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 OLDEST CHURCH IN WISCONSIN
You will recall the little church in Ephraim where you gave us your historical address a few years ago. This church was built in 1857, dedicated in 1859, and has been in continuous use ever since.
I have wondered if there is any older church still in use in Wisconsin. I have gone through the records of two-thirds of the counties of the state and, while I have found that many churches were erected prior to this, these have all been superseded by later structures. I wonder if your staff can give me any assistance in ascertaining the existence of any older house of worship?
H. R. Holand,
Ephraim, Wisconsin.
One of the oldest church buildings in Wisconsin is undoubtedly that known as The Old Mission on Madelaine Island. This was built in 1839 and dedicated in 1840 for the American Board of Home Missions, now part of the Presbyterian denomination. This building is now used for worship at least during the summer season, but has not been so employed consecutively, as it was closed in the fifties and not reopened until 1892. In 1901 is was removed to its present location, and restored and redecorated in 1915.
The oldest frame church in Wisconsin was built in 1839 at Kellogg’s Corners, now Sylvania, in Racine County, for the use of the Methodist denomination. So far as we can ascertain, the old church is still standing, but whether or not it is now used for service we are not informed.
There is a country church near Waterford in Racine County which was built in 1846 and is still in excellent condition and in active use. Only last year it was thoroughly renovated at a cost of some $3,500—several times as much as the original cost of the building. This church stands in what is known as the English Settlement by reason of the fact that the community was largely settled by immigrants from England in the early forties. The church is unique both in its organization and in its history.
It is evident, therefore, that while your church at Ephraim may be among the older structures of the state still used for religious services, it cannot claim the honor of priority in this respect.
THE FIRST MILLS IN THE FOX RIVER VALLEY
I am preparing recollections of early days in the Fox River Valley and will be pleased to supply you with results of my efforts in this direction. I am somewhat confused on some of the items, especially the establishment of the first saw and grist mill on the south or east side (my old home), of the river and across from Kaukauna. My friend, Mr. John D. Lawe, son of the late George W. Lawe, writes me that James M. Boyd and Paul Hudon dit Beaulieu, my grandfather, “built a saw mill along the rapid,” etc. The date given by Mr. Lawe for the building of the saw mill is 1832. A few years later my father, Bazil H. Beaulieu, came in possession of both mills. I was told when I was a boy that the mills were originally built by the federal government for the use and purposes of the Menominee, as also of the Brothertown Indians, the latter being now scattered on farms on the east shore of Lake Winnebago, across from Oshkosh. Furthermore, I was told that the said mills were the second of the kind built in Wisconsin, then the territory of Michigan. Have you any facts or data at hand which might serve to verify or throw more light on the subject?
T. H. Beaulieu,
White Earth, Minnesota.
With regard to the Fox River Valley mills, the earliest, both saw and grist, were built by Jacob Franks on Devil’s River some time shortly after 1800. They afterwards came into the possession of John Lawe, and were operated by him for many years. Pierre A. Grignon built a grist mill on Reaume or Glaize Creek in 1810. This was used to provide food for the war parties of Robert Dickson in
the War of 1812. The miller was Grignon’s brother-in-law, Dominique Brunette usually called Masca.
Augustin Grignon built a grist mill at Kaukauna on the north side of the stream, about 1818. Two years later the United States government had a sawmill erected at Little Rapids to prepare material for Fort Howard and its outlying buildings.
In 1821-22 the Menominee, who had a village at South Kaukauna, sold a large tract to the New York Indians. In the latter year the Stockbridge began to move to their tract, which began just above the Menominee village. The government had built for the Stockbridge Indians a sawmill, which was finished some time before 1830. At that date a grist mill was proposed by the Stockbridge. Probably that was when your father took over the mills and repaired them, and perhaps enlarged them. The Brothertown Indians were settled with the Stockbridge, and removed with them to the east side of Lake Winnebago. The Menominee Indians had mills built for them by the government, but that was after the Treaty of 1846, and they were built much higher up the river, at or near Menasha.
COLONEL ELLSWORTH’S MADISON CAREER
I am collecting materials for a life of Col. E. E. Ellsworth and would ask if you have in your library anything concerning his drilling of the Governor’s Guard in your city in the space between 1858 and 1860. I understand that his stay was not very long, a few weeks probably, but I cannot state definitely the year. It would be a great help to me if you would look up this matter, and if you could send me full information and copies of important phases relating in any manner to his sojourn in your town, I would be greatly obliged. I am in this work simply to resurrect and save from oblivion the history of a great and martyred name of our country, one which has been strangely neglected. The more I study into his life and collect the materials from scattered and almost forgotten sources, the more I am convinced that he was a young man of remarkable genius, worthy of perpetuation in the annals of the nation.
From the success that has so far rewarded my search, I am encouraged to believe that ere long I will be in possession of everything of real importance that belonged to his career. I was well acquainted with his father and my home is within easy reach of his birthplace.
and of Mechanicsville, New York, where he was buried and where a fine monument stands to his memory.
C. A. Ingraham,
Cambridge, New York.
We find in our collections a few memorials of E. E. Ellsworth that we think would interest you. In an old book of autographs there is a tiny photograph that has been identified as that of Ellsworth. It is only about an inch long and yet it is perfectly clear and well-defined; the uniform shows to great advantage, and there are three medals on the breast of the coat. Among the other relics is a drawing about sixteen inches by twelve, the head of a fine-looking man with lifted eyes. This is signed “Ellsworth” and “EEE.” It was presented to the Society by N. B. Van Slyke, who gave the information that it was a “Sketch drawn by Col. E. E. Ellsworth in 1858 at Madison, Wisconsin, and presented to N. B. Van Slyke while the young man was at Madison.” Pasted upon this drawing are several newspaper slips giving Ellsworth’s biography, the last letter which he wrote to his parents from Washington, May 23, 1861, accounts of his death and funeral, and a poem in his honor.
Upon consulting the Madison newspapers for 1858 we secured the following items: The Governor’s Guard was organized February 18, 1858, with Julius P. Atwood as captain. April 20, the Guard appeared upon the street for the first time trained by Lieutenant C. W. Harris. The Guard was very prominent socially, and gave many balls and soirées. It took part in public celebrations on the Fourth of July, at the university commencement, and at the state fair. June 25, the Guard first appeared in uniform. No mention appears of Ellsworth until Oct. 15, 1858, when a Cadet Corps formed. Twenty-five Madison boys met at the Governor’s Guard Armory, and Maj. E. E. Ellsworth, who was unanimously elected commandant, immediately put the cadets to drill. October 18, the Governor’s Guard was summoned to drill three evenings in the week, no spectators allowed. October 20 the papers contain notices of the drilling of the cadets by their commandant, Maj. E. E. Ellsworth, who “Is an accomplished and thorough drill master.” Another paper says the cadets “are ambitious to become the best drilled company in the State and their aptness has called forth a high compliment from Major Ellsworth.”
An exhaustive search does not reveal his name again. On December 26, 1858, the Governor’s Guard “were out in full uniform for the first time since the State Fair and to us appear much improved in a military point.”
We have not been able to determine what brought Ellsworth to Madison. W. J. Ellsworth lived in the city at the time. Possibly they were kinsmen.
One other relic of Ellsworth’s activities among us is in the Keyes Papers. In 1910, Col. Elisha W. Keyes wrote an article for the Madison Democrat on the organization of the Governor’s Guard. In it he says “Soon after the organization of the guard he [Ellsworth] appeared in Madison and spent much time, without Compensation, in drilling the men. He was then a young man, not much over 30 years of age. He had been an apt student of military science and discipline. His heart and soul were in the work. His enthusiasm was boundless, although at the time of his work here no one hardly dreamed that the rebellion was possible. Before he left he contemplated the full organization of the eighteenth regiment State militia [of which Keyes was then Colonel]. I have in my possession now a roll of maps and instructions for regimental drill, which involved much labor, that he prepared for me, as colonel, without reward.” These drafts came to the Society with Judge Keyes’s other papers. They are large map-like drafts, colored, of the positions of the regiment, and fully written out directions in Ellsworth’s own hand for the various orders for military positions and movements.
Probably you know that Ellsworth’s diary was given to Frank Brownell, his avenger. We have two pamphlets giving liberal excerpts from the diary, but we find therein no mention of Madison. Probably the full text of this diary would show when and why he came to Madison.
Your letter of the nineteenth instant concerning Ellsworth is before me and I wish to thank you earnestly for the time and care which you have devoted to this subject; it illuminates a portion of his career with which I was entirely unacquainted and which to have searched out myself would have involved much expense and inconvenience. Your communication will be excellent to appear verbatim in the book.
I am unable to say as to the identity of W. J. Ellsworth, but I have written to an uncle of Colonel Ellsworth who may be able to shed light on the matter. Colonel Keyes, when he estimated Ellsworth’s age as “not over 30 years” when he was in Madison, was evidently deceived by his remarkable degree of development, which was in advance of his age: at that time he was but twenty-one, having been born April 11, 1837.
Ellsworth’s diary I have not yet unearthed. John Hay’s article published in McClure’s Magazine, VI, 354, has many citations from it, but nothing concerning Madison. Mr. Hay also contributed to the Atlantic, very soon after Ellsworth’s death, a fine article on him (VIII, 119), and the two comprise the best literature so far published on Ellsworth. These two young men were students in Lincoln’s law office, and Mr. Hay all his life down to his last years mourned for him, whom he estimated as a most wonderfully brilliant and patriotically devoted man whose future would have been exceedingly prominent and useful. My own investigations lead me to the same conclusion. Yet he had very few early advantages; practically none, except a limited district school education. His parents, whom I knew, were plain people, and others of the relations whom I have met or corresponded with exhibit nothing out of the common.
C. A. Ingraham,
Cambridge, New York.
THE STORY OF “GLORY OF THE MORNING”
We are about to give the play Glory of the Morning. I am under the impression that there was such a character in Wisconsin as “Glory of the Morning,” and that she was married to a Frenchman, and deserted by him, as in the play.
Can you give me any information concerning her?
(Mrs.) F. H. Anderson,
Brooklyn, Wisconsin.
“Glory of the Morning” was an historical character, and one of the staff on the Wisconsin Historical Society related to Professor Leonard the incident on which he founded the play. He has taken poet’s license with certain parts—with the names, for instance, of the son and daughter; but in Wisconsin Historical Collections, VII, 345, you can read the story as told by a French-Canadian trader. “Glory of the Morning” was a Winnebago chieftess, and Jonathan Carver, when very old, saw her at her village near Menasha, Wisconsin. The French officer whose name was Sabrevoir Decorah (also spelled
DeCarrie, DesCarie, DeKaury, and other ways), came to Wisconsin probably during the Fox wars of the early eighteenth century. He married the daughter (“Glory of the Morning”) of the head chief of the tribe; resigned from the army, and became a trader. They had two sons and a daughter. When the French and Indian War began Decorah was summoned to become a soldier, and he took his daughter with him to be educated in Canada. The father was killed at the battle of Ste. Foye in 1760. The girl married a Montreal merchant and her son or grandson, Laurent Fily, came to Wisconsin as a trader and lived for many years with Augustin Grignon at Kaukauna. Many of his letters are in the Wisconsin Historical Library.
The two sons of the chieftess became chiefs of the tribe, and had many descendants. The Decorah family in the nineteenth century was the most powerful of the Winnebago families. Several of its members still live in Nebraska. Two years ago an educated Indian girl, teacher of art at Carlisle Indian School, visited Madison. Her maiden name was Angel Decorah, and she traced her lineage directly to “Glory of the Morning.” The Winnebago name of the chieftess was Hopokoékaw.
THE ODANAH INDIAN RESERVATION
Will you please give me some information concerning the reservation near Odanah, Wisconsin? I desire to learn the names of the chiefs who ceded the reservation and also the terms of the cession; what each member of the tribe is entitled to receive, and the address of the agent. I am entitled to the same per-capita allotment as other members of the tribe and this fact accounts for my interest in the matter. Please give me, therefore, a history of the reservation.
George Allen,
Bay Shore, Michigan.
The Chippewa of Lake Superior made a final cession of all their lands at a treaty held at La Pointe, September 30, 1844. In return for the cession, the government provided several reservations for the tribesmen. That at Bad River, of which the chief town is Odanah, comprises 124,333 acres of land. This land, at the time the reservation was set aside, was heavily timbered. The Indians were entitled to annuities for twenty years, and each head of a family or single person over twenty-one years of age had the right to eighty acres
of land. The chiefs who signed the treaty were members of the La Pointe band.
In 1875 the annuities were paid for the last time, according to the treaty stipulations. Congress, however, in consideration of the Indians’ need, made appropriations to continue the payments for several years. After 1882 the Indian Department permitted the sale of timber from the reservation; logging operations furnished wages for the working Indians, and the sale of the timber placed a considerable sum to their credit. The Chippewa claimed additional sums on treaty stipulations. Whether these claims have ever been settled or not can be ascertained from the Indian Department at Washington. As for the land, by 1913, 83,871 acres had been allotted in eighty-acre tracts to genuine claimants. Enough of the reservation remains for more eighty-acre tracts to be assigned to those who can prove their rights to claims. Timber is still being taken from the reservation.
For further information write to R. S. Buckland, special agent for the Chippewa Indians, Baraga, Michigan; or to Philip S. Everest, superintendent, Ashland, Wisconsin.
FIRST EXPLORATION OF EASTERN WISCONSIN
I should be pleased to ascertain who was the first white man to pass or voyage past the shores of Sheboygan County, Jolliet and Marquette or Father Claude Allouez? Allouez is said to have been the first to explore the west shore of Lake Michigan, but I have not been able to find out whether he reached Sheboygan County.
Alfonse Gerend,
Cato, Wisconsin.
We dislike very much to say dogmatically who was the first Frenchman to skirt the coast of Lake Michigan south of Sturgeon Bay portage. The more we study the subject the more we are inclined to believe that the records we possess reveal but a fragment of the activities of the French explorers, traders, and missionaries around Green Bay during the seventeenth century. We do not know but that Jean Nicolet may have coasted south in 1634; on the other hand, we do not know that he did. No one has yet been wise enough to lay out the course of the wanderings of Radisson and Groseilliers. For my own part, it seems probable that one of the first, if not
the first, white Frenchman who visited all the villages between Green Bay and Chicago was Nicolas Perrot, who between 1665-70 spent five years in the country, much of the time with the Potawatomi tribesmen. Benjamin Sulte, a very careful Canadian investigator, asserts categorically that Perrot was the first white man at Chicago. (Sulte’s articles in French in the Canada Royal Society Proceedings, 1903-13, throw much light on early seventeenth century conditions. They have never been translated, and are known only to a few scholars.) So far as I am able to judge, however, Sulte’s statement is based purely upon inference and is not backed by a written account. Therefore, it is certainly fair to say that the first definite written record of white men skirting the coast of the western shore of Lake Michigan is found in the journal of Father Jacques Marquette, who in September, 1673 came back to Green Bay via the Chicago and Sturgeon Bay portages.
With regard to Father Claude Allouez, I think we can speak with more certainty. He did not go to the Illinois mission until after the death of Marquette. He set out in the autumn of 1676 and wintered among the Potawatomi near Sturgeon Bay. You will find a synopsis of his voyage in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XVI, 96.
You may be interested in seeing a copy of Early Narratives of the Northwest just published by Scribner & Co. This volume contains most of the journals of these early explorers.
A COMMUNITY CHANGES ITS NAME
Some twenty-five years ago there was a place in Wisconsin called North Greenfield. Evidently the name has been changed for the reason that letters addressed to individuals at that place are returned, with the information that there is no such place in the state.
What is the present name of the locality formerly known as North Greenfield?
Seymour Morris,
Chicago, Illinois.
The post office, situated in Milwaukee County, and known as North Greenfield, changed its name about 1903, when it became West Allis.
HOW THE APOSTLE ISLANDS WERE NAMED
If such record exists, I should like to obtain from it a statement of how the individual islands of the Apostle group received their names, and how the group came to be named Apostle Islands.
H. E. Hale,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The collective name of Apostle Islands for the group off the coast of Chequamegon Bay is nearly two centuries old. The first map on which it appears is that of Bellin in 1744. This was founded on the information given by Father Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, a noted Jesuit missionary, who in 1721 visited the western country as an agent for the French government. Charlevoix did not go into Lake Superior in person, but at Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac he made extensive inquiries of competent observers, and noted down the information given him by traders and officers from that region. Thus he, no doubt, learned that the islands were known to the French who frequented that place as “The Twelve Apostles,” and as such they appear on the map of Bellin that was issued in Charlevoix’s book published in Paris in 1744.
The first English traveler to note these islands was Jonathan Carver, who coasted the shore of Lake Superior in 1767 and on the map published in his volume of Travels (London, 1778) repeats the name “Twelve Apostle Is.”
The first American travelers in that region were those who accompanied Lewis Cass, who in 1820 made an official voyage along the southern shore of Lake Superior. One of the members of this party was James D. Doty, who was afterwards territorial governor of Wisconsin. In Doty’s journal, published in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIII, 201, he says: “The Islands, called by Charlevoix 'the 12 Apostles,’ extend about 20 miles from point Chegoiamegon.” Another member of the same party was Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who later became Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie, and married a half-breed Indian girl descended from the Chequamegon chiefs. Schoolcraft proposed to change the name of the Twelve Apostle Islands to Federation Islands. He assigned to the several islands the names of states of the Union, giving that of Virginia to Madelaine, the largest of the group. Schoolcraft’s proposal was not followed, but the
present names of York and Michigan Islands seem to remain as part of Schoolcraft’s proposal. Apparently the early traders, counting the islands loosely, thought there were twelve in all, and since the mission was named Mission du Saint Esprit (or Holy Ghost Mission) the name of Twelve Apostles Islands seemed appropriate. There are (we believe) in reality nineteen, nevertheless the name, Apostle Islands, has persisted.
With regard to the several names of the separate islands: We have above accounted for York and Michigan. Outer Island explains itself, as do Ironwood, Oak, Basswood, Sand, Rocky, North and South Twin, Bear, Cat (Wild Cat, no doubt), and Otter. Raspberry Island takes its name from Raspberry River. This name was used in its French form Rivière à la Framboise as early as 1804 (probably earlier). See Wisconsin Historical Collections, XIX, 174. Devil Island and Manitou Island are both the same name. That is, the Indians called all supernatural beings “manitous.” Hermit Island and Stockton Island have probably some local significance from dwellers upon their area. We are not informed concerning them. Madelaine Island has been known by many names. Its present name is that of the wife of an early trader, Michel Cadotte. She was an Indian woman whose father was a local chief. Madelaine was the name she received when baptized. The island was frequently known as St. Michel, or St. Michael’s, from the given name of Cadotte, who was the principal trader on the island for many years. Its Indian name was Moningwanekaning, supposed to mean the Place of the Golden-breasted Woodpecker (hence, sometimes, Woodpecker Island). However, Father Chrysostom Verwyst, a Catholic missionary, now our best authority on Chippewa place names, defines it recently in Acta et Dicta (July, 1916), published by the Catholic Historical Society of St. Paul, as “the place where there are many lapwings.” This island has also been called La Ronde, for a French commandant of the eighteenth century; La Pointe Island, from the name of the region La Pointe du Chequamegon; and Saint Esprit Island from the early Mission du St. Esprit mentioned above. It was also sometimes called Middle Island as lying midway between Sault Ste. Marie and Fort William, the fur-trade post on the northwest of Lake Superior. Sometimes it appears on maps as Montreal
Island; the reason for this we do not know; perhaps it was the terminus of the trip from Montreal, Canada, or was so named because some of its inhabitants had been educated at Montreal.
To recapitulate: the largest island of the Apostle Group was first known as Moningwanekaning or Woodpecker or Lapwing; in the eighteenth century as La Ronde, La Pointe, and St. Esprit; was known to the fur traders as Middle and Montreal; was christened by Schoolcraft, Virginia; has been known since about 1800 as Cadotte’s, St. Michael’s, or Madelaine from its early inhabitants, and the baptismal name of the Indian woman has persisted.
THE SERVICES OF THE MENOMINEE IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR
I wish to thank you very much for the information you gave me in your letter of October 30, 1916. I would have answered sooner than this but as you requested me to give you a list of my grandfather’s descendants I wanted first to find some one who knew how many children and grandchildren my grandfather, Osh-ka-he-nah-niew, had. I have not been able to get this information from the old members of the tribe, but as soon as I get it I will write you again and let you know.
The name Osh-ka-he-nah-niew in the Menominee Indian language means “young man.”
I received a letter from Mr. J. L. Baity, auditor of the Treasury Department, Washington, D. C., dated November 25, 1916, in which he says:
“With return of the letter from the Superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, dated October 30, 1916, addressed to Mr. Mitchell Oshkenaniew, you are advised that the information set forth in said letter is too meager for the War Department to establish the service of 'Oshkenaniew’ Menominee Indian Warrior Black Hawk War 1832, and until sufficient information can be furnished setting forth the organization in which service was rendered together with the period of service and the names of some commanding officer, no further action will be taken on the claim.”
Mitchell Oshkenaniew,
Neopit, Wisconsin.
Col. George Boyd was Indian agent at Green Bay in the summer of 1832; he replaced Col. Samuel C. Stambaugh early in June. Stambaugh, although superseded, did not immediately leave Green
Bay and was very popular with the Menominee tribe. During the course of the war, when all trace of the whereabouts of the Sauk band had been lost, Gen. Henry Atkinson, encamped on Whitewater River in Wisconsin, sent Col. William S. Hamilton (son of Alexander Hamilton) to Colonel Boyd at Green Bay. Atkinson feared that Black Hawk and the Sauk hostiles would attempt to escape to the British at Malden, and he therefore ordered Boyd to enlist and equip as large a body of Menominee Indians as possible to try to intercept them. Boyd at once called the Menominee together. They were willing to go to war against the Sauk if they might have officers of their own choosing. Col. S. C. Stambaugh was thereupon made commander-in-chief. The second place was offered to Col. W. S. Hamilton, but he declined the honor. The Menominee turned out about three hundred warriors, who were organized into two companies commanded by the following officers: 1st Company; Augustin Grignon, captain, Charles A. Grignon Jr., first lieutenant; 2d. Company; George Johnston, captain, James M. Boyd, first lieutenant, William Powell, second lieutenant and interpreter. Alexander J. Irwin was charged with the commissariat with rank of first lieutenant.
There is every reason to suppose that Osh-ka-he-nah-niew was a member of the first company. Augustin Grignon told Doctor Draper that this Indian was in the war, and in all probability he named members of his own command. Robert Grignon of this company received a wound in action, and was in receipt of a pension until his death.
The documentary material in the Wisconsin Historical Library includes the official papers of Col. George Boyd, Indian agent. Those relating to the Menominee contingent under Stambaugh in the Black Hawk War are published in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XII, 270-98. It will be noticed that August 12, 1832, Boyd wrote that Stambaugh had informed him that he had arrived at Fort Winnebago with his command, three hundred Menominees, and was on his way to report to General Scott. September 2, 1832, Boyd wrote to G. B. Porter, governor of Michigan territory, enclosing Stambaugh’s report of the expedition and the Muster Rolls of the Menominee. These should be in the War Department at Washington.
The well-known fact that Osh-ka-he-nah-niew took part in the Black Hawk War, that he was part of Stambaugh’s band, probably under Capt. Augustin Grignon, seems to us established by the historical evidence. His name on a muster roll must be sought in the documentary material at Washington.