The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Volume 1, 1917-1918

by Various

THE QUESTION BOX

The Wisconsin Historical Library has long maintained a bureau of historical information for the benefit of those who care to avail themselves of the service it offers. In “The Question Box” will be printed from time to time such queries, with the answers made to them, as possess sufficient general interest to render their publication worth while.

THE FIRST SETTLER OF BARABOO

I am not able to fix the exact date when Abraham Wood came to Baraboo. What is the opinion of the staff as to the time? He was supposed to be the first permanent settler. A line will be appreciated.

H. E. Cole,
Baraboo, Wisconsin.

We appreciate your difficulty in determining the time of the advent of Abraham Wood on your river, because of the conflict in the authorities. So far as we can determine, the account in the Wisconsin Historical Atlas seems to be the most authoritative. The sketches in this volume were carefully written, and were obtained from survivors then alive. According to that statement the first man who attempted settlement at the Baraboo Rapids in 1837 was Archibald Barker, who then lived at Portage. He was driven off by the Indians. Meanwhile the treaty at Washington had been negotiated, and there seemed more hope that a settlement might be made. In the spring or early summer of 1839 a man named James Alban discovered Devil’s Lake, and he went back to Portage and told Eben Peck, first settler at Madison. Peck had just sold out at the latter place to Robert Ream, and he and Alban set out up the Baraboo and marked out a site at the Rapids, including the water power. As Peck was going back (after a stay of some weeks), apparently he met Wallace Rowan and Abraham Wood, whom he had known well at Madison, coming up from Portage. They staked out their claim at Lyons, where Wood spent the winter.

In the meanwhile James Van Slyke came up from Walworth County in the fall of 1839 and determined to jump Peck’s claim. Van Slyke had had his claim at Lake Geneva jumped by other parties, and was in a bitter and retaliatory frame of mind. After staking out his claim to the rapids of the Baraboo he went back to Walworth and interested James Maxwell in a plan for a mill and persuaded him to furnish the irons and equipment. Van Slyke went up in the spring of 1840 and built a dam which was carried out by the freshet of June. Meanwhile, Peck had brought his claim before the court at Madison and obtained judgment against Van Slyke. The latter had already abandoned the enterprise. Van Slyke sold his irons to Wood and Rowan, who during the summer started a sawmill at the upper rapids.

There seems to be every evidence that the source of this account was the Peck family, who were in a position to know the facts. If this account is true, we suppose Wood might be called the first settler, since he remained in the vicinity during the winter of 1839-40; but no doubt he lived as the Indians did, if not with them, since his wife was a squaw. He was thus not much more of a first settler than Barker, Alban, Rowan, Peck, or Van Slyke.

To return to Wood. We are unable to discover when or how he came to Wisconsin. He was probably a free trapper or trader, one of the rough frontiersmen of Scotch descent from the backwoods of Canada. In the course of trade he came in contact with the Decorah chiefs and took to wife one of the daughters of the tribe. He had probably been on the Baraboo often before 1839, since his squaw’s native village was near its mouth, and there her father died in 1836. Wood was not then at the Baraboo, since he was wintering near Madison. He was not at this site in 1832, so sometime between that date and 1836 he set up his wigwam at Squaw Point on Third Lake opposite the modern city of Madison.

His neighbor at this place was Wallace Rowan, a rough, good-hearted frontiersman from Indiana with a white wife. There is a good account of Rowan in History of Dane County (Chicago, 1880), 382-83. Rowan seems to have permitted Wood to place his wigwam, or whatever kind of dwelling he had, on his claim, which he entered with William B. Long in 1835.

Wood was on Third Lake during the winter of 1836-37, and during the summer of 1837 he aided in building Madison, being employed as a mechanic on Peck’s log house. It seems probable that Wood spent the winter of 1837-38 at the same place, as there is no record of him at Portage before the spring of 1838. Probably he moved away from Squaw Point because Rowan that spring sold his claim and improvements to William B. Slaughter. Rowan moved to Poynette and opened his noted tavern. Wood went to Portage, where, no doubt, he had often been before with the relatives of his squaw.

In 1838 work was begun on the Portage canal, and Wood opened a house of liquid refreshment just below Carpenter’s on the Wisconsin River. There, probably in the spring of 1839, Wood killed Pawnee Blanc, a noted Winnebago chief. Wood’s brother-in-law, John T. La Ronde, tells the sordid story in Wisconsin Historical Collections, VII, 360. He does not give the date of the murder; Moses Paquette says (idem, XII, 431) that it was in 1837. Paquette probably remembered that it was after his father’s death in 1836; but it could hardly have been in 1837 since Wood was then at Madison. Our inference is that the death of Pawnee Blanc occurred in 1838 or 1839. Wood was probably anxious to leave Portage at this time; moreover in 1839 Winfield Scott went to Portage and held a council with the Winnebago concerning their removal from Wisconsin. Wood knew the Baraboo Valley would soon be open for settlement. He persuaded his old friend, Rowan, to go prospecting with him. But on their way out they found Peck and Alban had been there before them. Wood, not wanting to go back to Portage, spent the winter in the Baraboo woods; and the next autumn (1840) with Wallace Rowan began a sawmill, as La Ronde states (Wis. Hist. Colls., VII, 360).

The foregoing hypothesis appears to reconcile all the accounts except Moses Paquette’s date of the killing of Pawnee Blanc. The record of Wood’s trial may sometime come to light. Possibly it may be preserved in the records of the court of Brown County, still kept at the courthouse at Green Bay.

THE CHIPPEWA RIVER DURING THE FRENCH AND BRITISH RÉGIMES

Within a short time we expect to issue a special edition of our local paper that will cover the development of the Chippewa Valley. It struck me that possibly you could furnish me considerable data covering the early history of this section of the valley.

Al J. Hartley,
Cornell, Wisconsin.

Probably the first white person to pass the mouth of the Chippewa was Father Louis Hennepin, who ascended the Mississippi in 1630. He describes the Chippewa under the name of Rivière des Boeufs (Buffalo). It is probable that in his time the Beef Slough was part of the Chippewa channel, and the present Buffalo River an affluent of the Chippewa proper. In 1682 La Salle wrote a description of the rivers of Wisconsin in a letter, the translation of which is found in volume sixteen of the Collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society. He says “About thirty leagues, ascending always in the same direction [above Black River], one comes to the Rivière des Boeufs which is as wide at its mouth as that of the Islinois. It is called by that name owing to the great number of those animals found there; it is followed from ten to twelve leagues, the water being smooth and without rapids, bordered by mountains which widen out from time to time, forming meadows. There are several islands at its mouth, which is bordered by woods on both sides.” La Salle’s description was without doubt taken from the account of Hennepin.

The next visitor to this region was Duluth, who in 1680 rescued Father Hennepin from his captors, the Sioux Indians, and brought him down the Mississippi and by the Wisconsin-Fox route to Green Bay. Duluth has not left any description of the Chippewa.

In 1685 Nicolas Perrot was governor of all of this region. In the Proceedings of this Society for 1915 you will find an account of Perrot’s experiences and of the Fort Antoine that he built at the mouth of the Chippewa. Perrot called the stream River of the Sauteurs, which was the French name for the Chippewa tribe, whom they first met at the Sault, hence Saulteurs or Sauters. Perrot seems to have been the first person to use the name Sauteur or Chippewa for the river. It so appears on a very remarkable map drawn in 1688,

and now in Paris. A facsimile of this is in the Wisconsin Historical Library, at Madison, and a photograph appears in L. P. Kellogg’s, Early Narratives of the Northwest (New York, 1917), 342. At Fort St. Antoine, Perrot in 1689 held a great ceremony, taking possession of all the Sioux country for the King of France. A translation of this document is found in volume eleven of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, 35-36.

The name of the river indicates that the Chippewa was the home of some portion of the Chippewa tribe. In the early eighteenth century this valley became the battle ground of the great feud between the Sioux and Chippewa Indians, which lasted nearly one hundred and fifty years. Much interesting material on this subject may be found in Minnesota Historical Collections, volume five, which is a history of the Chippewa tribe by a half-breed, W. W. Warren.

In the year 1766, three years after the French had ceded all this territory to the British crown, the noted explorer, Jonathan Carver, ascended the Mississippi and attempted to bring about a peace between the warring Sioux and Chippewa. The next year he returned from Mackinac, and with a stock of goods ascended the Chippewa River, at whose headwaters he found a Chippewa village of one hundred fine stout warriors. Their customs, however, were very filthy. This is, so far as we know, the first recorded voyage through the Chippewa valley. No doubt, however, many fur traders had preceded Carver, for he speaks of engaging a pilot to accompany him.

In the last years of the French régime there was reported a copper mine on this river, which was then called for a time “Bon Secours” or Good Help River. Carver calls it the Chippewa River. About six years after Carver’s visit a British trader named Hugh Boyle was killed at this river. See Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVIII, 312-13. According to the court of inquiry ordered by the British officials, the affair was his own fault.

The British traders continued to trade on this river, notwithstanding the danger caused by the fierce intertribal wars. In 1805 the United States government sent Zebulon M. Pike, a young army lieutenant, to ascend the Mississippi and warn British traders that this was then American territory. It became so by the treaty of 1783, but the British kept the forts on the Great Lakes until 1796,

and all had continued to act until Pike’s visit as if the upper Mississippi region belonged to the British. Pike found that the traders avoided the Chippewa River because of the danger of falling in with war parties of contesting Indians. He passed the river’s mouth about dusk.

In 1820 an American expedition headed by Lewis Cass descended the Mississippi, and from that time on there were numerous boats going up and down. The first steamboat ascended to the Falls of St. Anthony in 1823. Some very early logging expeditions in 1822 and 1829 are described in the Wisconsin Historical Collections, II, 132-41, and V, 244-54.

The earliest permanent settlers were the Cadottes. See Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 171, and Minnesota Historical Collections, volume five.

THE CAREER OF COLONEL G. W. MANYPENNY

Can you give me any reference to any publication or record in your library relating to G. W. Manypenny, who was Indian commissioner in 1855 and in that year made a treaty with the Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin?

E. S. Gaylord,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Colonel George W. Manypenny, who was Indian commissioner in President Pierce’s administration, was not a Wisconsin man. He was born in Pennsylvania, and appointed from Ohio. His home was in Columbus, Ohio, and as early as 1835 he was editor of a prominent Democratic paper at that place. His appointment was no doubt a reward for journalistic services during the campaign; but he seems to have taken his duties seriously and to have undertaken the rôle of a defender of the red men against the extortions of unscrupulous speculators. In doing this he incurred the enmity of a powerful political clique among whom was Senator Benton.

Manypenny went west in August, 1853, and made the series of treaties that opened up the territories of Kansas and Nebraska for settlement. It is claimed that he acted in the interests of the South with regard to the Pacific railroad. See Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings, 1912, 80. In 1855 Manypenny made the treaty

with the Mississippi bands of Chippewa at Washington, whither their chiefs had been conducted by Henry M. Rice.

Manypenny retired from office in March, 1857, and returned to Columbus where, in 1859, he purchased a half interest in the Ohio Statesman and was its editor for three years. In 1862 he retired to become manager of the state public works, of which he was one of the lessees. His interest in the Indians continued, and in 1876 he was appointed a chairman of the commission to investigate the troubles that had led to the Sioux outbreak of that year. In 1880 he published a book entitled Our Indian Wards (Cincinnati, Robert Clark & Co.), which is a plea for more fairness in the management of Indian affairs, and a recital of many of their wrongs.

The date of his death we have not ascertained, nor whether he left descendants. An inquiry of E. W. Randall, secretary of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, at Columbus, would doubtless put you in possession of these facts.

TREATY HALL AND OLD LA POINTE

Will you kindly advise me what “Treaty Hall,” La Pointe, Madeline Island, stands for historically? When and by whom was it built? Some say it was erected in 1836 and others say 1857 or 1858. The treaties were signed before the latter date, so why call it “Treaty Hall”? Any information you can give on the subject will be greatly appreciated.

Mrs. Frank H. Jerrard,
Representative St. Paul Chapter, D. A. R.,
St. Paul, Minnesota.

The information we have obtained concerning the building on Madeline Island now called “Treaty Hall” does not give conclusive proof of the origin of the building. One fact seems clear—the name “Treaty Hall” was not applied to it until the eighties of the last century, and the building was not put up to accommodate the negotiating of a treaty. Whether a treaty was negotiated in this building or not is another question. As a rule Indian treaty proceedings were held in the open air; if any covering was desired, a kind of shade was built of boughs, or a circle was temporarily enclosed with poles, boughs, and mats. Nevertheless it is not improbable that in

the northern region of Madeline Island, with the cold winds from the lake blowing in, a treaty might have been held under shelter, and that some appropriate building might have been thus used.

There were only two treaties held on Madeline Island, that of 1842 and that of 1854. The former was concluded October 4, 1842, and the commissioner was Robert Stuart, who had been for many years the representative of the American Fur Company at Mackinac. He was at the time of this treaty Indian superintendent at Detroit. The inference is strong that Stuart was on terms of friendship, even intimacy, with the American Fur Company’s agents at La Pointe. These were at the time of the treaty of 1842 Charles H. Oakes and Dr. Charles W. Borup, both of whom were present at the treaty. Moreover, Rev. Alfred Brunson of Prairie du Chien, a prominent Methodist missionary in early-day Wisconsin, was appointed Indian agent at La Pointe in the autumn of 1842. He reached his post of duty very late in the year and says both in his printed reminiscences and in unpublished manuscripts in our Society’s possession that there were no agency buildings, but that Dr. Borup had a large storehouse prepared for a council.

With regard to the Treaty of 1854, it was signed September 30 of that year. The commissioners were Henry C. Gilbert and Daniel B. Herriman. Among the witnesses was L. H. Wheeler, whose sons are among our correspondents. H. M. Rice was likewise present. We believe the Minnesota Historical Society is in possession of the latter’s papers. If so, something might be gleaned from them.