94 (page [page 306]).—The name De Pere comes from rapides des pères, referring to the early Jesuit mission (1671-87), at this the first obstruction in ascending the Fox River. The modern manufacturing city of De Pere lies on both sides of the rapids, about four miles above the city of Green Bay. A memorial tablet of bronze was dedicated by the Wisconsin Historical Society on the site of Father Allouez’s mission at De Pere, in September, 1899.
95 (page [page 307]).—See [Note 30].
96 (page [page 307]).—Grand Butte des Morts, above Lake Winnebago, is meant; the party had gone overland from Green Bay, and struck across country to the south-west of Doty’s Island.
James Knaggs was a Pottawattomie half-breed, who in 1835 became ferryman, tavern-keeper, and fur-trader in a small way at Coon’s Point, Algoma, now in the city limits of Oshkosh. This was the year before the arrival of Webster Stanley, the first white settler of Oshkosh.
97 (page [page 312]).—Bellefontaine was the name of a farm and wayside tavern owned by Pierre Paquette, the Portage half-breed fur-trader. At this farm the specialty was live-stock, as Paquette had the government contract for supplying most of the beef and horses to the Winnebago tribe.
98 (page [page 314]).—Doctor William Beaumont was an army surgeon. While stationed at Mackinac, in 1822, he was called to treat a young man named Alexis St. Martin, who had received a gunshot wound in his left side. The wound healed, but there remained a fistulous opening into the stomach, two and a half inches in diameter, through which Beaumont could watch the process of digestion. His experiments regarding the digestibility of different kinds of food, and the properties of the gastric juice, were continued through several years—indeed, until Beaumont’s death (1853); but the first publication of results was made in 1833, and at once gave Beaumont an international reputation among scientists. Through several years, Beaumont (who resigned from the army in 1839) was stationed at Fort Crawford, where many of his experiments were conducted.
99 (page [page 318]).—Joseph Crélie was the father-in-law of Pierre Paquette. He had been a voyageur and small fur-trader at Prairie du Chien as early as 1791, and in the early coming of the whites (about 1836) obtained much notoriety from claiming to be of phenomenal age. He died at Caledonia, Wis., in 1865, at a time when he asserted himself to be one hundred and thirty years old; but a careful inquiry has resulted in establishing his years at one hundred.
100 (page [page 318]).—General Henry Atkinson, in charge of the regular troops in the pursuit of Black Hawk (1832), had followed the Sac leader to Lake Koshkonong. On the night of July 1 he commenced throwing up breastworks at the junction of the Bark with the Rock River. These were surmounted by a stockade. The rude fort was soon abandoned in the chase of Black Hawk to the west; but the site was chosen in 1836 for the home of the first settler of the modern city of Fort Atkinson, Wis.
101 (page [page 321]).—Now called Baraboo River.