nails like the claws
of a bird, murmuring, " Give ! Give ! " I
1 See Mrs. Kinzie's " Wau-Bun " for reminiscences of
Four Legs.

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 201
dropped a coin into the outstretched palm ; she
grinned and chattered like an animated skele
ton, and crawled away on her witch-like
crutch. This was the once far-famed and
beautiful princess of the WinneDag°es> the
winsome Champche Keriwinke, or Flash o|*
Lightning, eldest daughter of Hoo-Tschope,
How are the mighty fallen !
We portaged around the island end of the
Neenah dam and met the customary shal
lows below the obstruction. But soon finding
a narrow, rock-imbedded channel, we glided
swiftly down the stream, through the thrifty
town, past the mills and under the bridges,
just as the six o' clock bells had sounded and
the factory hands were thronging homeward,
their tin dinner-pails glistening in the sun.
Scores of them stopped to lean over the
bridge-rails, and curiously watched us as we
threaded the shallows ; for canoes long ago
ceased to be a daily spectacle at Winnebago
Rapids. Little Lake Butte des Morts, just below,
is where the river spreads to a full mile in
breadth, the average width of the stream being
less than one half that. The wind was fair,
and we came swooping down into the lake,
which is two or three miles long. A half-
hour before sunset we hauled up at a high

202 Down Historic Waterways.
mossy glade on the north shore, and had de
lightful down-stream glimpses of deep vine-
clad, naturally terraced banks, the slopes and
summits being generally well wooded. A party
of young men and women were having a camp
near us. The woods echoed with their laugh
ing shouts. A number, with their chaperone,
a lovely and lively old lady, in a white cap
with satin ribbons, came down to the shore
to inspect our little vessel and question us as
to our unusual voyage. We returned the call
and played lawn tennis with fair partners, until
the fact that we must reach Appleton to-night
suddenly dawned upon us, and we bade a hasty
farewell to our joyous wayside friends.
It was a charming run down to Appleton,
between the park-like banks, which rise to an
altitude of fifty feet or more. Every now and
then a pretty summer residence stands prom
inently out upon a bluff-head, an architectural
gem in a setting of oaks and luxurious pines.
At their bases flows the deep flood of the
Lower Fox, black as Erebus in the shadows,
but smiling brightly in the patchy sunlight,
and thickly decked with great bubbles which
fairly leap along the course, eager to reach
their far-off ocean goal. But swifter by far
than the bubbles went our canoe as we set
the paddles deeply and bent to our work, for

The Land of the Winnebagoes. 203
the waters were strange to us, the night was
setting in, and Appleton must be made. It
will not do to traverse these rivers after dark
unless well acquainted with the currents, the
snags, and the dams, for disaster may readily
overtake the unwary.
Cautiously we now crept along, for in the
fast-fading twilight we could just discern the
outlines of the Appleton paper-mills and a
labyrinth of railway bridges, while the air
fairly trembled with the mingled roar of water
and of mighty gearing. Across the rapid
stream shot piercing rays from the windows
of the electric works, whose dynamos furnish
light for the town and power for the street
railway. A fisherman, tugging against the
current, shouted to us to keep hard on the
eastern bank, and in a few minutes more we
glided by the stone pier which buttresses the
upper dam, and pulled up in a little dead-water
cove at the base of the Milwaukee and North
ern railway bridge. The bridge-tender's
children came down to meet us ; the man
himself soon followed ; we were permitted to
chain up for the night at his pier, and to de
posit our bulky baggage in his kitchen ; he
accompanied us over the long bridge Which
spans the noisy apron and the rushing race.
A misstep between the ties would send one

204 Down Historic Waterways.
on a short cut to the hereafter, but we safely
crossed, ascended two or three steep flights
of stairs to the top of the bank, and in a
minute or two more were speeding up town
to our hotel, aboard an electric car.

Locked Through. 205

FIFTH LETTER.
LOCKED THROUGH.
Little Kaukauna, Wis., June ii, 1887.
MY dear W  : We took an ex
tended stroll around Appleton after
breakfast. It is a beautiful city, — the gem
of the Lower Fox. The banks are nearly
one hundred feet high above the river level.
They are deeply cut with ravines. Hillside
torrents, quickly formed by heavy rains, as
quickly empty into the stream, draining the
plateau of its superfluous surface water, and
in the operation carving these great gulches
through the soft clay. And so there are
many steep inclines in the Appleton high
ways, and the ravines are frequently bridged
by dizzy trestle-works ; but the greater part
ofthe city is on a high, level plain, the wealthy
dwellers courting the summits of the river
banks, where the valley view is panoramic.
The little Methodist college, with its high-

206 Down Historic Waterways.
sounding title of Lawrence University, is an
excellent institution, and said to be growing ;
it gives a certain scholastic tinge to Appleton
society, which might otherwise be given up to
the worship of Mammon, for there is much
wealth among the manufacturers who rule
the city, and prosperity attends their reign.
There is a good natural water-power here,
but the Fox-Wisconsin improvement has
made it one of the finest in the world. If
the improvement scheme is a flat failure else
where, as is beginning to be generally be
lieved, it certainly has been the making of
this valley of the Lower Fox. From Lake
Winnebago down to the mouth, the rapids are
frequent, the chief being at Neenah, Apple-
ton, Kaukauna, Little Kaukauna, and Depere.
Of the twenty-six locks from Portage down,
seventeen are below our stopping-point of
last night ; the fall at each, at this stage of
water, being about twelve feet on the average.
Each of these locks involves a dam ; and
when the stream is thus stemmed and all
repairs maintained, at the expense of the gen
eral government, it is a simple matter to tap
the reservoir, carry a race along the bank, and
have water-power ad libitum. Not half the
water-power in sight, not a tenth of that pos
sible is used. There is enough here, experts

Locked Through. 207
declare, to turn the machinery of the world.
No wonder the beautiful valley of the Lower
Fox is rich, and growing richer.
It was no holiday excursion to portage
around the Appleton locks this morning. At
none* of them could we find the tenders, for
the Menasha lock being broken, there is no
through navigation from Oshkosh to Green
Bay this week, and way traffic is slight. We
had neglected to furnish ourselves with a tin
horn, and the vigorous use of lung power
failed to achieve the desired result. The
banks being steep and covered with rock
chips left by the stone-cutters employed on
the work, we had some awkward carries, and
felt, as we finally passed the cordon and set
out on the straight eastward stretch for Kau
kauna, that we were earning our daily bread.
Kaukauna, the Grand Kackalin of the
Jesuits and early French traders, is ten miles
below Appleton. Here are the most formi
dable rapids on the river, the fall being sixty
feet, down an irregular series of jagged lime
stone stairs some half mile in extent. Indians,
in their light bark canoes and practically with
out baggage, can, in high water, make the
passage, up or down, by closely hugging the
deeper and stiller water on the north bank ;
but the French traders invariably portaged

208 Down Historic Waterways.
their goods, allowing the voyageurs to carry
over the empty boats, the men walking in the
water by the side, pushing, hauling, and bal
ancing, amid a stream of oaths from their
bourgeois, or master, who remained at his
post. I had had an idea that in our little craft
we might safely make the venture of a shoot
down the stairs, by exercising caution and
following the Indian channel. But this was
previous to arrival. Leaving the Doctor to
guard the canoe from a crowd of Kaukauna
urchins, who were disposed to be over-familiar
with our property, I went down through a
boggy field to view the situation. It is a
grand sight, looking up from the bottom of
the rapids. The water is low, and at every
few rods masses of rock project above the
seething flood, specimens of what line the
channel. The torrent comes down with a
mighty roar, lashing itself into a fury of spray
and foam as it leaps around and over the ob
structions, and takes great lunges from step to
step. There are several curves in the basin
of the cataract, which add to its artistic effect,
while it is deeply fringed by stunted pines
and scrub oaks, having but a slender footing
in the shallow turf which covers the under
lying stratum of limestone. Whatever may
be the condition of the falls at Kaukauna in

Locked Through. 209
high water, it is certain that at this stage a
canoe would be dashed to splinters quite early
in the attempt to scale them.
But a portage of half a mile was not to our
taste in the torrid temperature we have been
experiencing to-day, and we determined to
maintain the rights of free navigators by
obliging the tenders to put us through the
five great locks, which are here necessary to
lower vessels from the upper to the lower
level. These tenders receive ample compen
sation, and many of them are notoriously
lazy. It is but seldom that they are com
pelled to exercise their muscles on the gates ;
for navigation on the Fox is spasmodic and
unimportant. As I have said in one of my
previous letters, even a saw-log has the right of
way ; and government paid a goodly sum to
the speculators from whom it purchased this
improvement, that free tollage might be es
tablished here for all time. And so it was
that, perhaps soured a little by our Appleton
experience, we determined at last to test the
matter and assert the privileges of American
citizens on a national highway.
On regaining my messmate, we took a
general view of Kaukauna, — which spreads
over the banks and a prairie bottom on both
sides of the river, and is a growing, bustling,
H

210 Down Historic Waterways.
freshly built little factory town, — and then
re-embarked to try our fortune at the lock-
gates. Heretofore we had considerately por
taged every one of these obstructions, except
at Princeton, where we went through under
the "Ellen Hardy's" wing.
A stalwart Irishman, in his shirt-sleeves,
and smoking a clay pipe with that air of dog
ged indifference peculiar to so many govern
ment officials, leaned over a capstan at the
upper lock, and dreamily stared at the ap
proaching canoe. The lock was full, the last
boat having passed up a day or two before.
The upper gates being open, we pushed in,
and took up our station in the centre of the
basin, to avoid the " suck " during the empty
ing process. The Doctor took out of the
locker a copy of his medical journal and I a
novel, and we settled down as though we had
come to stay. The Irishman's face was at
first a picture of dumb astonishment, and
then he sullenly picked up his coat from the
grass, and began to walk off in the direction
of the town.
" Hi, my friend ! " shouted the Doctor, good-
naturedly. " We are waiting to get locked
through." The tender returned a step, his eyes opened
wide, his brows knit, and • in his wrath he

Locked Through. 2 1 1
stuttered, " Ph-h-a-t ! Locked through in
that theer s-s-k-i-ff ? Ye 're cr-razy, mon ! "
" Oh, not at all. We understand our rights,
and wish you to lock us through. And, if
you please, we're in something of a hurry."
As I said this I consulted my watch, and after
returning it to my pocket resumed a vacant
gaze upon the outspread leaves of the novel.
The tender — for we had guessed rightly ;
it was the tender — advanced to the edge of
the basin, and looked with inexpressible scorn
upon our Liliputian craft. " Now, look here,
gints," he said, somewhat more conciliatory,
" I 've been here for twinty years, an' know
the law ; an' the law don't admit no skiffs, ye
mind y'ur eye. An' the divil a bit of lock
age will ye git here, an' mind that ! " And
then he walked away.
We were very patient. The rim of the
lock became lined with small boys and smaller
girls, for this is Saturday, and a school holiday ;
and there was great wonderment at the men
in the canoe, who " were having a bloody old
row with Barney, the lock-tinder," as one boy
vigorously expressed the situation to a bevy
of new-comers. By and by Barney returned
to see if we were still there. We were, and
were so abstracted that we did not heed his
presence.

212 Down Historic Waterways.
" Will, ye ain't gone yit, I see ? " said
Barney. The Doctor roused himself, and pulling out
his watch, appeared to be greatly surprised.
" I do declare," he ejaculated, " if we have n't
been waiting here nearly half an hour ! I
say, my man, this sort of delay is inexcus
able. It will read badly in a report to the
Engineering Bureau. What is your number,
sir ? " And with a stern expression he pro
duced his tablets, prepared to jot down the
numeral. Barney was clearly weakening. His return
to see if the " bluff " had worked was an evi
dence of that. The Doctor's severe official
manner, and our quiet persistence appeared
to convince Barney that he had made a grave
mistake. So he hurried off to the lower
capstans, growling something about being
" oft'n fooled with fish'n' parties." When we
were through we left Barney a cigar on the
curbing, and gently admonished him never
again to be so rude to canoeists, or some day
he would get reported. As we pushed off he
bade us an affectionate farewell, and said he
had sent his " lad " ahead to see that we had
no trouble at the four lower locks. We did
not see the lad ; but certain it is that the other
tenders were prompt and courteous, and we

Locked Through. 213
felt that the cigars which we distributed along
the Kaukauna Canal were not ill bestowed.
Progress was slow to-day, owing to the
delays in locking. Ordinarily, we make from
thirty to forty miles, — on the Rock, you
remember, we averaged forty. But it was
nearly sunset when we passed under the old
wagon bridge at Wrightstown, only seventeen
miles below our starting-point of this morning.
We paused for a minute or two, to talk with
a peaceably disposed lad, who was the sole pa
tron of the bridge and lay sprawled across the
board foot-walk, with his head under the rail
ing, fishing as contentedly as though he lay
on a grassy bank, after the manner of the
gentle Izaak. When old Mr. Wright was
around, Wrightstown may have been quite
a place. But it is now going the way of so
many river towns. There is a small, rickety
saw-mill in operation, to which farmers from
the back country haul in pine logs, of which
there are some hundreds neatly piled in an
adjoining field. Another saw-mill shell is
hard by, the home of owls and bats, — a de
serted skeleton, whose spirit, in the shape of
machinery, has departed to Ashland, a more
modern paradise of the buzz-saw. The vil
lage, dressed in that tone of pearly gray with
which kind Nature decks those habitations

214 Down Historic Waterways.
left paintless by neglectful man, — is prettily
situated on the high banks which uniformly
hedge in the Lower Fox. On the highest
knoll of all is a modest little frame church
whose spire — white, after a fashion — is a
prominent landmark to river travelers. There
are the remains of once well-kept gardens,
upon the upper terraces ; of somewhat elab
orate fences, now swaying to and fro and weak
in the knees ; of sidewalks which have become
pitfalls; of impenetrable thickets of lilacs,
hedging lonely spots that once were homes.
On the village street, only a few idlers were
seen, gathered in knots of two or three in
front of the barber shop and the saloons ; the
smith at his forge was working late, shoeing
a country team ; and two angular dames, in
rusty sun-bonnets, were gossiping over a barn
yard gate. That was all we saw of Wrights
town, as we drifted northward in company
with the reeling bubbles, down through the
deepening shadow cast by the western bank.
Here and there, where the land chances to
slope gently to the water's edge, are small
piles of logs, drawn on farm sleds during the
winter season from depleted pineries, all the
way from three to ten miles back. When
wanted at the saw-mills down the river, or
just above, at Wrightstown, they are loosely

Locked Through. 215
made up into small rafts and poled to market.
Along the stream there are but few pines left,
and they generally crown some rocky ledge,
not easily accessible. A few small clumps are
preserved, however, relics of the forest's for
mer state, to adorn private grounds or enhance
the gloomy tone of little hillside cemeteries.
There must have been an impressive grandeur
about the scenery of the Lower Fox in the
early day, before the woodman's axe leveled
the great pines which then swept down in
solid rank to the river beach, closely hedging
in the dark and rapid flood.
We supped upon a stone terrace, above
which swayed in the evening breeze the
dense, solemn branches of a giant native, one
of the last of his fated race. The channel
curved below, and the range of vision was
short, between the stately banks, heavily
fringed as they are with aspen and scrub-oak.
As we sat in the gathering gloom and gayly
chatted over the simple adventures which are
making up this week of ideal vacation life,
there came up from the depths below the
steady swish and pant of a river steamboat, —
rare object upon our lonesome journey. As
the bulky craft came slowly around the bend,
the pant became a subdued roar, awakening a
dull echo from the wooded slopes. A small

216 Down Historic Waterways.
knot of passengers lolled around the pilot
house, on which we were just able to discern
the name " Evalyn, of Oshkosh," in burnished
gilt ; on the freight deck there were bales and
boxes of merchandise, and heaps of lumber ;
two stokers were feeding cord-wood to the
furnace flames, which lit the scene with lurid
glare, after the fashion of theatric fires ; the
roustabouts were fastening night lanterns to
the rails. The V-shaped wake of her wheel
barrow stern broke upon the shores like a
tidal wave, and the canoe, luckily well fas
tened to the roots of a stranded tree, bobbed
up and down as would a chip tossed on the
billows. Four miles below Wrightstown is Little
Kaukauna. There are three or four cottages
here, well up on the pleasant western bank,
overlooking a deserted saw-mill property ;
while just beyond, a government lock does
duty whenever needed, and the rest of the
now broadened stream is stemmed by a mag
nificent dam, from the foot of which arises
a dense cloud of vapor, such is the force of
the torrent which pours with a mighty sweep
over the great chute. As we stole down
upon the hamlet, the moon, a day or two past
full, was just rising over the opposite hillocks ;
a tall pine standing out boldly from its lesser

Locked Through. 217
fellows, was weirdly silhouetted across her
beaming face, and in the cottage windows
lights gleamed a homely welcome.
We were cordially received at the house of
the patriarch of the settlement. We made
our craft secure for the night, " toted " our
baggage up the bank, and paused upon the
broad porch of our new-found friend to con
template a most charming moonlit view of
river and forest and glade and cataract ; the
cloud of mist rising high above the roaring
declivity seemed as an incense offering to
the goddess of the night.

218 Down Historic Waterways.

SIXTH LETTER.

THE BAY SETTLEMENT.

Green Bay, Wis., June 13, 1887.
MY dear W  : We had a quiet Sun
day at Little Kaukauna. Being a
delightful day, we went with our entertainers
to the country church, a mile or two back
across the fields, and whiled away the rest
of the time in strolling through the woods
and gossiping with the farmers about the
crops and the government improvement, —
fertile themes. It appears that this diminutive
hamlet of four or five houses anticipates a
" boom," and there is some feverish anxiety
as to how much village lots ought to bring as
a "starter" when the rush actually opens-
A syndicate has purchased the long-abandoned
water-power, and it is whispered that paper-
mills are to be erected, with cottages for oper
atives, and all that sort of thing. Then, the
church and the depot will have to be brought

The Bay Settlement. 2 1 9
into town ; the proprietor of the cross-roads
grocery, now out on the " country road," will
be erecting a brick "block " by the river side ;
somebody will be starting a daily paper,
printed from stereotype plates imported from
Oshkosh or Chicago ; and a summer resort
hotel with a magnetic spring, will doubtless
cap the climax of village greatness. I shall
look with interest on reports from the Little
Kaukauna boom.
It was nine o'clock this morning before we
dipped paddle and bore down to the lock
gates. The good-natured tender " dropped "
us through with much alacrity. The river
gradually widens, and here and there the
high rolling banks recede for some distance,
and marshes and bayous, excellent hunting-
grounds, border the stream. A half mile
below the lock we noticed a roughly built hut,
open at front, such as would quarter a pig in
the shanty outskirts of a great city. It
looked lonesome, on the edge of a wide bog,
with no other sign of habitation, either human
or animal, in the watery landscape. Curiosity
impelled us to stop. Crossing a plank, which
rested one end on a snag and the other on a
stone in front of the three-sided structure, we
peered in. A bundle of rags lay in one
corner of the floor of loosely laid boards ; in

220 Down Historic Waterways.
another was a heap of clamshells, the contents
of which had doubtless been cooked over a
little fire which still smouldered in a neigh
boring clump of reeds. The odors were noi
some, and a foot rise of water would have
swamped out the dweller in this strange
abode. We at once took it for granted that
this was either the home of an Indian or a
tramp. Just as we were leaving, however,
a frowsy, dirty, but apparently good-tempered
fisherman came rowing up and claimed the
cabin as his home. He said that he spent
the greater part of the year in this filthy den,
hunting or fishing according to the season ; in
the winter, he boarded up the front, leaving a
hole to crawl out of, and banked the hut about
with reeds and muck. Wrightstown was his
market ; and he " managed to scratch," he
said, by being economical. I asked him how
much it cost him in cash to exist in this
state, which was but slightly removed from
the condition of our ancestral cave-dwellers.
He thought that with twenty-five dollars in
cash, he could "manage to scratch finely"
for an entire year, and have besides " a week
off with the boys," — in other words, one pro
longed drinking bout, — at Wrightstown.
He complained, however, that he seldom re
ceived money, being mainly put off with

The Bay Settlement. 221
barter. The poor fellow, evidently some
thing of a simpleton, is probably the vic
tim of sharp practice occasionally. As we
paddled away from this singular character,
the Doctor said that he had a novel-writing
friend, given to the sensational, to whom he
would like to introduce The Wild Fisherman
of Little Kaukauna ; he thought there was
material for a romance here, particularly if it
could be proved, as was quite possible, that
the hut man was the lost heir of a British
dukedom. The site of another and a far stranger ro
mance is but half a mile farther down. The
river there suddenly broadens into a basin,
fully half a mile in width. To the east,
the banks are quite abrupt. The westward
shore is a gentle, grass-grown slope, stretch
ing up beyond a charming little bay formed
by a spit of meadow. Near the sandy beach of
this bay a country highway passes, winding
in and out and up and down, as it follows the
river and the bases of the • knolls. Above
this and commanding delightful glimpses of
forest and stream and bayou and prairie, a
goodly hillock is crowned, some seventy-five
feet above the water's edge, with a dark, un-
painted, time-worn, moss-grown house, part
log and part frame, set in a deep tangle of

222 Down Historic Waterways.
lilacs and crabs. The quaint old structure is
of the simple pioneer pattern, — a story and
a half, with gables on the north and south
ends of the main part ; and a small transverse
wing to the rear, with connecting rooms.
The ancient picket gate creaks on its one
rusty hinge. The front door has the appear
ance of being nailed up, and across its frame
a dozen fat spiders, most successful of fly
fishers, have stretched their gluey nets. The
path, once leading thither, is now o'ergrown
with grass and lilacs, while in the surrounding
snarl of weeds and poplar suckers are seen
the blossoming remnants of peonies, and a
few old-fashioned garden shrubs.
The ground is historic. The house is an
ancient landmark. It was the old home of
Eleazar Williams, in his day Episcopal mis
sionary and pretender to the throne of France.
Williams was the reputed son of a mixed-
blood couple of the Mohawk band of Indians ;
in early life, he claimed to have been born in
the vicinity of Montreal, in 1792. A bright
youth, he was educated for the ministry of
the Protestant Episcopal church and sent as a
missionary in 1816-1817 to the Oneida In
dians, then located in Oneida county, New
York. During the war of 1812, he had been
employed as a spy by the American authorities

The Bay Settlement. 223
to trace the movements of British troops in
Canada. Williams, from the first, became
engaged in intrigues among the New York
Indians, and was the originator of the move
ment which resulted, in 1822, in the purchase
by the war department of a large strip of
land from the Menomonees and Winneba
goes, along the Lower Fox River, and the
removal hither of several of the New York
bands, accompanied by the scheming priest.
But the result was jealousy between the new
comers and the original tribes, with sixteen
years of confusion and turmoil, during which
Congress was frequently engaged in settling
the squabbles that arose. Williams's original
idea was said, by those who knew him best,
to be the "total subjugation of the whole
[Green Bay] country and the establishment
of an Indian government, of which he was to
be sole dictator." 1
But his purpose failed. He came to be
recognized as an unscrupulous fellow, and the
majority of the whites and Indians on the
Lower Fox, as well as his clerical brethren,
regarded him with contempt. In 1853, Wil
liams, baffled in every other field of notoriety
which he had worked, suddenly posed before
the American public as Louis XVII., heredi-
1 Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. ii. p. 425.

224 Down Historic Waterways.
tary sovereign of France. Upon the downfall
of the Bourbons in 1792, you will remember
that Louis XVI. and his queen, Marie An
toinette, were beheaded, while their son, the
dauphin Louis, an imbecile child of eight,
was cast into the temple tower by the revolu
tionists. It is officially recorded that after an
imprisonment of two years the dauphin died
in the tower and was buried. But the tale
was started and popularly believed, that the
real dauphin had been abducted by the royal
ists and another child cunningly substituted
to die there in the dauphin's place. The story
went that the dauphin had been sent to
America and all traces of him lost, thus giving
any adventurer of the requisite age and suffi
ciently obscure birth, opportunity to seek such
honor as might be gained in claiming identity
with the escaped prisoner. Williams was too
young by eight years to be the dauphin ;
he was clearly of Indian extraction, — a good
type of the half-breed, in color, form, and
feature. But he succeeded in deceiving a
number of good people, including several
leading doctors in his church ; while an Epis
copal clergyman named John H. Hanson
attempted, in two articles in " Putnam's Mag
azine," in 1853, and afterwards in an elaborate
book, " The Lost Prince," to prove conclu-

The Bay Settlement. 225
sively to the world that Williams was indeed
the son of the executed monarch. While
those who really knew Williams treated his
claims as fraudulent, and his dusky father and
mother protested under oath that Eleazar was
their son, and every allegation of Williams, in
the premises, had been often exposed as false,
there were still many who believed in him.
The excitement attracted attention in France.
One or two royalists came over to see Wil
liams, but left disappointed ; and Louis Phi
lippe sent him a present of some finely bound
books, believing him to be the innocent victim
of a delusion. Williams died in 1858, keeping
up his absurd pretensions to the last.
It was in this house near Little Kaukauna
that Williams lived for so many years, man
aging and preaching to his scattered flock of
immigrant Indians, and forever seeking some
sort of especially profitable employment, such
as accompanying tribal delegations to Wash
ington, or acting as special commissioner at
government payments. In the earliest days,
the house was situated on the spit of meadow
I have previously spoken of; but when the
dam at Depere raised the water, the frame
was carried to this higher position.
Williams's wife, an octoroon, whose portrait
shows her to have been a thick-set, stolid sort
iS

226 Down Historic Waterways.
of woman, died here, a year ago, and is buried
hard by. The present occupants of the house
are Mary Garritty, an Indian woman of sixty-
five years, and her half-breed daughter,
Josephine Penney, who in turn has an in
fant child of two. Mary was reared by the
Williamses, and told us many a curious story
of life at the " agency," as she called it, during
the time when " Mr. Williams and Ma " were
alive. Josephine, who confided to me that
she was thirty years old, was regularly
adopted by Mrs. Williams, for whose memory
both women seem to have a very strong re
spect. What little personal property was left
by the old woman goes to her grandchildren,
intelligent and well-educated Oshkosh citizens,
but Josephine has the sandy farm of sixty-
five acres. She took me into the attic to ex
hibit such relics of the alleged dauphin as
had not been disposed of by the administra
tor of the estate. There were a hundred or
two mice-eaten volumes, mainly theological
and school text-books ; several old volumes of
sermons, — for Eleazar is said to have con
sidered it better taste in him to copy a dis
course from an approved authority than to
endeavor to compose one that would not sat
isfy him half as well ; a boxful of manuscript
odds and ends, chiefly letters, Indian glos-

The Bay Settlement. 227
saries and copied sermons ; two or three
leather-bound trunks, a copper tea-kettle used
by him upon his long boat journeys, and a
pair of antiquated brass candlesticks.
Then we descended to the old orchard.
Mary pointed out the spot, a rod or two south
of the dwelling, where Williams had his library
and mission-office in a log-house that has
long since been removed for firewood. In
this cabin, which had floor dimensions of fif
teen by twenty feet, Williams met his Indian
friends and transacted business with them.
Mary, in her querulous tone, said that in those
days the place abounded with Indians, night
and day, and as they always expected to be
fed, she had her hands full attending to their
wants. "There wa'n't no peace at all, sir,
so long as Mr. Williams were here ; when he
were gone there wa'n't so many of them, an'
we got a rest, which I were mighty thankful
for." Garrulous Mary, in her moccasins and
blanket skirt, with a complexion like brown
parchment and as wrinkled, — almost a full-
blood herself, — has lived so long apart from
her people that she appears to have forgot
ten her race, and inveighed right vigorously
against the unthrifty and beggarly habits
of the aborigines. "I hate them pesky
Indians," she cried in a burst of righteous

228 Down Historic Waterways.
indignation, and then turned to croon over
Josephine's baby, as veritable a " little
Indian boy" as I ever met with in a forest
wigwam. " He 's a fine feller, is n't he ? "
she cried, as she chucked her grandson
under the chin ; " some says as he looks like
Mr. Williams, sir." The Doctor, who is a
judge of babies, declared, in a professional
tone that did not admit of contradiction, that
the infant was, indeed, a fine specimen of
humanity. And thus we left the two women in a most
contented frame of mind, and descended to
the beach, bearing with us Josephine's part
ing salute, shouted from the garden gate, —
" Call agin, whene'er ye pass this way ! "
Depere is five miles below. The banks
are bold as far as there ; but beyond, they
flatten out into gently sloping meadows, va
ried here and there by the re-approach of a
high ridge on the eastern shore, — the west
ern getting to be quite marshy by the time
Fort Howard is reached.
At Depere are the first rapids of the Fox,
the fall being about twelve feet. From the
earliest period recorded by the French
explorers, there was a polyglot Indian set
tlement upon the portage-trail, and in the
winter of 1671-72 the Jesuit Allouez estab-

The Fox River, near Depere, Wisconsin

The Bay Settlement. 2.icj
lished St. Francis Xavier mission here, the
locality being henceforth styled " Rapides
des Peres." It was from this station that
Allouez, Dablon, Joliet, and Marquette started
upon their memorable canoe voyages up the
Fox, in search of benighted heathen and the
Mississippi River. For over a century Rapides
des Peres was a prominent landmark in North
western history. The Depere of to-day is a
solid-looking town, with an iron furnace, saw
mills, and other industries ; and after a long
period of stagnation is experiencing a healthy
business revival.
Unable to find the tender at this the last lock
on our course, we portaged after the manner
of old-time canoeists, and set out upon the
home stretch of six miles. Green Bay, upon
the eastern bank and Fort Howard upon the
western, were well in view ; and, it being not
past two o'clock in the afternoon of a cool
and somewhat cloudy day, we allowed the
current to be our chief propeller, only now
and then using the paddles to keep our bark
well in the main current.
The many pretty residences of South Green
Bay, including the ruins of Navarino, Astor,
and Shanty Town, are situated well up on an
attractive sloping ridge ; but the land soon
drops to an almost swampy level, upon which

230 Down Historic Waterways.
the greater portion of the business quarter is
built. Opposite, Fort Howard with her mills
and coal-docks skirts a wide-spreading bog,
much of the flat, sleepy old town being built
on a foundation of saw-mill offal. Histori
cally, both sides of the river may be practically
treated as the old " Bay Settlement," for two
and a half centuries one of the most con
spicuous outposts of American civilization.
Here came savage-trained Nicolet, exploring
agent of Champlain, in 1634, when Plymouth
colony was still in swaddling-clothes. It was
the day when the China Sea was supposed
to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the
Great Lakes. Nicolet had heard that at Green
Bay he would meet a strange people, who had
come from beyond " a great water " to the
west. He was therefore prepared to meet
here a colony of Chinamen or Japanese, if
indeed Green Bay were not the Orient itself.
His mistake was a natural one. The " strange
people " were Winnebago Indians. A branch
of the Dakotahs, or Sioux, a distinct race from
the Algonquins, they forced themselves across
the Mississippi River, up the Wisconsin, and
down the Fox, to Green Bay, entering the Al
gonquin territory like a wedge, and forever
after maintaining their foothold upon this in
terlocked water highway. " The great water,"

The Bay Settlement. 231
supposed by Nicolet to mean the China Sea,
was the Mississippi River, beyond which bar
rier the Dakotah race held full sway. As he
approached, one of his Huron guides was sent
forward to herald his coming. Landing near
the mouth of the river, he attired himself in a
gorgeous damask gown, decorated with gayly
colored birds and flowers, expecting to meet
mandarins who would be similarly dressed.
A horde of four or five thousand naked sav
ages greeted him. He advanced, discharging
the pistols which he held in either hand, and
women and children fled in terror from the
manitou who carried with him lightning and
thunder. The mouth of the Fox was always a favorite
rallying-point for the savages of this section of
the Northwest, and many a notable council has
been held here between tribes of painted red
men and Jesuits, traders, explorers, and mili
tary officers. Being the gateway of one of
the two great routes to the Mississippi, many
notable exploring and military expeditions
have rested here ; and French, English, and
Americans in turn have maintained forts to
protect the interests of territorial possession
and the fur-trade.
Here it was that a white man first set foot
on Wisconsin soil; and here, also, in 1745,

232 Down Historic Waterways.
the De Langlades, first permanent settlers of
the Badger State, reared their log cabins and
initiated a semblance of white man's civiliza
tion. Green Bay, now hoary with age, has
had an eventful, though not stirring history.
For a hundred years she was a distributing-
point for the fur-trade.
The descendants of the De Langlades, the
Grignons and other colonists of nearly a cen
tury and a half standing, are still on the spot ;
and the gossip of the hour among the voya
geurs and old traders still left among us is of
John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks, Robert
Stuart, Major Twiggs, and other characters
of the early years of our century, whose names
are well known to frontier history. The Creole
quarter of this ancient town, shiftless and im
provident to-day as it always has been, lives
in an atmosphere hazy with poetic glamour,
reveling in the recollection of a once festive,
half-savage life, when the coureur de bois and
the engage were in the ascendency at this for
est outpost, and the fur-trade the be-all and
end-all of commercial enterprise. Your hab-
itan, scratching a painful living for a hybrid
brood from his meager potato patch, bemoans
the day when Yankee progressiveness dammed
the Fox for Yankee saw-mills, into whose in
satiable maws were swept the forests of his

The Bay Settlement. 233
youth, and remembers nought but the sweets
of his early calling among his boon compan
ions, the denizens ofthe wilderness.
In Shanty Town, Astor, and Navarino there
yet remain many dwellings and trading ware
houses of the olden time, — unpainted, gaunt,
poverty-stricken, but with their hand-hewed
skeletons of oak still intact beneath the rags
of a century's decay. A hundred years is a
period quite long enough in our land to war
rant the brand of antiquity, although a mere
nothing in the prolonged career of the Old
World. In the rapidly developing West, a
hundred years and less mark the gap be
tween a primeval wilderness and an up-to-date
civilization. Time, like space, is, after all, but
comparative. In these hundred years the
Northwest has developed from nothing to
everything. It is as great a period, judging
by results, as ten centuries in Europe, — per
haps fifteen. America is said to have no
history. On the contrary, it has the most
romantic of histories ; but it has lived faster
and crowded more and greater deeds into the
past hundred years than slow-going Europe
in the last ten hundred. The American cen
tenarian of to-day is older by far than the
fabled Methuselah.
Green Bay, classic in her shanty ruins, has

234 Down Historic Waterways.
been somewhat halting in her advance, for
the Creoles hamper progressiveness. But as
the habitans and their immediate progeny
gradually pass away, the community creeps
out from the shadow of the past and
asserts itself. The ancient town appears to
be taking on a new and healthy growth, in
strange contrast to the severe and battered
architecture of frontier times. Socially,
Green Bay is delightful. There are many old
families, whose founders were engaged in
superintending the fur-trade and transporta
tion lines, or holding government office,
civil or military, at the wilderness post. This
element, well educated and reared in comfort,
gives a tone of dignified, old-school hospital
ity to the best society, — it is the Knicker
bocker Colony of the Bay Settlement.
At four o'clock we pushed into a canal in
front of the Fort Howard railway depot, and
half an hour later had crossed the bridge and
were registered at a Green Bay hotel. The
Doctor, called home to resume the humdrum
of his hospital life, will leave for the South
to-morrow noon. I shall remain here for a
week, reposing in the shades of antiquity.

THE WISCONSIN RIVER.

THE WISCONSIN RIVER.

CHAPTER I.
ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS.
OUR watches, for a wonder, coincided
on Monday afternoon, Aug. 22, 1887.
This phenomenon is so rare that W  made
a note in her. diary to the effect that for
once in its long career my time-piece was
right. It was five minutes past two. The
place was the beach at Portage, just below
the old red wagon-bridge which here spans
the gloomy Wisconsin. A teamster had
hauled us, our canoe, and our baggage from
the station to the verge of a sand-bank ; and
we had dragged our faithful craft down
through a tangle of sand-burrs and tin cans
to the water's edge, and packed the locker for
its third and final voyage of the season. A

238 Down Historic Waterways.
German housewife, with red kerchief, cap, and
tucked-up skirt, stood out in the water on the
edge of a gravel-spit, engaged in her weekly
wrestle with the family wash, — a picturesque,
foreign-looking scene. On the summit of a
sandy promontory to our left, two other Ger
man housewives leaned over a pig-yard fence
and gazed intently down at these strange
preparations. Back of us were the wooded
sand-drifts of Portage, once a favorite camping-
ground of the Winnebagoes ; before us, the
dark, treacherous river, with its shallows and
its mysterious depths ; beyond that, great
stretches of sand-fields thick-strewn with wil
low forests and, three or four miles away,
the forbidding range of the Baraboo Bluffs,
veiled in the heavy mist which was rapidly
closing upon the valley.
We feared that we were booked for a stormy
trip, as we pushed out into the bubble-strewn
current and found that a cold east wind was
blowing over the flats and rowing-jackets were
essential. Portage City, a town of twenty-five hundred
inhabitants, occupies the southeastern bank
for a mile down. Like Green Bay and Prairie
du Chien, it was an outgrowth of the necessi
ties of the early fur-trade. Upon the death of
that trade it languished and for a generation

Alone in the Wilderness. 239
or two was utterly stagnant. As a rural
trading centre it has since grown into a state
of fair prosperity, although the presence of
many of the old-time buildings of the Indian
traders and transporters gives to much of the
town a sadly decayed appearance. For two
or three miles we had Portage in view, down
a straight course, until at last the thickening
mist hid the time-worn houses from view, and
we were fairly on our way down the historic
Wisconsin, in the wake of Joliet and Mar
quette, who first traversed this highway to the
Mississippi, two hundred and fourteen years
ago. Marquette, in the journal of his memorable
voyage, says of the Wisconsin, " It is very
broad, with a sandy bottom, forming many
shallows, which render navigation very diffi
cult." The river has been frequently de
scribed in the journals of later voyagers, and
government engineers have written long re
ports upon its condition, but they have not
bettered Marquette's comprehensive phrase.
The general government has spent enor
mous sums in an endeavor to make the Fox-
Wisconsin water highway practicable for the
passage of large steam-vessels between the
Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. It
was of great service, in its natural state, for

240 Down Historic Waterways.
the passage into the heart of the continent of
that motley procession of priests, explorers,
cavaliers, soldiers, trappers, and traders who
paddled their canoes through here for nearly
two hundred years, the pioneers of French,
English, and American civilization in turn.
It is still a tempting scheme, to tap the main
artery of America, and allow modern vessels
of burden to make the circuit between the
lakes and the gulf. The Fox River is reason
ably tractable, although this season the stage
of water above Berlin has been hardly high
enough to float a flat-boat. But the Wis
consin remains, despite the hundreds of wing-
dams which line her shores, a fickle jade upon
whom no reliance whatever can be placed.
The current and the sand-banks shift about
at their sweet will over a broad valley, and
the pilot of one season would scarcely recog
nize the stream another. Navigation for
crafts drawing over a foot of water is practi
cally impossible in seasons of drought, and
uncertain in all. A noted engineer has
playfully said that the Wisconsin can never
be regulated, " until the bottom is lathed and
plastered ; " and another officially reported,
over fifteen years ago, that nothing short of
a continuous canal along the bank, from
Portage to Prairie du Chien, will suffice to

Alone in the Wilderness. 241
meet the expectations of those who favor the
government improvement of this impossible
highway. In the neighborhood of Portage, the wing-
dams, — composed of mattresses of willow
boughs, weighted with stone, — are in a
reasonable degree of preservation and in
places appear to be of some avail in contract
ing the channel. But elsewhere down the
river, they are generally mere hindrances to
canoeing. The current, as it caroms from
shore to shore, pays but little heed to these
obstructions and we often found it swiftest
over the places where black lines of willow
twigs bob and sway above the surface of the
rushing water ; while the channel staked out
by the engineers was the site of a sand-field,
studded with aspen-brush.
It is a lonely run of an hour and a half
down to the mouth of the Baraboo River,
through the mazes of the wing-dams, sur
rounded by desolate bottom lands of sand and
wooded bog. The east wind had brought a
smart shower by the time we had arrived off
the mouth of this northern tributary and we
hauled up at a low, forested bank just be
low the junction, where rubber coats were
brought out and canvas spread over the stores.
The rain soon settled into a mere drizzle,
16

242 Down Historic Waterways.
and W  , ever eager in her botanical re
searches, wandered about regardless of wet
feet, investigating the flora of the locality.
The yellow sneeze-weed and purple iron-weed
predominate in great clumps upon the verge
of the bank, and lend a cheerful tone to what;
would otherwise be a desolate landscape.
The drizzle finally ceasing, we were again
afloat, and after shooting by scores of wing-
dams that had been "snowed under" by shift
ing sand, and floating over others that were
in the heart of the present channel, we came
to Dekorra, some seven miles below Portage.
Dekorra is a quaint little hamlet, with just
five weather-worn houses and a blacksmith-
shop in sight, nestled in a hollow at the base
of a bluff on the southern bank. The river
courses at its feet, and from the top of a naked
cliff a ferry-wire stretches high above the
stream and loses itself among the trees on the
opposite bottoms. The east wind whistled a
pretty note as it was split by the swaying
thread, and the anvil by the smith's forge
rang out in unison, clear as a well-toned bell.
A crude cemetery, apparently containing far
more graves than Dekorra's present census
would show inhabitants, flanks the faded-out
settlement on the shoulder of an adjoining
hill. The road to the tattered ferry-boat,

Alone in the Wilderness. 243
rotting on the beach, gave but little evidence
of recent use, for Dekorra is a relic.
The valley of the Wisconsin is from three
to five miles broad, flanked on either side,
below the Portage, by an undulating range of
imposing bluffs, from one hundred and fifty
to three hundred and fifty feet in height.
They are heavily wooded, as a rule, although
there is much variety, — pleasant grass-grown
slopes ; naked, water-washed escarpments,
rising sheer above the stream ; terraced hills,
with eroded faces, ascending in a regular suc
cession of benches to the cliff-like tops ; steep
uplands, either covered with a dense and reg
ular growth of forest, or shattered by fire
or tornado. The ravines and pocket-fields
between the bluffs are often of exceeding
beauty, especially when occupied by a modest
little village, — or better, by some small settler,
whose outlet to the country beyond the edge
of his mountain basin may be seen threading
the woodlands which tower above him, or zig
zagging through a neighboring pass, worn
deep by some impatient spring torrent in a
hurry to reach the river level.
Between these ranges stretches a wide ex
panse of bottoms, either bog or sand plain,
over all of which the river flows at high
water, and through which the swift current

244 Down Historic Waterways.
twists and bounds like a serpent in agony,
constantly cutting out new channels and filling
up the old, obeying laws of its own, ever de
fying the calculations of pilots and engineers.
As it thus sweeps along, wherever its fancy
listeth, here to-day and there to-morrow, it
forms innumerable islands which greatly add
to the picturesqueness of the view. Now and
then there are two or three parallel channels,
running along for miles before they join, per
plexing the traveler with a labyrinth of water
paths. These islands are often mere sand
bars, sometimes as barren as Sahara, again
thick-grown with willows and seedling aspens ;
but for the most part they are well-wooded,
their banks gay with the season's flowers, and
luxuriant vines hanging in deep festoons from
the trees which overhang the flood. At their
heads, often high up among the branches of
the elms, are great masses of driftwood, the
remains of shattered lumber-rafts or saw-mill
offal from the great northern pineries, evi
dencing the height of the spring flood which
so often converts the Wisconsin into an
Amazon. Because of this spreading habit of the
stream, the few villages along the way are
planted on the higher land at the base of the
bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket-

Alone in the Wilderness. 245
plateau which the river, as in ages past it has
worn its bed to lower levels, has left high
and dry above present overflows. Some of
these towns, in their fear of floods, are situ
ated two or three miles back from the water
highway ; others, where the channel chances
to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abut
ting the river, which is crossed at such points
by either a ferry or a toll-bridge.
Desolate as is the prospect from Dekorra's
front door, we found the limestone cliff there,
a mine of attractiveness. The river has
worn miniature caves and grottoes in its
base ; at the mouths of several of these there
are little rocky beaches, whose overhanging
walls are flecked with ferns, lichens, and
graceful columbines.
At six o'clock that evening, in the midst of
a dispiriting Scotch mist, we disembarked
upon the northern bank, at the foot of a
wooded bluff, and prepared to settle for the
night. Fortunately, we had advance knowl
edge of the sparseness of settlement along
the river, and had come with a tent and a
cooking outfit, prepared for camping in case
of need. Upon a rocky bench, fifty feet up
from the water, we stretched a rope between
two trees, to serve in lieu of a ridge-pole, and
pitched our canvas domicile. It was a lone-

246 Down Historic Waterways.
some spot which we had chosen for our night's
halt. Owing to the configuration of the bluffs,
it was unlikely that any person dwelt within
a mile of us on our shore. Across the valley,
we looked over several miles of bottom woods,
while far up on the opposite slopes could just
be discerned the gables of two white farm
houses, peering out from a wilderness of trees
stretching far and wide, till its limits were
lost in the gathering fog.
It was pitchy dark by the time we had com
pleted our camping arrangements, and W 
announced that the coffee was boiling over.
I fancy we two must have presented a rather
forlorn appearance, as we crouched at our
evening meal around the sputtering little fire,
clad in heavy jackets and rubber coats, for
the atmosphere was raw and clammy. The
wood was wet, and the shifting gusts would
persist in blowing the smoke in our eyes,
whichever position we took. Every falling
bough, or rustle of a water-laden sapling, was
suggestive of tramps or of inquisitive hogs or
cattle, for we knew not what neighbors we
had ; many a time we paused, and peering
out into the black night, listened intently for
further developments. And then the strange
noises from the river, unnoticed during day
light, were not conducive to mental ease,

Alone in the Wilderness. 247
when we nervously associated them with
roving fishermen, or perhaps tramps, attracted
by our light from the opposite shore. Some
times we felt positive that we heard the
muffled creak of oars, fast approaching ; then
would come loud splashes and gurgles, and
ever and anon it would seem as if some one
were slapping the water with a board. Now
near, now far away, approaching and receding
by turns, these mysterious sounds continued
through the night, occasionally relieved by
moments of absolute silence. We afterward
discovered that these were the customary
refrains sung by the gay tide, as it washed
over the wing-dams, swished around the sand
banks, and dashed against great snags and
island heads.
But we did not know this then, and a cer
tain uncanny loneliness overcame us as stran
gers to the scene ; and I must confess that,
despite our philosophizing, there was but little
sleep for us that first camp out. A neglect
to procure straw to soften our rocky couches,
and a woful insufficiency of bed-clothing for
a phenomenally cold August night, added to
our manifold discomforts.

248 Down Historic Waterways.

CHAPTER II.
THE LAST OF THE SACS.
T^AWN came at five, and none too soon.
-*-^ But after thawing out over the break
fast fire and draining the coffee-pot dry, we
were wondrously rejuvenated ; and as we
struck camp, were right merry between our
selves over the foolish nervousness of the
night. There was still a raw northwest wind,
but the clouds soon broke, and when, at half-
past six, we again pushed out into the swift-
flowing stream, it was evident that the day
would be bright and comfortably cool.
We had some splendid vistas of bluff-girt
scenery this morning, especially near Merri-
mac, where some of the elevations are the
highest along the river. There are a score
of houses at Merrimac, which is the point
where the Chicago and Northwestern railway
crosses, over an immense iron bridge 1736
feet long, spanning two broad channels and

The Last of the Sacs. 249
the sand island which divides them. The
village is on a rolling plateau some fifty feet
above the water level, on the northern side.
Climbing up to the bridge-tender's house, that
one-armed veteran of the spans, whose service
here is as old as the bridge, told me that it
was seldom indeed the river highway was
used in these days. " The railroads kill this
here water business," he said.
I found the tender to be something of a
philosopher. Most bridge-tenders and fish
ermen, and others who pursue lonely occupa
tions and have much spare time on their
hands, are philosophers. That their specula
tions are sometimes cloudy does not detract
from their local reputation of being deep
thinkers. The Merrimac tender was given
to geology, I found, and some of his ideas
concerning the origin of the bluffs and the
glacial streaks, and all that sort of thing,
would create marked attention in any scien
tific journal. He had some original notions,
also, about the habits of the stream above
which he had almost hourly walked, day and
night, the seasons round, for sixteen long
years. The ice invariably commenced to
form on the bottom of the river, he stoutly
claimed, and then rose to the surface, — the
ingenious reason given for this remarkable

250 Down Historic Waterways.
phenomenon being that the underlying sand
was colder than the water. These and other
novel results of his observation, our philo
sophical friend good-humoredly communi
cated, together with scraps of local tradition
regarding the Black Hawk War, and lurid
tales of the old lumber-raft days. At last,
however, his hour came for walking the spans,
and we descended to our boat. As we shot
into the main channel, far above us a red flag
fluttered from the draw, and we knew it to be
the parting salute of the grizzled sentinel.
At the head of an island half a mile below,
it is said there are the remains of an Indian
fort. We landed with some difficulty, for the
current sweeps by its wooded shore with par
ticular zest. Our examination of the locality,
however, revealed no other earth lines than
might have been formed by a rushing flood.
But as a reward for our endeavors, we found
the lobelia cardinalis in wonderful profusion,
mingled in striking contrast of color with
the iron and sneeze weeds, and the common
spurge. The prickly ash, with its little scarlet
berry, was common upon this as upon other
islands, and the elms were of remarkable
size. We were struck, as we passed along where
the river chanced to wash the feet of steepy

The Last of the Sacs. 251
slopes, with the peculiar ridging of the turf.
The water having undermined these banks,
the friable soil upon their shoulders had slid,
regularly breaking the sod into long hori
zontal strips a foot or two wide, the white
sand gleaming between the rows of rusty
green. Sometimes the shores were thus
striped with zebra-like regularity for miles
together, presenting a very singular and arti
ficial appearance.
Prominent features of the morning's voy
age, also, were deep bowlder-strewn and often
heavily wooded ravines running down from
the bluffs. Although perfectly dry at this
season, it can be seen that they are the beds
of angry torrents in the spring, and many a
poor farmer's field is deeply cut with such
gulches, which rapidly grow in this light soil
as the years go on. We stopped at one such
farm, and walked up the great breach to very
near the house, up to which we clambered,
over rocks and through sand-burrs and thick
ets, being met at the gate by a noisy dog, that
appeared to be suspicious of strangers who
approached his master's castle by means of
the covered way. The farmer's wife, as she
supplied us with exquisite dairy products,
said that the metes and bounds of their little
domain were continually changing ; four acres

252 Down Historic Waterways.
of their best meadow had been washed out
within two years, their wood-lot was being
gradually undermined, and the ravine was
eating into their ploughed land with the per
sistence of a cancer. On the other hand, her
sister's acres, down the river a mile or two,
on the other bank, were growing in extent.
However, she thought their " luck would
change one of these seasons," and the river
swish off upon another tangent.
Upon returning by the gully, we found that
its sunny, sloping walls, where not wooded
with willows and oak saplings, were resplen
dent with floral treasures, chief among them
being the gerardia, golden-rod in several vari
eties, tall white asters, a blue lobelia, and ver
vain, while the seeds of the Oswego tea, prairie
clover, bed-straw, and wild roses were in
all the glory of ripeness. There was a broad,
pebbly beach at the base of the torrent's
bed, thick-grown with yearling willows. A
stranded pine-log, white with age and worn
smooth by a generation of storms, lay firmly
imbedded among the shingle. The temper
ature was still low enough to induce us to
court the sunshine, and, leaning against this
hoary castaway from the far North, we sat
for a while and basked in the radiant smiles
of Sol.

The Last of the Sacs. 253
Prairie du Sac, thirty miles below Portage,
is historically noted as the site for several
generations of the chief village of the Sac In
dians. Some of the earliest canoeists over this
water-route, in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, describe the aboriginal community
in some detail. The dilapidated white vil
lage of to-day numbers but four hundred and
fifty inhabitants, — about one-fourth of the
population assigned to the old red-skin town.
The " prairie " is an oak-opening plateau, more
or less fertile, at the base of the northern range
of bluffs, which here takes a sudden sweep
inland for three or four miles.
The Sacs had deserted this basin plain by
the close of the eighteenth century, and taken
up their chief quarters in the neighborhood
of Rock Island, near the mouth of Rock
River, in close proximity to their allies, the
Foxes, who now kept watch and ward over
the west bank of the Mississippi.
By a strange fatality it chanced that in the
last days of July, 1832, the deluded Sac
leader, Black Hawk, flying from the wrath of
the Illinois and Wisconsin militiamen, under
Henry and Dodge, chose this seat of the
ancient power of his tribe to be one of the
scenes of that fearful tragedy which proved
the death-blow to Sac ambition. Black Hawk,

254 Down Historic Waterways.
after long hiding in the morasses of the Rock
above Lake Koshkonong, suddenly flew from
cover, hoping to cross the Wisconsin River
at Prairie du Sac, and by plunging across the
mountainous country over a trail known to
the Winnebagoes, who played fast and loose
with him as with the whites, to get beyond the
Mississippi in quiet, as he had been originally
ordered to do. His retreat was discovered when
but a day old ; and the militiamen hurried on
through the Jefferson swamps and the forests
of the Four Lake country, harrying the fugi
tives in the rear. At the summit of the Wis
consin Heights, on the south bank, overlooking
this old Sac plain on the north, Black Hawk
and his rear-guard stood firm, to allow the
women and children and the majority of his
band of two thousand to cross the interven
ing bottoms and the island-strewn river.
The unfortunate leader sat upon a white horse
on the summit of the peak now called by his
name, and shouted directions to his handful
of braves. The movements of the latter were
well executed, and Black Hawk showed good
generalship ; but the militiamen were also
well handled, and had superior supplies of
ammunition, so when darkness fell the fated
ravine and the wooded bottoms below were
strewn with Indian bodies, and victory was

The Last of the Sacs. 255
with the whites. During the night the surviv
ing fugitives, now ragged, foot-sore, and starv
ing, crossed the river by swimming. A party
of fifty or so, chiefly non-combatants, made a
raft, and floated down the Wisconsin, to be
slaughtered near its mouth by a detail of
regulars and Winnebagoes from Prairie du
Chien ; but the mass of the party flying west
ward in hot haste over the prairie of the Sacs,
headed for the Mississippi. They lined their
rugged path with the dead and dying victims
of starvation and despair, and a sorry lot these
people were when the Bad Axe was finally
reached, and the united army of regulars and
militiamen under Atkinson, Henry, and Dodge,
overtook them. The " battle " there was a
slaughter of weaklings. But few escaped
across the great river, and the bloodthirsty
Sioux despatched nearly all of those.
Black Hawk was surrendered by the servile
Winnebagoes, and after being exhibited in the
Eastern cities, he was turned over to the be
sotted Keokuk for safe-keeping. He died, this
last of the Sacs, poor, foolish old man, a few
years later ; and his bones, stolen for an Iowa
museum, were cremated twenty years after
in a fire which destroyed that institution. A
sad history is that of this once famous people.
We glory over the stately progress of the white

256 Down Historic Waterways.
man's civilization, but if we venture to examine
with care the paths of that progress, we find
our imperial chariot to be as the car of
Juggernaut. The view from the house verandas which
overhang the high bank at Prairie du Sac, is
superb. Eastward a half mile away, the
grand, corrugated bluffs of Black Hawk and
the Sugar Loaf tower to a height of over
three hundred feet above the river level ;
while their lesser companions, heavily for
ested, continue the range, north and south,
as far as the eye can reach. The river
crosses the foreground with a majestic sweep,
while for several miles to the west and south
west stretches the wooded plain, backed by
a curved line of gloomy hills which com
plete the rim of the basin.
A mile below, on the same plain, is Sauk
City, a shabby town of about a thousand in
habitants. A spur track of the Chicago, Mil
waukee, and St. Paul railway runs up here from
Mazomanie, crossing the river, which is nearly
half a mile wide, on an iron bridge. A large
and prosperous brewery appears to be the
chief industry of the place. Slaughter-houses
abut upon the stream, in the very centre of the
village. These and the squalid back-door
yards which run down to the bank do not

The Last of the Sacs. 257
make up an attractive picture to the canoeist.
River towns differ very much in this respect.
Some of them present a neat front to the
water thoroughfare, with flower-gardens and
well-kept yards and street-ends, while others
regard the river as a sewer and the banks as
a common dumping ground, giving the trav
eler by boat a view of filth, disorder, and
general unsightliness which is highly repul
sive. I have often found, on landing at some
villages of this latter class, that the dwellings
and business blocks which, riverward, are
sad spectacles of foulness and unthrift, have
quite pretentious fronts along the land high
way which the townsfolk patronize. It is as
if some fair dame, who prided herself on her
manners and costume, had rags beneath
her fine silks, and unwashed hands within her
dainty gloves. This coming in at the back
door of river towns reveals many a secret of
sham. It was a fine run down to Arena ferry,
thirteen miles below Sauk City. The skies
had become leaden and the atmosphere gray,
and the sparse, gnarled poplars on some of
the storm-swept bluffs had a ghostly effect.
Here and there, fires had blasted the moun
tainous slopes, and a light aspen growth was
hastening to garb with vivid green the black-
17

258 Down Historic Waterways.
ened ruins. But the general impression was
that of dark, gloomy forests of oak, linden,
maple, and elms, on both upland and bottom ;
with now and then a noble pine cresting a
shattered cliff.
There were fitful gleams of sunshine, dur
ing which the temperature was as high as
could be comfortably tolerated ; but the
northwest wind swept sharply down through
the ravines, and whenever the heavens be
came overcast, jackets were at once essential.
The islands became more frequent, as we
progressed. Many of them are singularly
beautiful. The swirling current gradually
undermines their bases, causing the trees
to topple toward the flood, with many graceful
effects of outline, particularly when viewed
above the island head. And the colors, too,
at this season, are charmingly variegated.
The sapping of a tree's foundations brings early
decay ; and the maples, especially, are thus
early in the season gay with the autumnal
tints of gold and wine and purple, objects of
striking beauty for miles away. Under the
arches of the toppling trees, and inside the
lines of snags which mark the islet's former
limits, the current goes swishing through,
white with bubbles and dancing foam. Crouch
ing low, to escape the twigs, one can have

The Last of the Sacs. 259
enchanting rides beneath these bowers, and
catch rare glimpses of the insulated flora on
the swift-passing banks. The stately spikes
of the cardinal lobelia fairly dazzle the eye
with their gleaming color ; and great masses
of brilliant yellow sneeze-weed and the deep
purple of the iron-weed present a symphony
which would delight a disciple of Whistler.
Thus are the islands ever being destroyed and
new ones formed. Those bottom lands, over
there, where great forests are rooted, will
have their turn yet, and the buffeted sand-bars
of to-day given a restful chance to become
bottoms. The game of shuttlecock and bat-
tledoor has been going on in this wide, cliff-
girt valley since Heaven knows when. Man's
attempt to control its movements seem puny
indeed. At six o'clock that evening we had arrived
at the St. Paul railway bridge at Helena.
The tender and his wife are a hospitable
couple, and we engaged quarters in their cosy
home at the southern end of the bridge. Mrs.
P  has a delightful flower-garden, which
looks like an oasis in the wilderness of sand
and bog thereabout. Twenty-three years ago,
when these worthy people first took charge
of the bridge, the earth for this walled-in
beauty spot was imported by rail from a more

260 Down Historic Waterways.
fertile valley than the Wisconsin; and here
the choicest of bulbs and plants are grown
with rare floricultural skill, and the train
men all along the division are resplendent in
button-hole bouquets, the year round, pro
ducts of the bridge-house bower at Helena.
W  and Mrs. P  at once struck up an
enthusiastic botanical friendship.
Bridge houses are generally most forlorn
specimens of railway architecture, and have
a barricaded look, as though tramps were al
together too frequent along the route, and
occasionally made trouble for the watchers of
the ties. This one, originally forbidding
enough, has been transformed into a winsome
vine-clad home, gay with ivies, Madeira vines,
and passion, moon, and trumpet flowers, cover
ing from view the professional dull green
affected by " the company's " boss painter.
The made garden, to one side, was choking
with a wealth of bedding plants and green
house rarities of every hue and shape of
blossom and leaf.
A dozen feet below the railroad level,
spread wide morasses and sand patches,
thick grown with swamp elms and willows.
Down the track, a half mile to the south,
Helena's fifty inhabitants are grouped in a
dozen faded dwellings. Three miles west-

The Last of the Sacs. 261
ward, across the river, is the pretty and
flourishing village of Spring Green.
It is needless to say that in the isolated
home of these lovers of flowers, we had
comfortable quarters. W  said that it
was very much like putting up at Rudder
Grange.

262 Down Historic Waterways.

CHAPTER III.
A PANORAMIC VIEW.
THE fog on the river was so thick, next
morning, that objects four rods away
were not visible. To navigate among the
snags and shallows under such conditions
was impossible. But W  closely in
vestigated the garden while waiting for the
mist to rise, and Mr. P  entertained me
with intelligent reminiscences of his long
experience here. It had been four years,
he said, since he last swung the draw for a
river craft. That was a small steamboat
attempting to make the passage, on what
was considered a good stage of water, from
Portage to the mouth. She spent two weeks
in passing from Arena to Lone Rock, a
distance of twenty-two miles, and was finally
abandoned on a sand-bank for the season.
He doubted whether he would have occasion
again to swing the great span. As for lum-

A Panoramic Viezv. 263
ber rafts, but three or four small ones had
passed down this year, for the railroads were
transporting the product of the great mills
on the Upper Wisconsin, full as cheaply as
it could be driven down river and with far
less risk of disaster. The days of river traffic
were numbered, he declared, and the little
towns that had so long been supported by the
raftsmen, on their long and weary journey
from the northern pineries to the Hannibal
and St. Louis markets, were dying of star
vation. I questioned our host as to his opinion of
the value of the Fox- Wisconsin river improve
ment. He was cautious at first, and claimed
that the money appropriated had " done a great
deal of good to the poor people along the line."
Closer inquiry developed the fact that these
poor people had been employed in building
the wing dams, for which local contracts had
been let. When his opinion of the value of
these dams was sought, Mr. P  admitted
that the general opinion along the river was,
that they were " all nonsense," as he put it.
Contracts had been let to Tom, Dick, and
Harry, in the river villages, who had made
a show of work, in the absence of inspectors,
by sinking bundles of twigs and covering'
them with sand. Stone that had been hauled

264 Down Historic Waterways.
to the banks, to weight the mattresses, had
remained unused for so long that popular
judgment awarded it to any man who was
enterprising enough to cart it away ; thus
was many a barn foundation hereabouts built
out of government material. Sand-ballasted
wing-dams built one season were washed out
the next ; and so government money has
been recklessly frittered away. Such sort of
management is responsible for the loose mo
rality of the public concerning anything the
general government has in hand. A man
may steal from government with impunity,
who would be socially ostracized for cheating
his neighbor. There exists a popular senti
ment along this river, as upon its twin, the
Fox, that government is bound to squander
about so much money every year in one way
or another, and that the denizens of these two
valleys are entitled to their share of the plun
der. One honest captain on the Fox said to
me, " If it wa'n't for this here appropriation,
Wisconsin would n't get her proportion of the
public money what each State is regularly
entitled to ; so I think it 's necessary to keep
this here scheme a-goin', for to get our dues ;
of course the thing ain't much good, so far as
what is claimed for it goes, but it keeps
money movin' in these valleys and makes

A Panoramic View. 265
times easier, — and that 's what guvment 's
for." The honest skipper would have been
shocked, probably, if I had called him a
socialist, for a few minutes after he was de
claiming right vigorously against Herr Most
and the Chicago anarchists.
It was half-past nine before the warmth of
the sun's rays had dissipated the vapor, and
we ventured to set forth. It proved to be an
enchanting day in every respect.
A mile or so below the bridge we came to
the charming site, on the southern bank, at
the base of a splendid limestone bluff, of the
village of Old Helena, now a nameless clump
of battered dwellings. There is a ferry here
and a wooden toll-bridge in process of erec
tion. The naked cliff, rising sheer above the
rapid current, was, early in this century, util
ized as a shot tower. There are lead mines
some fifteen miles south, that were worked
nearly fifty years before Wisconsin became
even a Territory ; and hither the pigs were, as
late as 1830, laboriously drawn by wagons, to
be precipitated down a rude stone shaft built
against this cliff, and thus converted into shot.
Much of the lead used by the Indians and
white trappers of the region came from the
Helena tower, and its product was in great
demand during the Black Hawk War in 1832.

266 Down Historic Waterways.
The remains of the shaft are still to be seen,
although much overgrown with vines and
trees. Old Helena, in the earlier shot-tower days,
was one of the " boom " towns of " the howl
ing West." But the boom soon collapsed, and
it was a deserted village even at the time of
the Black Hawk disturbance. After the bat
tle of Wisconsin Heights, opposite Prairie du
Sac, the white army, now out of supplies, re
tired southwest to Blue Mound, the nearest
lead diggings, for recuperation. Spending
a few days there, they marched northwest to
Helena. The logs and slabs which had been
used in constructing the shanties here were
converted into rafts, and upon them the Wis
consin was crossed, the operation consuming
two days. A few miles north, Black Hawk's
trail, trending westward to the Bad Axe, was
reached, and soon after that came the final
struggle. We found many groups of pines, this morn
ing, in the amphitheater between the bluffs,
and under them the wintergreen berries in
rich profusion. Some of the little pocket
farms in these depressions are delightful bits
of rugged landscape. In the fields of corn,
now neatly shocked, the golden pumpkins
seemed as if in imminent danger of rolling

The Wisconsin River, near Helena

A Panoramic View. 267
down hill. There are curious effects in
architecture, where the barns and other
outbuildings far overtop the dwellings, and
have to be reached by flights of steps or
angling paths. Yet here and there are pleas
ant, gently rolling fields, nearer the bank, and
smooth, sugar-loaf mounds upon which cattle
peacefully graze. The buckwheat patches are
white with blossom. Now and then can just
be distinguished the forms of men and women
husking maize upon some fertile upland bench.
And so goes on the day. Now, with pret
ty glimpses of rural life, often reminding one
of Rhineland views, without the castles ; then,
swishing off through the heart of the bottoms
for miles, shut in except from distant views of
the hill-tops, and as excluded from humanity,
in these vistas of sand and morass, as though
traversing a wilderness ; anon, darting past
deserted rocky slopes or through the dark
shadow of beetling cliffs, and the gloomy
forests which crown them.
Lone Rock ferry is nearly fourteen miles
below Helena bridge. As we came in view,
the boat was landing a doctor's gig at the
foot of a bold, naked bluff, on the southern
bank. The doctor and the ferryman gave
civil answers to our queries about distances,
and expressed great astonishment when an-

268 Down Historic Waterways.
swered, in turn, that we were bound for the
mouth of the river. " Mighty dull business,"
the doctor remarked, " traveling in that little
cockle-shell ; I should think you 'd feel afraid,
ma'am, on this big, lonesome river ; my wife
don't dare look at a boat, and I always feel
skittish coming over on the ferry." I assured
him that canoeing was far from being a dull
business, and W  good-humoredly added
that she had as yet seen nothing to be afraid
of. The doctor laughed and said something,
as he clicked up his bony nag, about " tastes
differing, anyhow." And, the ferryman trudg
ing behind, — the smoke from his cabin
chimney was rising above the tree-tops in
a neighboring ravine, — the little cortege
wound its way up the rough, angling road
way fashioned out of the face of the bluff, and
soon vanished around a corner. Lone Rock
village is a mile and a half inland to the
south. Just below, the cliff overhangs the stream,
its base having been worn into by centuries
of ceaseless washing. On a narrow beach be
neath, a group of cows were chewing their
cuds in an atmosphere of refreshing coolness.
From the rocky roof above them hung ferns
in many varieties, — maidenhair, the wood,
the sensitive, and the bladder ; while in clefts

A Panoramic View. 269
and grottos, or amid great heaps of rock
debris, hard by, there were generous masses
of king fern, lobelia cardinalis, iron and sneeze
weed, golden-rod, daisies, closed gentian, and
eupatorium, in startling contrasts of vivid
color. It being high noon, we stopped and
landed at this bit of fairy land, ate our din
ner, and botanized. There was a tinge of
triumphant scorn in W  's voice, when,
emerging from a spring-head grotto, bearing
in one arm a brilliant bouquet of wild flowers
and in the other a mass of fern fronds, she
cried, " To think of his calling canoeing a
dull business ! "
Richland City, on the northern bank, five
miles down, is a hamlet of fifteen or twenty
houses, some of them quite neat in appear
ance. Nestled in a grove of timber on a plain
at the base of the bluffs, the village presents
a quaint old-country appearance for a long
distance up-stream. The St. Paul railway,
which skirts the northern bank after crossing
the Helena bridge, sends out a spur north
ward from Richland City, to Richland Center,
the chief town in Richland county.
Two miles below Richland City, we landed
at the foot of an imposing bluff, which rises
sharply for three hundred feet or more from the
water's edge. It is practically treeless on the

270 Down Historic Waterways.
river side. We ascended it through a steep
gorge washed by a spring torrent. Strewn
with bowlders and hung with bushes and an
occasional thicket of elms and oaks, the path
was rough but sure. From the heights above,
the dark valley lay spread before us like a
map. Ten miles away, to our left, a splash of
white in a great field of green marked the
location of Lone Rock village ; five miles to
the right, a spire or two rising above the
trees indicated where Muscoda lay far back
from the river reaches ; while in front, two
miles away, peaceful little Avoca was sunning
its gray roofs on a gently rising ground.
Between these settlements and the parallel
ranges which hemmed in the panoramic view,
lay a wide expanse of willow-grown sand-
fields, forested morasses, and island meadows
through which the many-channeled river cut
its devious way. In the middle foreground,
far below us, some cattle were being driven
through a bushy marsh by boys and dogs.
The cows looked the size of kittens to us at
our great elevation, but such was the purity
of the atmosphere that the shouts and yelps
of the drivers rose with wonderful clearness,
and the rustling of the brush was as if in an
adjoining lot. The noise seemed so dispro-
portioned to the size of the objects occasion-

A Panoramic View. 271
ing it, that this acoustic effect was at first
rather startling.
The whitewashed cabin of a squatter and
his few log outbuildings occupy a little basin
to one side of the bluff, His cattle were
ranging over the hillsides, attended by a colly.
The family were rather neatly dressed, but
there did not appear to be over an acre of
land level enough for cultivation, and that was
entirely devoted to Indian corn. It was some
thing of a mystery how this man could earn a
living in his cooped-up mountain home. But
the honest-looking fellow seemed quite con
tented, sitting in the shade of his woodpile
smoking a corncob pipe, surrounded by a half
dozen children. He cheerfully responded to
my few queries, as we stopped at his well on
the return to our boat. The good wife, a
buxom woman with pretty blue eyes set in a
smiling face, was peeling a pan of potatoes on
the porch, near by, while one foot rocked a
rude cradle ingeniously formed out of a bar
rel head and a lemon box. She seemed
mightily pleased as W  stroked the face
of the chubby infant within, and made in
quiries as to the ages of the step-laddered
brood ; and the father, also, fairly beamed with
satisfaction as he placed his hands on the
golden curls of his two oldest misses and

272 Down Historic Waterways.
proudly exhibited their little tricks of precoc
ity. There can be no poverty under such a
roof. Millionnaires might well envy the peace
ful contentment of these hillside squatters.
Down to Muscoda we followed the rocky
and wood-crowned northern bank, along which
the country highway is cut out. The swift
current closely hugs it, and there was needed
but slight exertion with the paddles to lead a
sewing-machine agent, whom we found to be
urging his horse into a vain attempt to dis
tance the canoe. As he seemed to court a
race, we had determined not to be outdone,
and were not.
Orion, on the northern side, just above
Muscoda, is a deserted town. It must have
been a considerable place at one time. There
are a dozen empty business buildings, now
tenanted by bats and spiders. On one shop
front, a rotting sign displays the legend,
" World's Exchange ; " there is also a " Globe
Hotel," and the remains of a bank or two.
Alders, lilacs, and gnarled apple-trees in many
deserted clumps, tell where the houses once
were ; and the presence, among these ruins, of
a family or two of squalid children only em
phasizes the dreary loneliness. Orion was
once a " boom " town, they tell us, — an ex
pressive epitaph.

A Panoramic View. 273
A thin, outcropping substratum of sand
stone is noticeable in this section of the river.
It underlies the sandy plains which abut the
Wisconsin in the Muscoda region, and lines
the bed of the stream ; near the banks, where
there is but a slight depth of water, rapids
are sometimes noticeable, the rocky bottom
being now and then scaled off into a stairlike
form, for the fall is here much sharper than
customary. Because of an outlying shelf of this sand
stone, bordered by rapids, but covered with
only a few inches of dead water, we had some
difficulty in landing at Muscoda beach, on the
southern shore. Some stout poling and lift
ing were essential before reaching land. Mus
coda was originally situated on the bank,
which rises gently from the water; but as the
river trade fell off, the village drifted up
nearer the bluff, a mile south over the plain,
in order to avoid the spring floods. There is
a toll-bridge here and a large brewery, with
extensive cattle-sheds strung along the shore.
A few scattering houses connect these estab
lishments with the sleepy but neat little ham
let of some five hundred inhabitants. After a
brisk walk up town, in the fading sunlight,
which cast a dazzling glimmer on the
whitened dunes and heightened the size of
18

274 Down Historic Waterways.
the dwarfed herbage, we returned to the canoe,
and cast off to seek camping quarters for the
night, down-stream.
A mile below, on the opposite bank, a
large straw-stack by the side of a small farm
house attracted our attention. We stopped
to investigate. There was a good growth of
trees upon a gentle slope, a few rods from shore,
and a beach well strewn with drift-wood. The
farmer who greeted us was pleasant-spoken,
and readily gave us permission to pitch our tent
in the copse and partake freely of his straw.
Now more accustomed to the river's ways,,
we keenly enjoyed our supper, seated around
our little camp-fire in the early dark. We
had occasional glimpses of the lights in Mus
coda, through the swaying trees on the bot
toms to the south ; an owl, on a neighboring
island, incessantly barked like a terrier ; the
whippoorwills were sounding their mournful
notes from over the gliding river, and now
and then a hoarse grunt or querulous squeal
in the wood-lot behind us gave notice that we
were quartered in a hog pasture. Soon the
moon came out and brilliantly lit the opens,
— the glistening river, the stretches of white
sand, the farmer's fields, — and intensified the
sepulchral shadows of the lofty bluffs which
overhang the scene.

Floating through Fairyland. 275

CHAPTER IV.
FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND.
T JNDISTURBED by hogs or river tramps,
^ we slept soundly until seven, the follow
ing morning. There was a heavy fog again,
but by the time we had leisurely eaten our
breakfast, struck camp, and had a pleasant
chat with our farmer host and his " hired
man," who had come down to the bank to
make us a call, the mists had rolled away be
fore the advances of the sun.
At half past ten we were at Port Andrew,
eight miles below camp on the north shore.
The Port, or what is left of it, lies stretched
along a narrow bench of sand, based with
rock, some forty feet above the water, with
a high, naked bluff backing it to the north.
There is barely room for the buildings, on
either side of its one avenue paralleling the
river ; this street is the country road, which
skirts the bank, connecting the village with

276 Down Historic Waterways.
the sparse settlements, east and west. In the
old rafting days, the Port was a stopping-place
for the lumber pilots. There being neither
rafts nor pilots, nowadays, there is no business
for the Port, save what few dollars may be
picked up from the hunters who frequent this
place each fall, searching for woodcock. But
even the woodcocking industry has been over
done here, and two sportsmen whom we met
on the beach declared that there were not
enough birds remaining to pay for the trouble
of getting here. For, indeed, Port Andrew
is quite off the paths of modern civilization.
There is practically no communication with
the country over the bluffs, northward ; and
Blue River, the nearest railway station, to
which there is a tri-weekly mail, is four miles
southward, over the bottoms, with an uncer
tain ferryage between. There are less than
fifty human beings in Port Andrew now, but
double that number of dogs, the latter mostly
of the pointer breed, kept for the benefit of
huntsmen. We climbed the bank and went over to the
post-office and general store. It seems to be
the only business establishment left alive in
the hamlet ; although there are a dozen de
serted buildings which were stores in the long
ago, but are now ghostly wrecks, open to wind

Floating through Fairyland. 277
and weather on every side, and, with sunken
ridge-poles, waiting for the first good wind
storm to furnish an excuse for a general col
lapse. A sleepy, greasy-looking lad, whose
originally white shirt-front was sadly stained
with water-melon juice, had charge of the
meager concern. He said that the farmers
north of the bluffs traded in towns more ac
cessible than this, and that south of the
stream, Blue River, being a railroad place,
was "knockin' the spots off'n the Port."
Ten years ago, he had heard his " pa " say
the Port was "a likely place," but it "ain't
much shakes now."
But there is a certain quaintness about
these ruins of Port Andrew that is quite
attractive. A deep ravine, cut through the
shale-rock, comes winding down from a pass
among the bluffs, severing the hamlet in twain.
Over it there is sprung a high-arched, rough
stone bridge, with crenelled walls, quite as
artistic in its way as may be found in pictures
of ancient English brook-crossings. On the
summit of a rising-ground beyond, stands
the solitary, whitened skeleton of a once spa
cious inn, a broad double-decked veranda
stretching across its river front, and hitching-
posts and drinking-trough now almost lost to
view in a jungle of docks and sand-burrs.

278 Down Historic Waterways.
The cracks in the rotten veranda floors are
lined with grass ; the once broad highway is
now reduced to an unfrequented trail through
the yielding sand, which is elsewhere hid
under a flowery mantle made up of delicate,
fringed blossoms of pinkish purple, called by
the natives " Pike's weed," and the rich yellow
and pale gold of the familiar " butter and eggs."
The peculiar effect of color, outline, and per
spective, that hazy August day, was indeed
charming. But we were called from our rapt
contemplation of the picture, by the assem
blage around us of half the population of Port
Andrew, led by the young postmaster and
accompanied by a drove of playful hounds.
The impression had somehow got abroad that
we had come to prospect for an iron mine, in
the bed of the old ravine, and there was a
general desire to see how the thing was done.
The popular disappointment was evidently
great, when we descended from our perch on
the old bridge wall, and returned to the little
vessel on the beach, which had meanwhile
been closely overhauled by a knot of inquisi
tive urchins. A part of the crowd followed
us down, plying innocent questions by the
score, while on the summit of the bank
above stood a watchful group of women and
girls, some in huge sun-bonnets, others with

Floating through Fairyland. 279
aprons thrown over their heads. There was
a general waving of hats and aprons from the
shore, as we shot off into the current again,
and our " Good-by ! " was echoed by a cheery
chorus. It is evident that Port Andrew does
not have many exciting episodes in her aim
less, far-away life.
Flocks of crows were seen to-day, winging
their funereal flight from shore to shore, and
uttering dismal croaks. The islands pre
sented a more luxurious flora than we had
yet seen ; the marsh grass upon them was
rank and tall, the overhanging trees sumptu
ously vine-clad, the autumn tints deeper and
richer than before, the banks glowing with car
dinal and yellow and purple ; while on the sandy
shores we saw loosestrife, white asters, the
sensitive plant, golden-rod, and button-bush.
Blue herons drifted through the air on their
wide-spread wings, heads curved back upon
their shoulders, and legs hanging straight
down, to settle at last upon barren sand-spits,
and stand in silent contemplation of some
pool of dead water where perhaps a stray fish
might reward their watchfulness. Solitary
kingfishers kept their vigils on the numerous
snags. Now and then a turtle shuffled from
his perch and went tumbling with a loud
splash into his favorite watering-place.

280 Down Historic Waterways.
Although yet too early for Indian summer,
the day became, by noon, very like those
which are the delight of a protracted north
western autumn. A golden haze threw a
mystic veil over the landscape ; distant shore
lines were obliterated, sand and sky and
water at times merged in an indistinct blur,
and distances were deceptive. Now and then
the vistas of white sand-fields would appar
ently stretch on to infinity. Again, the river
would seem wholly girt with cliffs and we in
the bottom of a huge mountain basin, from
which egress was impossible ; or the stream
would for a time appear a boundless lake.
The islands ahead were as if floating in space,
and there were weird reflections of far-away
objects in the waters near us. While these
singular effects lasted we trimmed our bark to
the swift-gliding current, and floated along
through fairy-land, unwilling to break the
charm by disturbing the mirrored surface of
the flood.
Soon after the dinner hour we came in sight
of the Boscobel toll-bridge, — an ugly, clumsy
structure, housed-in like a tunnel, and as dark
as a pocket. I was never quite able to under
stand why some bridge-makers should cover
their structures in this fashion, and others, in
the same locality, leave them open to wind and

Floating through Fairyland. 281
weather. So far as my unexpert observation
goes, covered bridges are no more durable
than the open, and they are certainly less
cheerful and comely. A chill always comes
over me as I enter one of these damp and
gloomy hollow-ways ; and the thought of how
well adapted they are to the purposes of the
thug or the footpad is not a particularly pleas
ant one for the lonely traveler by night. A
dead little river hamlet, now in abject ruins,
— Manhattan by name, — occupies the rug
ged bank at the north end of the long bridge ;
while southward, Boscobel is out of sight, a
mile and a half inland, across the bottoms.
The bluff overtopping Manhattan is a quarry
of excellent hard sandstone, and a half dozen
men were dressing blocks for shipment, on
the rocky shore above us. They and their
families constitute Manhattan.
Eight miles down river, also on the north
bank, is Boydtown. There are two houses
there, in a sandy glen at the base of a group
of heavily wooded foot-hills. At one of the
dwellings — ¦ a neat, slate-colored cottage — we
found a cheery, black-eyed woman sitting on
the porch with a brood of five happy children
playing about her. As she hurried away
to get the butter and milk which we had
asked for, she apologized for being seen to

282 Down Historic Waterways.
enjoy this unwonted leisure, apparently not
desirous that we should suppose her to be any
other than the hard-working little body which
her hands and driving manner proclaimed her
to be. When she returned with our supplies
she said that they had " got through thrash-
in', " the day before, and she was enjoying the
luxury of a rest preparatory to an accumulated
churning. I looked incredulously at the sandy
waste in which this little home was planted,
and the good woman explained that their farm
lay farther back, on fair soil, although the pres
ent dry season had not been the best for crops.
Her brown-faced boy of ten and two little
girls of about eight — the laughing faces and
crow-black curls of the latter hid under im
mense flapping sun-bonnets — accompanied
us to the bayou by which we had approached
Boydtown. They had a gay, unrestrained
manner that was quite captivating, and we
were glad to have them row alongside of us
for a way down-stream in the unwieldy family
punt, the lad handling the crude oars and the
girls huddled together on the stern seat, cov
ered by their great sun-bonnet flaps, as with a
cape. They were " goin' grapein'," they said ;
and at an island where the vines hung dark
with purple clusters, they piped " Good-by,
you uns ! " in tittering unison.

Floating through Fairyland. 283
By this time, the weather had changed.
The haze had lifted. The sky had quickly
become overcast with leaden rainclouds, and
an occasional big drop gave warning of an
approaching storm. A few miles below Boyd
town, we stopped to replenish our canteen at
the St. Paul railway's fine iron bridge, the
last crossing on that line between Milwaukee
and Prairie du Chien. On the southern end
of the bridge is Woodman ; on the northern
bank, the tender's house. As we were in
the northern channel, it was impracticable to
reach the village, separated from us by wide
islands and long stretches of swamp and for
est, except by walking the bridge and the
mile or two of trestle-work approaches to the
south. As for the bridge-house, there chanced
to be no spare quarters for us there. So we
voted to trust to fortune and push on, al
though the tender's wife, a pleasant, English-
faced woman, with black, sparkling eyes and
a hospitable smile, was much exercised in
spirit, and thought we were running some
hazard of a wetting.
The skies lightened for a time, and then
there came rolling up from over the range to
the southwest great jagged banks of black
clouds, ugly " thunder heads," which seemed
to presage a deluge. Below them, veiling the

284 Down Historic Waterways.
tallest peaks, tossed and sped the light-footed
couriers of the wind, and we saw the dark-
green bosom of the upper forests heave with
the emotions of the air, while the rushing
stream below flowed on unruffled. The river
is here united in one broad channel. At the
first evidence of a blow, we hurried across to
the windward bank. We were landing at the
swampy, timber-strewn base of a precipitous
cliff as the wind passed over the valley, and
had just completed our preparations for shel
ter when the rain began to come in blinding
sheets. The possibility of having to spend the
night under the sepulchral arches of this for
ested morass was not pleasant to contem
plate. The storm abated, however, within
half an hour, and we were then able to dis
tinguish a large white house apparently set
back in an open field a half mile or more
from the opposite shore.
Re-embarking, we headed that way, and
found a wood-fringed stream several rods
wide, pouring a vigorous flood into the Wis
consin, from the north. Our map showed it
to be the Kickapoo, an old-time logging river,
and the house must be an outlying member
of the small railroad village of Wauzeka. A
consultation was held on board, at the mouth

Floating through Fairyland. 285
of the Kickapoo. On the Wisconsin not a
house was to be seen, as far as the eye could
reach, and wide stretches of swamp and
wooded bog appeared to line both its banks.
The prospect of paddling up the mad little
Kickapoo for a mile to Wauzeka was dis
piriting, but we decided to do it ; for night
was coming on, our tent, even could we find
a good camping ground in this marshy wilder
ness, was disposed to be leaky, and a steady
drizzle continued to sound a muffled tattoo
on our rubber coats. A voluble fisherman,
caught out in the rain like ourselves, came
swinging into the tributary, with his cranky
punt, just as we were setting our paddles for
a vigorous pull up-stream. We had his com
pany, side by side, till we reached the St. Paul
railway trestle, and beached at the foot of a
deserted stave mill, in whose innermost re
cesses we deposited our traps. Guided by
the village shoemaker's boy, who had been
playing by the river side, we started up the
track to find the hotel, nearly a half mile
away. It is a quiet, comfortable, old-fashioned lit
tle inn, this hostelry at Wauzeka. The land
lord greeted his storm-bound guests with
polite urbanity, and with none of that inquisi-
tiveness so common in rural hosts. At sup-

286 Down Historic Waterways.
per, we met the village philosopher, a quaint,
lone old man who has an opinion of his own
upon most human subjects, and more than
dares to voice it, — insists, in fact, on having
it known of all men. A young commercial
traveler, the only other patron of the estab
lishment, sadly guyed our philosophical mess
mate by securing his verdict on a wide range
of topics, from the latest league game to ab
struse questions of theology. The philoso
pher bit, and the drummer was in high feather
as he crinkled the corners of his mouth be
hind his huge moustache, and looked slyly
around for encouragement that was not
offered. Wauzeka is, in one respect, like too many
other country villages. Three saloons dis
figure the main street, and in front of them
are little knots of noisy loafers, in the eve
ning, filling up the rickety, variously graded
sidewalk to the gutter, and necessitating the
running of a loathsome gauntlet to those who
may wish to pass that way. The boy who
can grow up in such an atmosphere, unpol
luted, must be of rare material, or his parents
exceptionally judicious. There are few large
cities where one can see the liquor traf
fic carried on with such disgusting boldness
as in hamlets like this, where screenless,

Floating through Fairyland. 287
open-doored saloons of a vile character jostle
trading shops and dwellings, and monopolize
the footway, making of the business street a
place which women may abhor at any hour,
and must necessarily avoid after sunset.
With a local-option law, that but awaits a ma
jority vote to be operative in such communi
ties, it is a strange commentary on the quality
of our nineteenth-century civilization that the
dissolute few should still, as of old, be able to
persistently hold the whip-hand over the vir
tuous but timid many.
Elsewhere in Wauzeka, there are many
pretty grass-grown lanes ; some substantial
cottages ; a prosperous creamery, employing
the service of the especial pride of the village,
a six-inch spouting well, driven for three hun
dred feet to the underlying stratum of lime-
rock ; a saw-mill or two, which are worked
spasmodically, according to the log-driving
stage in the Kickapoo, and some pleasant,
accommodating people, who appear to be quite
contented with their lot in life.

288 Down Historic Waterways.

CHAPTER V.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
THERE was fog on the river in the
morning. Across the broad expanse of
field and ledge which separates Wauzeka from
the Wisconsin, we could see the great white
mass of vapor, fifty feet thick, resting on the
broad channel like a dense coverlid of down.
Soon after seven o'clock, the cloud lifted by
degrees, and then broke into ragged segments,
which settled sluggishly for a while on the
tops of the southern line of bluffs and screened
their dark amphitheaters from view, till at last
dissipated into thin air.
We were off at eight o'clock, fifteen or
twenty men coming down to the railway-
bridge to watch the operation. One of them
helped us materially with our bundles, while
the rest sat in a row along the trestle, dangling
their feet through the spaces between the
stringers, and gazing at us as though we were

The Discovery of the Mississippi. 289
a circus company on the move. A drizzle set
in, just as we pushed from the bank, and we
descended the Kickapoo under much the
same conditions of atmosphere as those we
had experienced in pulling against its swirl
ing tide the evening before.
But by nine o'clock the storm was over, and
we had, for a time, a calm, quiet journey, a
gray light which harmonized well with the
wildly picturesque scenery, and a fresh west
breeze which helped us on our way. We
were now but twenty miles from the mouth.
The parallel ranges of bluff come nearer
together, until they are not much over a mile
apart, and the stream, now broader, swifter,
and deeper, is less encumbered with islands.
Upon the peaty banks are the tall white spikes
of the curious turtlehead, occasional masses
of balsam-apple vines, the gleaming lobelia
cardinalis, yellow honeysuckles just going out
of blossom, and acres of the golden sneeze-
weed, which deserves a better name.
At Wright's Ferry, ten miles below, there
are domiciled two German families, and on the
shore is a saw-mill which is operated in the
spring, to work up the logs which farmers
bring down from the gloomy mountains which
back the scene.
Bridgeport, four miles farther, — still on the
19

290 Down Historic Waterways.
northern side, — is chiefly a clump of little
red railway buildings set up on a high bench
carved from the face of the bluff, their fronts
resting on the road-bed and their rears on
high scaffolding. A few big bowlders rolling
down from the cliffs would topple Bridgeport
over into the river. There is a covered coun
try toll-bridge here, and the industrial interest
of the Liliputian community is quarrying. It
is the last hamlet on the river.
A mist again formed, casting a blue tinge
over the peaks and giving them a far distant
aspect ; dark clouds now and then lowered
and rolled through the upper ravines, reflect
ing their inky hue upon the surface of the
deep, gliding river. The bluffs, which had
for many miles closely abutted the stream, at
last gradually swept away to the north and
south, to become part of the great wall which
forms the eastern bulwark of the Upper Mis
sissippi. At their base spreads a broad, flat
plain, fringed with boggy woods and sandy
meadows, the delta of the Wisconsin, which,
below the Lowertown bridge of the Burling
ton and Northern railway, is cut up into flood-
washed willow islands, flanked by a wide
stretch of shifting sand-bars black with
tangled roots and stranded logs, the debris of
many a spring-time freshet.

Junction of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers

The Discovery of the Mississippi. 291
It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we
came to the junction of the Wisconsin and the
Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef
edging the swamp, which extends northward
for five miles to the quaint, ancient little city
of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies stranded.
A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail,
which overhangs the rushing waters as they
here commingle. We landed with something
akin to reverence, for this must have been
about the place where Joliet and Marquette,
two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed
with rapture upon the mighty Mississippi,
which they had at last discovered, after a
thousand miles of amphibious journeying
through a savage-haunted wilderness. And
indeed it is an imposing sight. To the west,
two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on
the Iowa side of the great river. Northward
there are pretty glimpses of cliffs and rocky
beaches through openings in the heavy growth
which covers the islands of the upper stream.
Southward is a long vista of curving hills and
glinting water shut in by the converging
ranges. Eastward stretches the green delta
of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing
bluffs, between whose bases for two centu
ries has flowed a curious throng of human
ity, savage and civilized, on errands sacred

292 Down Historic Waterways.
and profane, representing many clashing na
tionalities. The rain descended in a gentle shower as I
was lighting a fire on which to cook our last
canoeing meal of the season ; and W 
held an umbrella over the already damp kind
ling in order to give it a chance. We no doubt
made a comical picture as we crouched to
gether beneath this shelter, jointly trying to
fan the sparks into a flame, for the fisherman,
who had been heretofore speechless, and ap
parently rapt in his occupation, burst out into
a hearty laugh. When we turned to look at
him he hid his face under his upturned coat-
collar, and giggled to himself like a school
girl. He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and
after we had presented him with a cup of
coffee and what solids we could spare from
our now meager store, he warmed into a very
communicative mood, and gave us much de
tailed, though rather highly colored, informa
tion about the locality, especially as to its
natural features.
The rain had ceased by the time dinner was
over ; so we bade farewell to the happy fisher
man and the presiding deities of the Wiscon
sin, and pulled up the giant Mississippi to
Prairie du Chien, stopping on our way to visit
an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous,

The Discovery of the Mississippi. 293
where flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum,
— America's nearest approach to the lotus of
the Nile.
And thus was accomplished the season's
stint of six hundred miles of canoeing upon
the Historic Waterways of Illinois and
Wisconsin.

TABLE OF DISTANCES.
TOTAL, 607 MILES.
THE ROCK RIVER.
MILES.
Madison to Stoughton  22
Stoughton to Janesville  40
Janesville to Beloit  ... 18
Beloit to Rockford  40
Rockford to Byron . . . .... 18
Byron to Oregon ....  1 5
Oregon to Dixon  31
Dixon to Sterling  20
Sterling to Como  9
Como to Lyndon  14
Lyndon to Prophetstown  5
Prophetstown to Erie Ferry  10
Erie Ferry to Coloma  25
Coloma to mouth of river  14
Mouth of river to Rock Island (up Mississippi
River)   6
Total  287
THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY). MILES.
Portage to Packwaukee  25
Packwaukee to Montello  7
Montello to Marquette  1 1

296 Table of Distances.
MILES.
Marquette to Princeton  18
Princeton to Berlin  20
Berlin to Omro  18
Omro to Oshkosh  22
Oshkosh to Neenah  20
Neenah to Appleton  7
Appleton to Kaukauna  7
Kaukauna to Green Bay  _20
Total  175
THE WISCONSIN RIVER. MILES.
Portage to Merrimac  20
Merrimac to Prairie du Sac  10
Prairie du Sac to Arena Ferry  15
Arena Ferry to Helena  8
Helena to Lone Rock Bridge  14
Lone Rock Bridge to Muscoda  18
Muscoda to Port Andrew  9
Port Andrew to Boscobel  10
Boscobel to Boydtown  10
Boydtown to Wauzeka (on Kickapoo) .... 7
Wauzeka to Wright's Ferry  10
Wright's Ferry to Bridgeport  4
Bridgeport to mouth of river  7
Mouth of river to Prairie du Chien (up Missis
sippi River)  5
Total  145

Note. — The above table of distances by water is based
upon the most reliable local estimates, verified, so far as
practicable, by official surveys.

INDEX.

Algoma, 182, 186.
Allouez, Father Claude, 176, 228,
229.
American Fur Co., 145.
Anderson, Maj. Robert, U.S.A., 19.
Antoinette, Marie, Queen of
France, 224.
Appleton, Wis., 23, 27, 185, 202-
207, 209.
Arena Ferry, Wis., 27, 257, 262.
Arndt, Judge John P., 158.
Astor, John Jacob, 145, 232.
Atkinson, Gen. Henry, U. S. A.,
i9» 255- _
Avoca, Wis., 270.
Bad Axe, battle of, 255, 266.
Baraboo River, 241.
Barth, Laurent, 143.
Beloit, Wis., 20, 26, 65.
Berlin, Wis., 21, 22, 27, 164, 173-
i75» J77) 240.
Black Hawk War, 18, rg, 87, 119,
250, 253-255, 266.
Black Hawk Mountain, 256,
Black River Falls, Wis., 200.
Black Wolf Point, Lake Winne
bago, 191.
Blue Mound, Wis., 266.
Blue River Village, Wis., 276.
Boscobel, Wis., 27, 280, 281.
"Bourbon, The American." See
Williams, Eleazar.

Boydtown, Wis., 27, 281, 282.
Bridgeport, Wis., 27, 289, 290.
Buffalo Lake, 22, 160-162, 168,
173-
Butte des Morts, Lake Grand, 161,
181-183, 199.
Butte des Morts, Lake Petit, 199,
201, 202.
Butte des Morts Village, 183-185,
188.
Butterfield, Consul W., cttedj 176.
Byron, 111., 19, 26, 82-85.
Canoeing, pleasures of, 15, 16.
Canoeists, suggestions to, 23-26.
Canoes, styles of, 15, 16.
Carbon Cliff, 111., 138, 139.
Catfish River, Wis., 18, 31-59.
Champche Keriwinke, Winnebago
princess, 200, 201.
Champlain, Governor of Quebec,
175, 230.
Cherry River, 80.
Chicago, Burlington, and Northern
Ry., 290.
Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy
Ry-, 137-139.
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul
Ry., 76, 82, 178, 186, 256, 259-
265, 269, 283, 285.
Chicago and Northwestern Ry.,
65, 248-250.
Cleveland, 111., 137.

298

Index*

Coloma, 111., 26, 138-140.
Como, 111., 26, 109-111.
Crooks, Ramsay, 232.
Dablon, Father Claude, 229.
Dakotah Indians. See Sioux and
Winnebagoes.
Davis, Jefferson, 19, 145, 146.
Dekorra, Wis., 242-245.
De Korra, early fur trader, 199, 200.
Depere, Wis., 206, 225, 228, 229.
Dixon, 111., 18, 20, 26, 87, 93, 94,
97-101, 106-108.
Dodge, Maj. Henry, 253, 255.
Doty's Island, Wis., 195-201.
Dunkirk, Wis., 52, 53.
Erie, 111,, 26, 124-136.
Eureka, Wis., 178.
First Lake, 40, 43-45.
Fond du Lac, Wis., .191.
Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien,
Wis.), 145.
Fort Howard, Wis., 145, 228-234.
Fort Winnebago (Portage, Wis.),
144-146.
FourLake country ,Wis., 18, 33, 254.
Four Legs, Winnebago chief, 200,
201.
Fox Indians (see, also, Sacs), 176,
196-199.
Fox River, Wis., 17, 21-23, 2&*
141-234, 239, 240, 255.
Fulton, Wis., 56-58.
Fur trade in Wisconsin, 189, 196-
200, 207, 208, 231, 234.
Ganymede Springs, 111., 89, 90.
Garlic Island, Lake Winnebago,
189-191.
Garritty, Mary, 226-228.
Grand Detour, 111., 92-106.
Great Bend of Rock River, 105-
106.
Green Bay, Wis., 23, 27, 180, 181,
185, 198, 207, 229-234, 238.
Grignon, Augustin, 184, 185, 188,
232.

Hanson, John H., cited, 224, 225.
Harney, Gen. William S., U. S.
A., 145-
Helena Village, Wis., 27, 259-265.
Helena, Wis., Old, 265, 266.
Henry, Maj. James D., 253, 255.
Hoo-Tschope. See Four Legs.
Illinois Indians, 21, 176.
lowatuk, Winnebago princess, 189,
191.
Janesville, Wis., 20, 26, 60-65.
Jesuit missionaries, 21, 24, 176,
177, 180, 181, 228, 229, 231.
Joliet, Sieur de, 21, 176, 229,
239.
KACKALiN.Grand. See Kaukauna.
Kaukauna, Wis., 27, 185, 206-213.
Kellogg's trail, 106, 107.
Keokuk, Fox chief, 255.
Kickapoo Indians, 175.
Kickapoo River, Wis., 27, 284,
285, 287, 288.
Kinzie, Mrs. John H., cited, 146,
200.
Koshkonong, Lake, 18, 19, 59,
254-
Lakeside, Third Lake, 32.
Langlade, Charles de, 198, 232.
Latham Station, 111., 76, 77.
Lawrence University, 205, 206.
Lead mines at Galena, 18.
Lecuyer, Jean B., 143, 144.
Lignery, Sieur Marchand de, 198.
Lincoln, Abraham, zg.
Little Kaukauna, Wis., 206, 216-
2ig, 221, 225.
Lone Rock, Wis., 27, 262, 267-270.
Louis XVI., King of France, 223-
225-
Louis XVII., Dauphin of France,
223-225.
Louvigny, Sieur de, ig8.
Lyndon, 111., 26, 118.
Madison, Wis., 18, 26.

Index.

299

Manhattan, Wis., 281.
Marin, Sieur de, 197, rg8.
Marquette, Father James* 21, 157,
176, 229, 239.
Marquette Village, Wis., 26, 161,
166-170.
Mascoutin Indians, 175-178.
Mazomanie, Wis., 256.
Menasha, Wis., 23, 183, 185, 195,
196, 207.
Menomonee Indians, 187, 188, 196,
197, 223.
Merrimac, Wis., 27, 248-250.
Miami Indians, 175.
Milan, 111., 139.
Milwaukee and Northern Ry-,
203, 204.
Mississippi River, 21, 26, 27, 136,
138, 180, 229-231, 239, 253-255,
290-293.
Mohawk Indians, 222.
Montello, Wis., 22, 26, 160, 162-
164, 168.
Muscoda, Wis., 23, 27, 270, 272-
274.
Neenah, Wis., 22, 27, 183, 185,
191, 195-201, 206.
New York Indians. See Oneidas.
Nicolet, Jean, 21, 175, 176, 230,
231.
Northern Insane Hospital, Wis.,
189-191.
Omro, Wis., 22, 27, 175, 178, 179.
Oneida Indians, 222-228.
Oregon, 111., 20, 26, 88-90.
Orion, Wis., 272.
Oshkosh, Menomonee chief, 187,
188.
Oshkosh, Wis., 27, 161, 182, 183,
185-188, 190, 207.
Ott's Farm, Madison, Wis., 33.
Owen, 111. See Latham Station.
Packwaukee, Wis., 26, 150, 159-
161, 163.
Paine Bros., 1S6.
Paquette, Pierre, 144-

Penney, Josephine, 226-228.
Philippe, Louis, King of France,
225.
Pope's Springe, Wis., 60.
Porlier, James, 184, 185.
Porlier, Louis B., 184, 185.
Portage, Wis., 21, 23, 26, 27, 143-
146, 160, 161, 185, 198, 206, 237-
242.
Port Andrew, Wis., 27, 275-279.
Pottawattomie Indians, .18, 19, 87.
Poygan Lake, 22, 180, 181.
Prairie du Chien, Wis., 21, 27, 145,
238, 240, 255, 291-293.
Prairie du Sac, Wis., 23, 27, 252-
256, 266.
Princeton, Wis., 22, 27, 168-172,
210.
Prophetstown, 111., 18, 26, 1 18-120.
Puckawa Lake, 22, 161, 163-169.
Red Bird, Winnebago chief, 145.
Richland Center, Wis., 269.
Richland City, Wis., 269.
Rockford, 111., 20, 26, 79.
Rock Island, 111., iS, 26, 139, 140,
253-
Rock River, 17-21, 29-140, 213,
253-
Rockton, 111., 20.
Roscoe, 111., 74, 76.
Sac Indians, 18, 19, 119, 198,
253-256.
Sacramento, Wis., 177, 178.
Sauk City, Wis., 23, 256, 257.
Sawyer, Philetus, 186.
Second Lake, &, 36-39, 43.
Shaubena, Pottawattomie chief, 18.
Sioux Indians, 230, 231, 255.
Smith's Island, Wis., 149-156.
Spring Green, Wis., 261.
Stebbinsville, Wis., 53, 54.
Sterling, 111., 20, 26, 108, 109.
Stillman's Creek, 19, 83, 86, 87.
Stillman's defeat, 19, 87.
Stoughton, Wis., 20, 26, 42, 44,
46-50, 52.
Stuart, Robert, 232.

3Qo

Index.

Taylor, Zachary, 19.
Third Lake, 31, 33.
Turvill's Bay, Third Lake, 32, 33.
Twiggs, Maj. David, 232.
Walking Cloud, a Winnebago,
200.
Wauzeka, Wis., 27, 285-288.
White Cloud, Indian prophet, 18,
119.
White River lock, 172, 173.
Williams, Eleazar, 222-228.
Williams, Mrs. Eleazar, 225, 226.
Winnebago Indians, 19, 119, 145,
166, 189, 196, 197, 199-201, 223,
230, 231, 238,254, 255.
Winnebago Lake, 22, 180, 183,
189-196, 206.

Winnebago prophet. See White
Cloud.
Winnebago Rapids, ig6-2oi.
Winneconne, 22, 164, 179-182.
Wisconsin Central Ry., 144, 160.
Wisconsin Heights, battle of, 254,
266.
Wisconsin River, 17, 21-23, 27,
143-146, 230, 231, 237-293.
Wisconsin River Dells, 23.
Wolf River, i7g-i83, 185.
Woodman, Wis., 283.
Wright's Ferry, Wis., 27, 289.
Wrightstown, Wis., 213, 214, 220.
Yahara River. See Catfish.

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