Not only was Réaume Wisconsin's judge and jury during the first two decades of the nineteenth century, but as there was, during much of his time, no priest hereabouts, he drew up marriage contracts, and married and divorced people at will, issued baptismal certificates, and kept a registry of births and deaths. He certified alike to British and American military commissions; drew up contracts between the fur traders and their employees; wrote letters for the habitants; and performed for the settlers all those functions of Church and state for which we now require a long list of officials and professional men. He was a picturesque and important functionary, illustrating in his person the simple fashions and modest desires of the French who first settled this State. We are now a wealthier people, but certainly there have never been happier times in Wisconsin, all things considered, than in the primitive days of old Judge Réaume and his official jackknife.
THE BRITISH CAPTURE PRAIRIE DU CHIEN
Although the Northwest was obtained for the United States by the treaty with Great Britain in 1783, the fur trade posts on the Upper Great Lakes were openly held by the mother country until the new republic could fully meet its financial obligations to her. After thirteen years, a new treaty (1796) officially recognized American supremacy. Nevertheless, for another thirteen years English fur traders were practically in possession of Wisconsin, operating through French Canadian and half-breed agents, clerks, and voyageurs, until John Jacob Astor (1809) organized the American Fur Company, and English fur traders were forbidden to operate here.
The military officers in Canada were firmly convinced that the Americans could not long hold the Northwest. They believed that some day there would be another war, and the country would once more become the property of Great Britain. Therefore they sought to keep on good terms with our Indians and French, giving them presents and employment.
Thus, when our second war with Great Britain did break out, in 1812, nearly all the people living in Wisconsin, and elsewhere in the wild northern parts of the Northwest, were strong friends of the British cause. To them the issue was very clear. British victory meant the perpetuation of old times and old methods, so dear to them and to their ancestors before them. American victory meant the cutting down of the forests, the death knell of the fur trade, and the coming of a swarm of strange people, heretofore almost unknown to Wisconsin. These people had been described to them as an uneasy, selfish, land grabbing folk, who knew not how to enjoy themselves, and were for turning the world upside down with their Yankee notions. Naturally, the easy-going, comfort loving Wisconsin French looked upon their coming with great alarm.
The principal event of the war in Wisconsin was the capture of Prairie du Chien by the British, in 1814. Wisconsin was then a part of Illinois Territory, and west of the Mississippi River lay the enormous Missouri Territory. General William Clark, a younger brother of George Rogers Clark, was governor of Missouri Territory, and had in charge the conduct of military operations along the Upper Mississippi River.
Governor Clark had heard that the British, by this time strongly intrenched on Mackinac Island, intended to send an expedition up the Fox River and down the Wisconsin, to seize upon Prairie du Chien, which had not been fortified since the old French days. Clark recognized that the power that held Prairie du Chien practically held the entire Upper Mississippi River, and controlled the Indians and the fur trade of a vast region. Accordingly, early in June (1814) he ascended the river from his headquarters at St. Louis, with three hundred men in six or eight large boats, including a bullet-proof keel boat, and erected a stockade on the summit of a large Indian mound which lay on the bank of the Mississippi a mile or two above the mouth of the Wisconsin. The name given to this stockade was Fort Shelby. Lieutenant Joseph Perkins was left in charge of the garrison, which was divided between the fort and the keel boat, the latter being anchored out in the Mississippi.